Will Someone Explain How a Short Shifter Works?
 

I know that it shortes the throws between gears, but I was wondering how exacly is it done. I heard some stuff about if you lengthen the distance between the ball at the bottom of the shifter and the point that the arm comes into the shifter, then you will have the shortest throw possible, but I'm not sure exactly. Thanks.

~Joe

You are changing the fulcrum point on a lever basically. Think of it this way. You have a long pipe say 10 feet. You put the pipe over a boulder at the 5 foot mark you stand at one end sort of like a see-saw and move the pipe up and down. The other end moves a certain distance. Now slide the pipe up so the side of the rock you are on is only 3 feet and the other side has seven. Move your end up and down again and notice how much further the long end moves relative to the distance you move your 3 foot side. Same thing with a short shifter sort of. The longer the point where the bolt goes through the shifter further it will move the tranny rod compared to the side your hand is on. Hope this makes sense. I know a lot of people think that short shifter means how high the knob sits but it's not (the lower the knob sits there is a slight reduction in the throw arc, but most of the throw reduction comes form the tail part) or the A - B distance shown in this pic I took:

[img]http://www.scoobymods.com/mods/impreza/images/kbstioemshifter2.jpg[/img]

What does happen when you make the a-b distance longer is the effort to shift goes up slightly and slightly more if the part above the pivot is made shorter. Not usually enough to notice especially after a week or so of driving anyway.

Peaty

but reducing the distance from A to the top of the shift lever would also reduce the distance of travel. Check out the Cobb tunning adjustable shifter. It adjust the AB distance and A to top. :)

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[img]http://cobbtuning.com/impreza/images/shifter.jpg[/img]