MrBluGruv
11-26-2009, 07:29 PM
For a while now I've been wanting to do something about the stock setup for the transmission behavior as well as the appearance and feel of the shifter on the console.
So I did a crawl with the search function about manual swaps, manual gear select, shifter mods and upgrades.
Found a lot of interesting stuff, but nothing quite answering questions I've had.
Firstly, I've been looking to get something more old-school feeling for the shifter, has anyone else modified the shift handle or assembly to any serious degree? I found this looking through Lokar's stuff, wondered how feasable it'd be and if anyone else has thought about or tried it: http://www.lokar.com/product-descriptions/floormount-shifter.htm
I'd be really appreciative of anyone with pretty much any modifications to the shifter aside from just the chrome trim swap if they could post up pics of their setup and some details of the modification (e.g. what one would be looking at underneath that bezel)
Secondly, the manual gear select question. Are there any realistic options to make this possible? I'd be more interested in some kind of gear select on the console than paddle shifters, I just can't see that happening very well. (I've had fantasies of a four-speed layout shifter that had electronic gates that signaled a transmission control unit to go into the specified gear with the absence of signal resulting in a shift to neutral, and some sort of manual control a la clutch pedal to control part of the shifting mechanism, but I imagine this would be nothing more than a wet-dream of someone who doesn't completely understand the workings of this automatic...)
Any thoughts? I already love the feeling of driving this car even with its stock setup for gear select, but damn if it wouldn't put the icing on the cake to have a rodder feeling shifter, especially with some near-manual gear selecting.
So I did a crawl with the search function about manual swaps, manual gear select, shifter mods and upgrades.
Found a lot of interesting stuff, but nothing quite answering questions I've had.
Firstly, I've been looking to get something more old-school feeling for the shifter, has anyone else modified the shift handle or assembly to any serious degree? I found this looking through Lokar's stuff, wondered how feasable it'd be and if anyone else has thought about or tried it: http://www.lokar.com/product-descriptions/floormount-shifter.htm
I'd be really appreciative of anyone with pretty much any modifications to the shifter aside from just the chrome trim swap if they could post up pics of their setup and some details of the modification (e.g. what one would be looking at underneath that bezel)
Secondly, the manual gear select question. Are there any realistic options to make this possible? I'd be more interested in some kind of gear select on the console than paddle shifters, I just can't see that happening very well. (I've had fantasies of a four-speed layout shifter that had electronic gates that signaled a transmission control unit to go into the specified gear with the absence of signal resulting in a shift to neutral, and some sort of manual control a la clutch pedal to control part of the shifting mechanism, but I imagine this would be nothing more than a wet-dream of someone who doesn't completely understand the workings of this automatic...)
Any thoughts? I already love the feeling of driving this car even with its stock setup for gear select, but damn if it wouldn't put the icing on the cake to have a rodder feeling shifter, especially with some near-manual gear selecting.