Theta

Prepare the lower box w/ grease (sparingly), and make sure to move the rod back and forth to work it in. Do not add so much that it becomes more difficult to move the rod!











The alignment tool included works very well - leave the four screws loose until you eyeball the notch. Once it's dead on, crank those screws down.







Add the included gasket:



Install the shifter with the text facing the driver:







Cross-torque the bolts by hand only (per MGW):





Use the included Allen wrench to tighten the locking set screws (4 in total). They will tighten with one full revolution.



Now for some cutting. This is a little different from the C6, but essentially the same. You will make the exact same cut as seen here:





Unlike the C6, though, you will only be able to get one of the shifter's rubber 'boots' through:





UPDATE: Thanks to use 'copjsd', we can see that it is actually possible to push the 'donut' down and get all the rings through as shown here!







Re-install the 10mm nuts:



Align and tighten the shift **** shaft (with nut, locking nut, and washer as shown). Use the stock **** to eyeball/align the screw hole. For me, it was dead center left-to-right.

Theta

Lastly, you'll just do everything in reverse to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

I'm leaving my panels off for now to do some wiring, etc. so you'll just want to backtrack through the instructions. It's easier once you know where everything goes now!

I don't know if it's possible to like a shifter this much. This mod makes me want to go drive the car this instant - instead, I sat there playing with it for 10 minutes...

The shifts feel incredible - there's almost no way to accidentally money shift (hit 1st from 2nd) with the positive return. The shifts are very intuitive - no hunting for anything. My favorite thing about it so far is how solid it feels - I feel like it's a perfect extension of the car now.

Bottom line, I can say with certainty that this has been the best bang for the buck mod I've done yet.

Theta

Oh, and if you're not taking pictures and doing a write-up, this should take you anywhere from 1-2 hours start to finish.

Nyvetteguy007

Incredible work!!!

You have done a service for the Corvette loving community.

slief

Wow! This is so going to come in handy when my shifter arrives next week! Thank you so much for taking the time to put this together. I will add your latest additions to the PDF instructions I was putting together at my office and add them to this thread on Monday when I get back to work.

Thanks again Theta. Your contributions here have been huge between this and your super charger thread. Fort those of us that take these endeavors on ourselves, your contributions will be priceless.

slief

One question which is probably tough to answer since you have yet to drive the car with this shifter in place.. How does it feel compared to the stock one? It's almost a shame that you couldn't drive the car back to back with the old shifter and the new one. I know it's been a while since you drove your car.

Theta

It took me a good 3 minutes to find this thread again before I realized someone had made it a sticky.

Theta

I did make it a point to re-familiarize with the stock shifter before beginning this on Thursday evening. The difference is quite night-and-day.

The best analogy I can give (and I think it's a fairly appropriate one) is to think of a deadbolt. A residential deadbolt is fairly sloppy in that it just flops over into the slot, but still can be wiggled, etc. A commercial deadbolt is usually made to strict tolerances, and feels extremely substantial when you turn the key and hear the definite "clunk".

Extending that example, this takes an already decent stock shifter and makes it into a seriously solid beast. It just has a certainty to it - no question at all that you're in a gear, and enough weight to make sure you don't have to struggle to shift. The positive return is exactly what I was looking for to avoid the dreaded 2-1 mis-shift. Only done that once in my life, and it was an expensive learning experience after taking a 1.8L to about 10,000rpm (7000 redline).

$$$frumnuttin'

haha...I see you made it to Tech Contributor now...hmmmmm...how'd that happen?

Theta

No clue... Some guy came along and told me to get in his car and then...

Wait, that was The Blindside...

Theta

Also, just so nobody mistakes this for a paid advert, etc...

Nyvetteguy007

Truthfully, when I have a great experience with a product or service I want to tell the world so others can benefit from my experience etc....the opposite is true as well....

$$$frumnuttin'

Interesting, there is a ton of engineering into that product...I am impressed they got it to market so quickly.....says a lot for their business! Can't wait to see what they come up with next...we need a lot more mods for the C7...pickings are still quite thin.

Theta

The lower box is either extremely similar or identical to the C6 which helps. The top section, though, had to be completely redesigned instead of rigging the C6 version.

I'm glad that such a high quality option exists, though to the contrary of the above, I'm rather impressed with how many aftermarket parts are already available compared to the C6 launch.

Theta

I'm in the process of putting together a PDF for MGW with some of the original (untouched) pics, but I appreciate the offer.

I just didn't want you to waste time if we were both doing one.

slief

I've just about completed the document. Send me your email address via PM and I will email you the word document complete with your photos and instructions. It might save you some time as I already have everything formatted and scaled with 2 photos per page. I can upload it here if you would like.

Theta

Excellent! That will save time and I'll just copy over the pics.

Thanks very much for doing that! PMing you now.

slief

My pleasure! Instructions have been sent and the photos from this thread are embedded in them.

Theta

Final document will be added to the top of the thread and credited to you.

We need to get that reduced from 57 pages somehow.

slief

I can reduce the picture sizes and increase the margins. My thinking was that the larger photos make it easier to see. I figure with iPads and laptops, people may just use those devices instead of the print out.

I will play with the photo sizes and see if I can widdle it down by 30-50%.