JWest Engineering has been busy

[JWest]

Originally Posted by dwelle

good stuff!

i have 2 rennshifters, and i have two of joshy robots' 917 style knobs i haven't gotten around to solving the crush sleeve/M8 issue to be able to install them. any chance you have the bits available to help me solve this issue?

love the shifters, btw...

I can solve it, but I'm not sure what you need and it's not so easy remotely. Older RennShift used 3/8-24 thread. What attachment do your knobs use? He sold them with different fitments. You can send me pics on my site if you like.

[dwelle]

will do. i just have the knobs, no crush sleeve at all, i'll have to check to see what size they are drilled to. i just need an insert that fits in the knob and threads on to your shifter.

i had to have 'em. they are made from broken skateboards, and both were made from decks that were pro models for good friends of mine. really need to get them installed.

thanks!...

[msmall215]

Originally Posted by dwelle

will do. i just have the knobs, no crush sleeve at all, i'll have to check to see what size they are drilled to. i just need an insert that fits in the knob and threads on to your shifter.

i had to have 'em. they are made from broken skateboards, and both were made from decks that were pro models for good friends of mine. really need to get them installed.

thanks!...

Once you verify which thread size size your shifter is, head over to your local Lowes or Home Depot and pick up the appropriate bolt, either M8 or 3/8-24, maybe 1.5 inches in length. Just did this with a 917-style shifter I made and used JB weld to epoxy the bolt in there. Should screw right on. If your local hardware place doesn't have it, Bel Metric should.

[JWest]

Rounding out the 901/915 upgrades, we have added the final pieces of the shift linkage precisely milled from aluminum billet. Now you can go all-new except for the shift rod itself.

Both the shift rod bracket and shift rod cup utilize the factory bushings to provide bind-free motion and easy replacement for these wear items. However, we have tightened up the fit of both these items, so there is a slight improvement in function. The way the rod bracket is made (large chamfers on both sides of the bushing hole) actually makes it easier to install a new bushing than with the stock stamped bracket. Over the years we have "fixed" tight, binding shifters by removing home-grown sleeve rod bushings, so we prefer to use the hourglass stock bushing for worry-free shift action.

[jac1976]

Originally Posted by dwelle

will do. i just have the knobs, no crush sleeve at all, i'll have to check to see what size they are drilled to. i just need an insert that fits in the knob and threads on to your shifter.

i had to have 'em. they are made from broken skateboards, and both were made from decks that were pro models for good friends of mine. really need to get them installed.

thanks!...

Once you figure out the thread for both the shifter (JWest provided that) and that of the knob, there are male-male adaptors available from BelMetric and McMaster-Carr.

[dwelle]

no threads in the knob, but i have info now to get it sorted. thanks!...

[JWest]

Originally Posted by dwelle

no threads in the knob, but i have info now to get it sorted. thanks!...

Sounds like you are moving forward and just need the Porsche crush sleeve 999-532-003-00 (for everyone's reference).

[Cory M]

+1 I have a wooden 917 knob on my Rennshifter and I just used the factory crush sleeve.

Nice new products. Love to see the continual development of these old cars.

[JWest]

The next item is an update rather than a new part. We've had an '87-'89 G50 shifter bushing kit for a very long time - when we put these together you had to really dig into the parts books to piece the parts together. Although gathering the parts is much easier now, we also include instructions since some of the steps are not super obvious and can be tricky.

Last year, we updated the instructions with better images, an extra of the smaller o-ring since it is easy to pinch, and a packet of grease.

There was one issue which could catch people out - the adjustment at the end. There should be 5mm between the shift rod bushing and the shift rod head - if there is less than that the bushing can be smashed and destroyed quickly when shifting into 2nd or 4th gears, especially with the super soft "anti-rattle" shift coupler. You don't want to have to pull the shifter apart again soon after doing this job.

Measuring this distance is not hard, and can be done with a 5mm allen key, but the front of the bushing is small and tapers so it is easy to measure next to the bushing rather than on it and end up with almost no clearance. Being down in the mechanism makes it a little challenging.

To make the measurement more definite, we came up with a tool that is now included with the bushing kit. It is a plastic horse shoe with a handle that hugs the shift rod. It makes it clear that you are measuring the gap to the bushing and not off to one side.

[boomvang1]

Regarding the wooden knob, I had a similar problem with fitting the wooden knob to the Jwest shifter. I even purchased a new crush sleeve from our host, it still was a little loose. A wrap or two of electrical tape fixed the problem for now, still not a perfect solution, but life is short.....

[JWest]

A factory knob with a new crush sleeve is extremely hard to fit to an original shifter and just very hard to fit to a RennShift. The wood knob was probably sized to make it fit nicely on a factory shifter (wise) but that leaves it a little loose on a RennShift. Did I mention I don't like crush sleeve attachment?

