I've fancied a quickshifter, which reduces the throw-distance of the gearstick when changing,
for a while now and the stock shifter and ball are quite worn and a bit sloppy anyway so the car benefits all round.
I really wanted a
Kartboy shifter [
www.kartboy.com], from a tiny little american company specialising in go-karts and now making parts for Subarus. Their shifter for classic Imprezas is now discontinued :( and finding one is nigh on impossible, even on import. The next one that caught my eye is
GoFastBits one [
gofastbits.co.uk/WRX5spdShifter], which features adjustable brackets so the throw-distance can be set to preference. I can't find this on eBay though and it's a bit steep @ £138+VAT from good old Demon Tweeks, but the real turn-off is when I Google this part I find people talking about them being prone to snapping...
eBay was awash with cheaper [and cheaper looking] alternatives though and in the end I decided on one in the lower end of the price spectrum from a small firm called 800bhp Tuning for a piffling £23.50 delivered, which doesn't look great and isn't that nicely made, but is a sturdier looking design like the Kartboy and, for that price, not so much of a worry if it snaps, although its a 10mm thick steel bar so I doubt it'll snap too easy anyway. The pic shows the stock-shifter on the left next to the more compact and shinier short-shift.
The fitting process was actually very quick and easy, even though the instructions provided we're pretty vague and the photos weren't of an Impreza dash, but we did have one nasty little snag that caused a lot of frustration, so if you don't the same fuss make sure you have a set of O-ring pliers handy...
PROCESS:
1. Screw off the gearknob. Gently prize up the edges of the centre-panel around the gearstick until it comes out along with the rubber gear-gaiter. It can be easily forced clear of the dash centre-console and handbrake panels without having to remove them.
2. Remove the 6 crosshead screws that secure the metal baseplate down and lift the plate clear. [The shortshift instructions said to remove four 10mm bolts from the baseplate at this point. I am not sure what model Subaru this refers to that the kit fits, but this shifter only covers Impreza models 97-00 and these will have 6 screws, not bolts.]
3. Remove the long nut and bolt from the shift-rod that holds it to the shift-arm bracket using a 12mm wrench. The shift-arm is able to move around quite a bit when it is free from the rod.
4. This is where things get a bit tricky. You'll need to get right under the car so lift the front and make sure its secure. [Use ramps if you have them. We still don't so we used those large concrete blocks again. I'd hate to get that far under with just axle-stands.] Locate the base of the shoft-rod under the car, behind the prop-shaft. There is a metal O-ring that holds the plastic base of the rod down and this is where we had all the trouble. This will probably be a lot easier with a pair of O-ring pliers, but we spent ages filing down a pair of needle-nose pliers to do the same job. Once the O-ring [second photo] is off, the plastic base should pop out with the shift-rod.
5. Remove the upper O-ring from the plastic base [much easier off the car] and pull the shift-rod ball out of the base.
6. Grease the ball of the new shortshifter [we used the Castrol LM grease again], put a little more into the plastic base and snap the shortshifter into the base. Replace the upper O-ring.
7. Push the plastic-base back down into its mount and replace the lower O-ring. This was a nightmare for us again. You'll need a second person here to hold the plastic-base down so it doesn't push out again every time you try to put the O-ring on. [Getting the O-ring back into place was impossible with my makeshift pliers - it just wouldn't hold the ring at the rightangle. In the end we removed the rubber-boot entirely and dad had to push his fingers through the gap from inside the car to guide the O-ring onto its seat successfully, a brilliant solution albeit long come to.]
8. Raise the shift-arm to meet the shortshifter bearing and replace the 12mm nut and bolt to the bracket, tightening it to a snug fit, but allowing the shift-rod to move through the gears easily.
9. Replace the metal base plate and the 6 screws. We had trouble here too, which wasn't mentioned at all in the instructions. The gap in the metal-plate comes down diagonally at the top left and most shortshifters work by lifting the shift-arm up a bit. The higher angle makes the arm come into contact with the diagonal edge of the plate, so we had to cut that away to give the arm space to move freely [in the right photo above].
10. Replace the plastic centre-panel and the gearknob.
I'm leaving my centre-panel and gaiter off for now until I've re-designed it a bit to better display the shifter, involving a bit more of my carbon-fibre. [My carbon wind-diffuser and other bits are coming along well too, all will be revealed soon!] The shortshift has definitely reduced the throw by about half and the car is singing through gears, not bad at all for the money. The gearknob itself has been raised nearly an inch too, which is weird at first, but with that thinner stick it gives a real race-car feel to changing gear!
