MX-3.com

relisys_3200 wrote:

mazda78 wrote:actually cutting the shifter itself shorter does make the shift shorter (by a small degree only) and if cut to the correct hieght makes it easy to get ahold of... mine i cut down and now i rest my arm on the center council and my hand falls directly on the shifter ... looks great and shifts nice... i'll still probably eventually do a real short shifter but i am working on my bp swap first

I may be missing something here but how does cutting it shorter make it a shorter shift at all?? I can see the convience factor, but without touching the linkage.....how is it a shorter shift?

In theory its not. However if you wanted to get technical, when the length of the shifter is decreased, the distance the end of the shifter has to move is decreased as well. Thats what he meant.

D323 wrote:

relisys_3200 wrote:

mazda78 wrote:actually cutting the shifter itself shorter does make the shift shorter (by a small degree only) and if cut to the correct hieght makes it easy to get ahold of... mine i cut down and now i rest my arm on the center council and my hand falls directly on the shifter ... looks great and shifts nice... i'll still probably eventually do a real short shifter but i am working on my bp swap first

I may be missing something here but how does cutting it shorter make it a shorter shift at all?? I can see the convience factor, but without touching the linkage.....how is it a shorter shift?

In theory its not. However if you wanted to get technical, when the length of the shifter is decreased, the distance the end of the shifter has to move is decreased as well. Thats what he meant.

ohhhh...ok I get it now..lol...thanks
but that would never be enough to feel any significant difference

i posted a pic at the bottom of this page:
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/621434/7

the picture shows the shifter at the forward and backward position and then has a blue line showing the distance of the throw stock and a green line showing the distance after being cut down.. its really a simple idea... check it out and see for yourself

well i cut mine when i got my car just because the stock one was huge and it made it just look dumb i dont think it made a diff but it is just more comfortable for me and it looks better

So........ If I were to just cut an inch or two off my stock shifter, it will still shift the same? Just the overall height of the shaft sticking out of the floor will be lower? Because that's all I want. I don't really want it to feel any different, I just want it to sit lower visually.

I cut an inch and a half out of my shifter, and i like it alot, it looks better because it doesn't sit so high and dumb, plus it is shorter throw. Just grab the lower part of the shifter and you will see it feels shorter. I like mine and can tell a differance. And it was free! So, if you can weld good, i'd reccommend doing it, but if you aren't sure of your welding... then don't because it might break on you when you are shifting and thats not cool!

I dunno about all this welding stuff. I meant just take a hack saw and trim it down on the part that is sticking out that the shift knob sits on.

what do you need to weld? i used a dremel chopped the top off around 2"s maybe more and then placed a universal top on and it works great... and since there are no threads you can take a drill bit smaller than the scre hole and mark where the screws will go threw and then pull the knob back off drill three small holes, put the knob back on and add some lock tight and put the screws in and it will hold perfectly

Ah, okay, good idea.

Having used a few different types of "short shifters" I definately recommend forking out the dough to get the after market unit. Make sure that the pivot point from the bottom is longer than the stock unit. On the top side the distance can remain the same and the shift will become shorter. The key is to get the relative distance between the 2 pivot points further apart, creating a longer pivot arm to act on the tranny linkages.


save up and get a real one......don't cut the stock one