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My bolts for mounting that plate were M8, weird that yours are M6? I used 10 M8 washers. I don't have an exact dimension, but I just measured 5 that I have left over and those are 9.6mm, so 10 would be 19.2mm:
Here is the best pic that I have of where the shifter plate ends up when installed:
You can see that if you removed the inspection plate, the bottom surface of the shifter plate would be just about in line with the top of the trans
Sorry typo on my part. THey are M8. My washers must just be a hair thinner than yours then, so that makes sense. Thanks for the feedback!
One thing, I did practice shifting, and holy moly is the left-right movement very small. I'm a bit concerned about a miss-shift. I wonder since these are "short shifters" we are buying, if that is playing a big roll in that.
Yes, the throw between shifts is crazy tight. But trust me, you will get used to it. You will miss some shifts at first. I did. But sooner than later, you will get the hang of range of motion and even how much pressure to overcome the double spring setup that we have. I am even considering just leaving the springs in the shifter, or at least have put figuring out a way to remove them on the back burner for now. The only thing that really concerns me at this point regarding that is if the extra spring tension from the shifter can ruin anything in the transmission because of the extra side load when in gear.
I would hate the shifter if it were a race car where you are constantly power shiftting. But for a street car with the occasional C6 smoking on the highway, it's fine
lol nice. Yeah I think I'm going to leave my springs in for now. I do wish though I could find this same shifter setup, but NOT a short shifter. I looked at the stock 240 shifters, those don't even look like they'd work in this housing so that's a bummer. I'm still going to move forward with this, but I feel like I'm going to be keeping my eyes peeled for another similar solution to this, but without being a "short shifter". I feel like if this were a normal shifter, it wouldn't be so close together.
Side Note, Fenning mentioned on FB that he is in the middle of a new shifter design that's he says is much better than his current one. Very interested to see how that turns out!
this is looking very nice, i fully intend to copy you guys to get rid of my frankenstein one of these days, though it still looks like for a manual shift boot the shifter is a touch far back compared to what i ended up doing.
I measured mine and cause I bolted on the front plate there is a bit of an angle to mine.
on the front side of the bolt I measured 18.5mm, on the back side I measured about 17.5mm, so basically around 18-19mm it seems would be fine.
Thanks for the feedback. I have the 3rd version of design done, hopefully have it manufactured and in hand this week.
One thing to note. So with this piece, it's looking like the shifter will be right around 31.75" from the edge of bell housing. That's compared to 30" stock W58, and 35" with my original shortened arrangement. Keep in mind the new bellhousing adapter means the bellhousing bolts right to the motor. So there is actually another 5/8" saved there as well over the original adapter plate. So it's getting better and better.
hmmm. so my rigged contraption ended up about 29.5 from the edge of bellhousing. (the pic with the tape is not the final rigup, just the first step. i feel over 31 will make the stock shift boot not usable. but prove me wrong!
so if the auto bell setup saves 5/8 more then it would basically be a hair over 31". the stock one is 30" if I remember right so with the short throw you might not even have to change the shifter plate.
I did pick up a gated auto plate to use so if you want it perfectly centered that is probably still the way to go, but at 31" I wouldn't be surprised if it worked fine with the stock one, just sitting a little more towards the rear.
My audi is like that the shifter is not in the center it actually hangs an inch behind the center of the shifter trim, you don't generally notice till someone points it out.
Maybe I didn't explain it well. Here's a sketch I made.
I don't have a picture, but I have in my notes that I measured my old w58 at 30".
My "old" Collins setup, which was the engine adapter and the original shortened shifter measured about 35". That was 34.5" from the edge of the trans to shifter center. But add in the 5/8" adapter plate and your at 35" from the end of the motor to shifter center.
The "new" Collins kit for the bellhousing adapter won't have that added 5/8". So the 31.75" from the edge of the trans to shifter center is also the full measurement from the end of the motor to shift center because you don't have to add on that extra 5/8". Now Collins did say in general the new setup will actually move things forward a hair, but very negligible. So that also helps a tiny bit, but not much from what it sounds like.
So to get to stock 30", there's still almost 2" we'd have to remove. Not sure yet how you'd do that, other than a slight swan neck. Probably still require trimming the tunnel, but atleast could retain the stock trim. What would be sweet is if we found a swan neck shifter setup that more or less bolted right into this housing.
oh I see what you are saying, still anything under 32" works for me, I have no problem changing the shifter plate to the gated one and 32" is right in the middle then. I prefer a straight shifter and can probably use the arm rest better while shifting =)
like i wonder if something like this could be modded just like we're doing. I wonder if the bare ball on the bottom end of the shifter is the same size as the 240 and would fit in the same plastic cup.
Being that those mustang shifters are like $40 shipped, I'm highly considering just grabbing one. That should get us our extra couple inches.
It looks like the ***** on the bottom of the shifter are a hair larger. But they sell the plastic cup for under $10 it looks like. Since I'm still waiting on other parts, I might just grab one and give it a go.
