Shifter Modification

[AndrewBird]

You might find this helpful:

http://www.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?t=72458

[Bullhead]

I fiddled with some ideas at work today, nothing solid right now but I have some ideas. I will throw pics up if I get something I like, and btw all the metals in my shop are American, we do not have any Chinese metal.

[Poorboyz]

Def would like to see some of your work.

[LJ851]

I've been doing this to bmw shifters for more than 20 years. Shorter tops, longer bottoms, angled towards driver, one piece steel (no rubber).... The bottom half of a modern bmw shifter is steel. Bmw does not sell the composite bushing in the bottom of the shifter and i have not tried to weld one with a plastic pivot ball because i haven't needed to, you will need to fab bushings as well as welding usually does them in.

[Bullhead]

As some of you know or are getting to know me, I am a big DIY and I fab a lot of my own parts when I can having a machine shop at my disposal. I have seen the cheaper ebay shifters and have been informed on the z3 short shifter install. When you look between the stock unit and the short shift variations you see all that's been done is the length of the bottom lever has been lengthened between the center pivot point (the ball) and the bottom final leverage input. I am going to take my stock shifter and cut the bottom section into and then weld in a 10mm piece of t6 round bar stock and see what happens. Does anyone know the length difference between the stock unit and the good aftermarket units? and I am just referring to the bottom lever section past the ball. I would like to know the measurement from the center of the ball to the center of the sleeve that the shifter arm goes into if anyone has them laying around. And in the future if this works out well I will offer this service to all if it helps the community. Because I have noticed these stock units feel like a hardened aluminum and the cheaper ebay units are chromed steel. I will have to confirm this the stock one's could be chrome moly and the weight is fooling me I haven't looked closely yet. As always your input is welcome.
P.S.I may start making custom clocks for the dash where the obc is and I may make some nice t6 aluminum handles with a tungsten core, so they would be weighted. But only if there is interest, and I will get some prototypes up.