Gear shifters - experiences?

[Dougieboy1]

lots of great info here, thanks. Am going to try the Renn shifter with the short stick i think.....

[Chris_ABZ]

Might want to add a Precision Shift Joint from someone like Stomski:

https://www.stomskiracing.com/products/ ... ft-coupler

[Ian Comerford]

Might want to add a Precision Shift Joint from someone like Stomski:

https://www.stomskiracing.com/products/ ... ft-coupler

Matthew at Type 911 had some of these in case you are interested.

[Dougieboy1]

thanks for the heads up - looks interesting

[911hillclimber]

There is a lot of fore-aft play in the 915/911 transmission, all by Porsche design, and all the mods target reducing this.

In doing so, the gear pattern is shortened but not narrowed.

The slots in the factory bushes in the rod/box coupling adds with the lateral clearance of the selector input when in gear and gives a lot of play in the lever of the gearstick assembly.

Changing the coupling bushes or the whole unit takes a lot of that play out, but the 915 box still has play and you can't remove that.

The Rennshift is precisely made but it's greatest value is the gate is sprung to bias the lever to the 3/4th plane where the factory shifter has no bias.

This modernises the feel, add the removal of the box coupling to a precision joint (above) or replace the slotted bushes to round holed bushes and you have removed a lot of fore-ast play.
Add a short shift design and it feels even shorter but also heavier to operate.

I extended my shifter lever to ease the effort and the quality of the shift was much better albeit a bit longer in throw.

It should be noted that adjusting all the designs is critical and easy to 'just' get it wrong, so a lot of attention has to be paid to getting the gearbox gear position correct and to ensufe the rennshift or any other is not preventing full movement.
This is why the Rennshift has adjustable fore-aft throw screws so you can really set it up accurately.

Bit hard to explain it all, I can illustrate it better than explain it!

[Lightweight_911]

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I'm afraid I take a totally different viewpoint on this - an early (pre-'74) 911 by definition is a 45+ yr old car & a major part of the attraction for me is to experience what is was like 'back in the day' - not to try & get it to meet modern standards ...

That's why, although most of the early 911's I've owned were modified, they only utilised modifications that would have been used 'in period'.

However, I'm a great believer in 'if it's your car you're entitled to do whatever you want to/with it' ...

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[911hillclimber]

Yep, respect that Andy.
I like to tinker with these things, and the 911 used in hill climbs frustrated me in many ways, so several mods to make that experience better for me came along.
Thus on the change feel and box 'speed' I found I was bulking/missing/selecting at time the wrong gear and loosing time on the hill.

Prescott hill is about 57 something seconds, and a duff gear change can take 2 secs to sort out prob as you are in a bend so hands everywhere, Armco never far away.
That mistake could take you from 3rd in class to 7th and out of the points for the Championship, so the gear change became a crucial issue. Hillclimbs can be frantic.

So trying all these mods was good and bad, the worst being the factory short shift kit, the best being the Rennshift.

I'm quite sure the shift quality is also dependent on the gearbox rebuild, quite a different story, I've had 4 done, each seems very different.

The 911 is a sunny day car now, just 1300 miles last year, my lowest yet and I daresay the stock box and shifter would be fine, I don't go fast on the road in any car, too much traffic and I'm not in a rush anymore in life.

[Lightweight_911]

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My comments weren't aimed specifically at you Graham - 'tweeking' the gearchange for competition use is perfectly understandable ...

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[BILLY BEAN]

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I'm afraid I take a totally different viewpoint on this - an early (pre-'74) 911 by definition is a 45+ yr old car & a major part of the attraction for me is to experience what is was like 'back in the day' - not to try & get it to meet modern standards ...

That's why, although most of the early 911's I've owned were modified, they only utilised modifications that would have been used 'in period'.

However, I'm a great believer in 'if it's your car you're entitled to do whatever you want to/with it' ...

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Totally agree Andy.