Shorter Shifter

[onZedge]

The stock shifter in my car was too long of a throw for my tastes. "It's a sports car, for heavens' sake, it's supposed to have a shorter throw than that", I pondered. So after looking at a few aftermarket options, and searching through several forums, I decided to use the CNC (Careful Notching and Cutting) method to make a shorter shifter. I simply removed about one inch off the end of the lever and duplicated the original notches in the remaining stub. I then removed the same one inch off the top of the shift lever weight and about the same off the bottom skirt of the knob.

I only test drove it up the street and back, but I like it a lot. I think I could still benefit with an adjustable throw shift linkage - but that's a couple of hundred bucks and a real female dog to install with the tranny still in the car, so on the "Things I'd Like To Have" list it goes.

Cost of parts: zero
Labor: about 1 1/2 hours
Level of difficulty: easier than swapping out a DME relay in the dark

Note to self: Buy some new hacksaw blades and a real set of metalworking files.

[Brando]

Pictures?

[BananaClip]

I have a solid rubber knob/ 1 piece boot on my car, and since its aftermarket, the fit wasn't too good. I ended up knocking the top 1/2 inch off of the lever and those little shoulder notch things to get the knob down lower on the lever. it took less than 5 minutes with a bench-mount grinder wheel so i pretty heartily recommend using one for this