STI short throw shifter....worth it?

[rao]

I hope this dosen't come off the wrong way, but take apart a transmission, see how it works and then see what you think. If you are talking about destroying the syncros and powershifting, then you might obtain a fractionally quicker shift with the short shifter, but I bet any typical person could move the stock shifter almost (and I mean within milliseconds) as fast without any trouble at all. The fact is that the syncros can only spin the gears so fast and not any faster. It is hillarious that most people hare are amazingly concerned about proper break in procedures, want to use all kinds of fancy oils that will have no meaningful effect for a few hundred thousand miles, serioudly discuss turbo timers which are uselss on the GT, shudder at the thought of dropping the clutch at 5000 rpm's, critize one another for spirited driving and then think a short shifter will make the car faster. :lol: To each his own. If you like the feel of the short shifter or you want to tell people that you have one installed, then by all means get one, but it will n ot make the car shift any more quickly.

[Driver72]

[quote name='rao']I hope this dosen't come off the wrong way, but take apart a transmission, see how it works and then see what you think. If you are talking about destroying the syncros and powershifting, then you might obtain a fractionally quicker shift with the short shifter, but I bet any typical person could move the stock shifter almost (and I mean within milliseconds) as fast without any trouble at all. The fact is that the syncros can only spin the gears so fast and not any faster. It is hillarious that most people hare are amazingly concerned about proper break in procedures, want to use all kinds of fancy oils that will have no meaningful effect for a few hundred thousand miles, serioudly discuss turbo timers which are uselss on the GT, shudder at the thought of dropping the clutch at 5000 rpm's, critize one another for spirited driving and then think a short shifter will make the car faster. :lol: To each his own. If you like the feel of the short shifter or you want to tell people that you have one installed, then by all means get one, but it will n ot make the car shift any more quickly.[/quote] I think your confusing a few things here too. I'll admit, I've never torn apart a tranny, but a few things you said above don't relate to the point I'm making. First, no I'm not talking about destroying the syncros and powershifting. I'm talking about...push in clutch, shift the shift lever from 1st to 2nd, release clutch...accelerate on. You state, the syncros can only spin the gears so fast and no faster. True, but your missing the point of the time saving IN the process of moving the shifter from one gear to the next. Again, once you push in the clutch, the syncros disengage ready for you to engage the next gear...correct? The length of the shifter stalk has NO bearing on the syncros, gears, engagement or disengagement of the transmission...correct? But where you save fractions of a second is the distance the shift lever has to travel BEFORE you CAN release the clutch pedal to engage the transmission again. The SHORTER your hand has to go in the movement of the shift lever, the FASTER you are going to be able to release the clutch and engage the transmission. That has absolutely NOTHING to do with the syncros. A shift stalk that is 1 inch long your hand will only have to travel a couple inches in between 1st and 2nd gear, and thus allowing you to release the clutch sooner. A shift lever that was the length of a 18 wheelers, say 2 feet, would require your hand to travel about 2 feet in the process of shifting the gear lever from 1st to 2nd gear. You can move your hand 2 inches a lot faster than you can move your hand 2 feet! I don't know, but there's a REASON why race cars shifters are so short and only need to move a very small distance. There's also a reason why so many people in the past have "shaved" inches off of there gear shift stalks. You said, "if you like the feel of the short throw shifter...get one...but it won't make the car shift more quickly." You know we are talking about a manual right? The car will go from one gear to the next as fast as you can push in the clutch, move the shifter from one position to the next, then release the clutch. The faster you can do that, the faster you are going to make the car accelerate because you will be "out of gear" for less time. By your logic you are saying, when racing there is no point in trying to shift gears as fast as you can, because the car will determine how quickly it wants to engage each gear. I don't know how to explain this any clearer, but reducing the distance your hand has to travel, reduces the time it takes to change gears. Reducing the time it takes to change gears, increases the time your car is in gear, which therefore allows you to keep the engine and transmissions working together to move the car forward with less "out of gear" time.

[Dr. Zevil]

I think that what they are saying is that the tranny is the limiting factor.. I don't completely agree, but I don't have much experience in these things so I digress. I can't see how getting the car in gear faster and the power to the ground quicker isn't limited by the amount of time to change gears. ...again, I don't know enough about these things.

