Had somebody try the short shift on e-bay. they are like 36 dollars, but are they any good or is a piece of S#!?.

 

go to twinturbo.net and search for woody(denver). he sells short throw shifters for like 50 bucks. hes also reliable

 

eh, i would just go to a machine shop and have them cut it down and re-thread it, its basicly all a short shifter is. (captain obvious)

 

Actually thats NOT what a short shifter is. A true short shifter changes the position of the fulcrum to manipulate the way the lever moves.. It relocates the pivot point farther away from the transmission (closer to your hand) so that it requires less hand movement to do the same amount of work on the end that counts.

Just cutting down the stock shifter and rethreading it will only make you work harder to move the business end of the lever.

 

wich is not the case with most ebay cheapie shifters.

 

Opinions may vary, but most of the the ebay shifters are identical to most of the shifters sold by the name-brand on-line Z-parts retailers. Knowing the manufacturing industry like I do, it's very common for "name brand" retailers to buy parts from other (even competitor) manufacturers and repackage the products with their own names.

A recent example is in some research into aftermarket clutch manufacturing that I did. Spurred by a friend that designs aftermarket clutches for a living. Most of your "name brand" aftermarket clutch manufacturers start out by buying an OEM clutck kit and then modifying it in one way or another. Usually just putting a stronger diaphragm spring in the pressure plate and giving it a pretty paint job. And the friction disk, they start with the OEM style one, disassemble it for the center splined piece, and then add their own outer design to it. Some of the aftermarket manufacturers don't even change the pressure plate. They just add in their own 4 or 6 puck friction plate design that increases clutch clamping force by reducing the surface area of the friction plate.

So, in conclusion, whether buying a "name brand" shifter, or an ebay shifter, there's a good chance that you're getting the same identical product. The only thing is, with the "name brand" shifter, you have some recourse for returning it if it ends up being a POS.

 

I say, do you really want to put cheap parts on your Z? Why not spend the extra money and put a high quality unit on?

I've seen EBay short shifters break during hard shifting... Here's prime example... This is my buddy WG's 585whp Honda Civic. Watch the video, and at 00:28 in the video, his shifter breaks in half from third going into fourth, and watch how deep the RPM goes (12,000RPM) because of it. After he relized what happened, he grabbed the remaining stub and slammed it into fourth.

After that happened, he trashed the EBay shifter, and put in a Skunk2 Dual Bend... Hell, he already has over $25,000 into the car, may as well spend an extra hundred dollars on a good shifter.

That's my view on it.

 

How would a honda shifter break, doesn't the shift lever control cables or something on those transmissions?

 

These all look like identical parts to me........ just different packaging names.

AMZ Shifter

Z! Shifter

EBAY Shifter #1

EBAY Shifter #2

 

No, on B/D-Series Powertrains (Most popular) the shift linkage is metal rods that connect to the shift fork from the shifter. On F/H/K-Series Powertrains (Accord, Prelude, newer Hondas, EP3+ Civics, DC5 RSX, etc) are cable shifted. The F/H/K-Series Engines have shifter boxes (Which makes swapping them into Civics MUCH easier, I might add), which is a stationary mount that holds the shifter in place. What's always fun is to do an H2B, using the powerful H-Series engines, with a tight ratio B-Series Transmission... We're working on an H23/VTEC with an S80 Type-R 4.7FD Transmission, it's going to be nasty. Or doing what I did on my drag car... Accord 2.2 Liter F22B2 bottom end (8.8:1CR, closed deck sleeves, the sleeves can handle well into high 20psi before they give), with a BB4 Prelude H22A1 Head (DOHC VTEC). Boosting that on 12psi with a large Turbocharger (I'm running an SC61), makes in excess of 400whp on a conservative tune, mid 400whp with leaner A/F Ratio, and more aggressive timing. And running that on a welded differential Accord Transmission... Sorry, I kind of trailed off there.

So either way, the shifter can still break in half due to poor quality. It has nothing to do with linkage.

CanyonCarver... They all look the same, but that doesn't mean the same materials were used when making them. And Fidanza isn't an EBay brand, Fidanza's actually a very good company. Anyway, I would rather just spend a few extra bucks and buy a good quality unit... That's just me though.

 

I bought a B&M short shifter for my Z off of Ebay. I paid about $55 (it was a while ago). BTW - It's not a cut down shifter. We are not talking about a Ford of a Chevy here! <LOL> I'd like to see someone cut a Z shifter down - there would be nothing left! <LOL> Now that the bushing are broken in, its great! It was a little stiff initially. I would recommend that you buy some stock bushings and install them instead of the ones that come with your short shifter. You may have to do some slight modifications to the short shifter to make the stock bushings work, but it will be worth it. I love it!

 

I agree with CC and KevinH...I bought my shifter off ebay. It was the same package as the examples CC provided. Works great! I just dont understand why they include those two bolts...i only used one and they are too long.

 

Not exactly a Z shifter... but I had a stock shifter in my miata which was very short, but I was going for a very low, almost recessed look. So I cut it down to where the stock threads stopped. Then I shaved the thicker part down until it was the same diameter as the threads had been, and just rethreaded that.

I don't think it would look as good that short in a Z though, as in the tiny *** interior of a 1st gen miata.