Yeah, I mean that sounds feasable. If that's what you have in mind you could pull BOTH plugs and leave the pan attached.
A few tips:
There are 2 different sealing rings for the plugs. The aluminum one goes on the TC, the copper one is for the pan. Torque them both to 14nm (sorry I don't have a conversion for that). On that TC, make SURE you are removing and tossing the seal ring. They tend to get either reused or overtorqued and will stick to the TC. Carefully pry it off the TC with a small screwdriver. If it stays on the TC you'll get a leak, guaranteed. If it seems like you are going to round off the hex end of the plug, use a pin-punch and a hammer and tap hard in the middle of the hex to aid in loosening it. Oh, do this BEFORE you end up rounding off the hex
. If either plug is looking chewed up at all, replace them, they are cheap! Always torque them.
When you are ready to remove the pan, take note on if the bolts screw out hard or not. If they do, it is hard to get an accurate retorque, and torque is critical on the oil pan bolts as well. If they turn out hard, or alot of aluminum oxide is on the bolt threads or up in the holes in the transmission case, I recommend a shot of penetrant in each hole followed by running a tap through all 6 holes (do them all if one is bad), followed by another shot of penetrant. When reinstalling the pan, torque the bolts to only 10nm.
One of the bolt holes for mounting the pan is a blind or "dead-end" hole, I think the drivers side rear. The rest of them I believe go all the way through, just be sure to check it out first.
Another PS: If you do just drain the TC, I'd recommend draining it, then just start the engine and start with about 3 quarts of ATF (DexronIII/Mercon only), then check it. If you drain both, or when you do the "real" change, put in 3 quarts, then start the engine, then top it off, it should take around 6.5 quarts i believe with a full change and new filter.......
Gilly
(Gillyzr2 at the ZR2 site, but I don't get over there too much, can't imagine why:p