[rao]

Oh, this is for a manual transmisison :lol: The transmission is the limiting factor. You can move the standard shifter faster than the transmission can select the next (or any) gear. Shortening the amount of time the lever moves is not possible. If you don't believe me, go out and shift by moving the shifter as fast as you possibly can with all of the force you can apply and see what heppens. The short shifter will change the feel of the shifts, but it will not change what happens inside of the transmission or how little time it may take. [Most people mistakenly think that the gears are engaged by shifting, and that only one gear, say second is engaged at a time. Actually all of the forward and reverse gears are engaged all of the time on the input and output shafts, but they are freewheeling and not drigint eh output shaft. When you shift what you are actually doing is forcing the selector teeth to engage the sides of the gear which locks it to the output shaft. The syncros job is to match (or "syncronize", get it) the selector and the selector ring so that the speeds match and the selector teeth do not grinid. A "Godbox" transmission does not have syncors so the gears can be wider but you have to rev-match each shift, up and down, or the selector teeth will grind and, eventually wear out. Plus the shifts will not be smooth. Thy syncros work by sliping the slector and the gear so that their speeds match. That is why they are typically brass and that is why you don't want a too slippery synthetic gerra oil in the trnasmission- they need friction to work, hens the "friction modifiers" for synthetic gear oil to be used with syncronizaed trannys and clutch-type LSDs.] There are some good drawings here: [url]http://auto.howstuffworks.com/transmission3.htm[/url] What I am calling a selector they are calling a collar. Actually this page is better and shows the shift action [url]http://auto.howstuffworks.com/transmission5.htm[/url] This page shows syncros [url]http://auto.howstuffworks.com/transmission6.htm[/url] (I guess I should have just linked this article instead of writing all of this and then looking for drawings :) ) HTH

[Driver72]

[quote name='rao'] The transmission is the limiting factor. You can move the standard shifter faster than the transmission can select the next (or any) gear. Shortening the amount of time the lever moves is not possible. If you don't believe me, go out and shift by moving the shifter as fast as you possibly can with all of the force you can apply and see what heppens. The short shifter will change the feel of the shifts, but it will not change what happens inside of the transmission or how little time it may take. [/quote] Okay, but I STILL think you are mistaken and not understanding the geometry here. You say, "go out and shift by moving the shifter as fast as you possibly can with all of the force you can apply and see what happens." I've been driving for 17 years and most of the cars have been manuals. I drove cars for car commercials for 4 years. And I'll tell you what happens when you move the shifter as fast as you can....you can release the clutch faster and therefore engage the gear quicker. I never said do it with as much force as you can. The idea is to be lightening quick, not jam the shifter from one gear to the next as hard as you can without pushing in the clutch. You said, "the shorter shifter will change the feel of the shifts, but it will not change what happens inside the transmission or how little time it may take." You are not getting the point. Of course the length of the shifter will not change what happens inside the transmission. The transmission is the SAME, but it WILL change the amount of time it takes you to move the gear shifter from one gear to the next. Honestly here, I don't want to sound harsh, but I can't see how you can't understand this. What you are saying is that it makes absolutely NO difference the length of the shift stalk (the thing you grab that allows you to shift gears in a manual) in the time it takes to shift gears. And I'm telling you the laws of geometry and physics says you are WRONG. If you really think that you can move a lever that's 2 feet long as quickly as I can move a lever thats 2 inches long...you are sadly mistaken. And if you think that someone in one Legacy GT who shifts his car at a leisurely pace is going to accelerate as fast as another guy in a Legacy GT who shifts as fast as he can...you are also sadly mistaken. The guy who can push in the clutch, move the gear shift lever from 1st to 2nd then release the clutch and get the car moving forward again the fastest is going to make the car accelerate the fastest. You don't have to believe me here, but you need to talk to another racer or professional driver. You'd get creamed on a race track if you think a slow shift is going to get you from one point to the other as fast as someone who shifts faster. The less distance you need to move your hand, the quicker you are going to do it. It's that simple.

[rao]

You are right, I give up. It is too bad we don't live closer so that we could race at the track and I could be dusted by a short-shifter equipped car...... Maybe I can look around and find a racer to explain all of this to me :lol: Maybe a professional driver that understands how cars actually work, that would be good too.

[Driver72]

[quote name='rao']You are right, I give up. It is too bad we don't live closer so that we could race at the track and I could be dusted by a short-shifter equipped car...... Maybe I can look around and find a racer to explain all of this to me :lol: Maybe a professional driver that understands how cars actually work, that would be good too.[/quote] You still don't get it, it's not the short throw shifter that is going to make the car faster, it's the ability to move the shifter a shorter distance, which allows you to be faster. I don't know, call me crazy but there's a reason cars like the S2000 have such short throws, by your logic, they might as well be the same distance as a full size truck. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I'm sure you yourself would make better time at a drag strip or around a track in an Legacy GT equipped with the short throw shifter than you would in the exact same car but NOT equipped with the short throw. But I've only driven thousands of cars for a mere 17 years...I'm no technician, but know the shorter the throw the quicker you can make the gear change.