[Showdown]

Skip the electrical tape and cut a little shim out of a beer can and wrap the crush sleeve in that. It’ll work perfectly and you will have to take one for the team and convert an inch cold beer into an empty can…


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[mepstein]

I turned the knob upside down, put a good dollop of epoxy in the hole and dropped in a stainless bolt with the same dimensions as the internally threaded shift lever. Then screwed the knob on with a stainless steel washer to keep the aluminum lever from digging into the wood knob. A little blue locktite on the threads keeps it from vibrating off but it’s still removable.
I don’t care for crush sleeves, especially with wood knobs.

[JWest]

The next item isn't all that shocking - more of an evolution. Sorry, I can't avoid the puns.

The new High Power Relay Kit is overkill for the typical 65 watt halogens, but if your wiring has been compromised, or you really want 150 watt bulbs, or you've got brand new LEDs and don't want to miss one electron getting to them (LEDs are low amp but they are voltage sensitive), then we have the upgrade for you.

With our standard relay kit, the factory wiring to the lights is the limiting factor to the power of the bulbs you can use. Check out the headlight bucket picture below to see what people do to the factory wiring when making repairs or painting, yuk.

Enter the HP Relay kit. We start with an 8 gauge marine cable (super flexible), that feeds a high current fuse panel. There are four fuses, one for each bulb element, which each feed a separate relay. The factory wiring is only in place to switch the relays. From the relays, new 12 gauge wire goes all the way to the headlights, where Hella high-temp connectors plug into the bulbs. The same wire is used for the ground return all the way back to the battery grounding post. All of the wiring feeding the lights is brand new (and huge) from the positive battery post to the grounding post.

We use high quality, American made, reduced diameter wire jacket for the headlight wires. This allows us to pass the new harness through the original grommets so the car does not have to be modified. The old harness can be left in place to return to stock if ever desired.

The harnesses are custom fit for the '74-'89 911, with factory style harness sleeve and shrink tubing to hold everything in place. Very detailed instructions are included and we even have an install video on YouTube.

This is a really nice kit that will give you peace of mind when you light up a dark road, no matter what headlights you choose. Overkill, yeah. 3.6 in an early featherweight car, overkill. And you know you want one...






Leave this old junk in place, tie it off, and never worry about it again.

[JWest]

The next item is back by popular demand. The RennShift G50 was originally offered in 2006 and was sold for about 10 years, but we removed it from the market.

As mentioned in the first post, we have improved our availability/inventory of products and a large part of that was achieved by reducing difficult and time consuming manufacturing operations.

While the original RennShift G50 end product was great, there were a number of parts of the design that took too much of our time to complete. So the shifter was no longer available starting around 2016.

Since that time, we have received constant requests for the shifter from experiences with them in the wild. People have picked up additional 911s, drove their brother's/friend's cars, heard the recommendations, and just had to have our shifter.

Earlier this year I was able to allocate multiple engineers to focus on the G50 shifter redesign. Not only did we make the shifter better for us to produce so we can keep up with demand, we also added new features and improvements.

Enough of the background, welcome to the NEW G50 RennShift for '87-'89 911 (and '89 930).

• 20% throw reduction
• Top of the stick duplicates the factory shifter with M8 threads and a machined flat to accept the factory knob
• Aftermarket knobs (such as the popular 917 wood knob) thread right into the 8mm-1.25 threaded hole
• Stainless-steel upper stick is available in black, machined stainless, soft-satin, or polished
• Stick has adjustable mounting to fine-tune the knob height
• Eliminates the failure-prone cup bushing that leaves you shiftless at the most inopportune times
• Includes shift rod bushing and O-rings to rebuild the rest of the assembly

[KerryM]

Did the base price of the RennShift shifter increase from $598 to $679 today on your website? I see our host still has the old price listed.

[winglesss]

Originally Posted by JWest

The first item is the "Race" lockout for the RennShift. It can be retrofitted to RennShift models back to 2004 or ordered as an option on new shifter purchases.

The Race lockout uses a "Flipper" to block access to either the full gate or just reverse.

It is offset and reversible, so you can either block 5th and Reverse on 915 or 1st and Reverse on 901, or just block reverse on either one.

The red handle and contrasting black on aluminum makes the lockout position very obvious at a glance. Just flip it up and over for full access and flip it inward for safe gear selection.

Any images showing the appearance of this part on a stock interior w/ a 915 transmission?

[almostordinary]

Originally Posted by JWest

Ummmmm gorgeous.

Adding to my build list. You'll be hearing from me in a few weeks!

[JWest]

Originally Posted by winglesss

Any images showing the appearance of this part on a stock interior w/ a 915 transmission?

Here's a little collage of some of the installed options.

[KerryM]

Just received the shift coupler clamp, shift rod support bracket, and shift rod cup. I have not installed these yet but they look fantastic. Thanks!