Custom Short Shifter (Side-to-Side)

[iShift_6]

One thing that had bothered my about my RSX-S, and now my Si, has been the lateral movement of the shifter. I had a DC Sports short shifter on my 1996 Civic and could use my wrist only to shift gears. Now that is not exactly a fair comparison as the linkage between the shifter and transmission are totally different on 96 civic compared to the RSX-S and Si.

With that said, I had K-Tuned billet shifter arm on the RSX and it was great having the adjustment on the lateral motion. After much searching there is just no product out there that does the same thing for the Si. Even the replacement arms for the shifter box from TWM Performance, Billet Pro Shop and others, come close to replicating the motion being reduced, it's just not the same.

So of coarse I did the only logical thing, I went and designed my own.

A week or so in Pro-E I ended up with this. 3D PDF included for fun....



A week or so later after serveral 3D printed prototypes, and some time on the waterjet, lathe, and mill at work.













I have to get some photos of it installed on the shift box, and of it in the car. The ones I have now are not the best photos, let alone ones I would want to share. The shifting experience with it is VERY different. There is no side to side slop when the car is in any gear. The shifters are crisp and smooth. I am working on getting a stiffer spring for the return motion, even though it's not really needed, just something I want to add to the setup.

I will try to get some more photos of it installed, and some ones of how it has shortened the motion.

 

[Nix]

Wow, very cool man. Thats some intense work. MTEC make a bunch of different shifter parts and springs. They may have a stiffer spring already made that would work for you.

http://www.mtecind.com

 

[Dar-Dar]

Ewwww...why Pro-E? Solidworks is easier to use for CAD models.

Very nice design. We also 3D print parts at work before machining them. Too bad I don't touch CAD since I'm in the Quality department.

 

[iShift_6]

@Dar-Dar - Never touched solidworks, so I wouldn't know if it is easier to use or not. I have access to Pro-E at work so that's what I used. Looking into Cubify-Design for myself at home. And having access to a SLA to test the part with was key in figuring it out. There were 3 revisions. Hence the difference between the screen capture, and actual piece.

 

[00Bredren]

First up, nice work on the 3-D modeling the initiative is impeccable.

When I first started reading your original post I thought you meant the lateral movement while in neutral as I read your last paragraph in that post I noticed you said:

There is no side to side slop when the car is in any gear.

Does that mean a decent bushing upgrade would not achieve the same outcome? Or am I mixing up the issue you corrected with a different issue I see mentioned alot?

Thanks in advanced for the info.

 

[iShift_6]

@00Bredren - Your first thought is correct, the goal was to reduce the lateral movement from neutral to a gear.
However due to some "poor" measurements on my part some of pats ended up being tighter than I thought they would be.
This eliminated all the play while in neutral, unless I apply pressure to enter a gear, the shifter doesn't move.
While engaged in a gear, there is no movement at all. In all fairness, I am comparing it to a Buddy Club shifter
that in comparison to the stock one has a little more play in the overall mechanism.
I have the Hybrid Racing bushings on the setup as well, I'm sure this makes everything even more stable.

Sorry if the original post was unclear.

 

[Wumbo]

so when are you going to sell it? lol

 

[iShift_6]

@Wumbo - Not sure, if ever, need to get all the bugs worked out....

With that said, the "shakedown" drive with the shifter installed has not worked out as well as I had hoped.
Multiple reasons, some mine, some from the shifter arm I coupled it with.

First the bad, the TWM Performance shifter arm that I had coupled my piece with, just wasn't meeting my standards.
The first problem I had with it, from the moment it was installed, was that it was incredibly tight in the housing.
This makes shifting to any gear difficult, and was so tight that the spring no long had enough force to return
the shifter arm to the neutral position. So it needed to go, as cool as all that was for the first week or so.
Also the height and lack of a "jog/kink" made it too far away for me to comfortably drive with.

Now for my problems, the spring boss I made was the wrong size. It was too long, this caused two problems...
The first it was applying un-needed strain on the cable, while not much, it was enough to annoy me.
Additionally it was allowing the spring to pop out of the grove that it needs to ride on the shifter arm
This made it almost un-drivable, as shifting into first was a real problem.

Enter Mk 2.1 redesign.

As I still had my Buddy Club shifter assembly around, and liked its height and throw, I thought I would
see if I could use that arm. While it was very sloppy in the Buddy Club housing, transplanted onto my stock
housing, and using the stock housings retaining ring, it feels perfect. So problem one solved, now on to my part.
I adjusted the spring boss size, a whole .070in is all it took. But while I had it apart I thought I might be able
to improve on the over assembly design. With that said, I reduced the diameter on spring boss and installed
the K-Tuned spring for the DC5. Added benefit there(higher spring rate) returns the shifter to neutral faster,
and holds it in neutral with a little better. This also counters the slightly tighter pivot ball on my setup.
That tighter fit on the pivot ball allows for less slop when engaged in gears.

Got some photos of everything assembled before installing the car this time. Will also do a side-by-side
of the stock side arm and mine to show the difference. Updates this weekend.

 

[13civicsi4]

Any updates on this? Curious to see how it turned out

 

[Hella JDM]

To avoid this, you can just buy the Acuity shifter

https://acuityinstruments.com/colle...rt-shifter-for-the-2012-2015-honda-civic-1880