endus

This is a review of the TracPac Shift Light. No freebies for me, just my experience. I have never been accused of being overly brief, so here is the whole story.

Before I purchased my 2011 Grand Sport last fall my performance cars had included a Subaru STi and a Miata. For whatever reason, I found it a bit easier to gauge the shift points/redlines in those cars by the sound of the engine. In all likelihood I would have gotten used to the lower redline and deeper sound of the LS3, but I had planned to install a stereo and figured I might as well install a shift light while I was at it rather than potentially having to rip the dash apart a second time.

My requirements were:

• Must have at least two stages (such as a solid light getting close to redline, then flashing when I hit redline, or multiple colors)
• Must be a single light I can mount in a clean, stealthy way. I did not want one of the bigger multiple light versions. I saw some members mention mounting them in the vent and I said YES that is what I want to do.

As it turns out, these requirements seemed a bit more difficult to meet than I thought. In the age of bluetooth and multi-color LEDs, it seemed like the functionality of a lot of the shift lights out there was pretty limited. After a lot of searching and watching youtube videos for a lot of different products I was pretty frustrated but I finally came across Fast Lane Innovations Trac-Pac shift light.

The light itself is fairly lightweight. The case and mount seem to be 3d printed, but are of adequate quality. It is not a super-polished physical product for someone that wants a blingy shift light mounted on the a pillar or something like that, but I have no issues at all with the quality for what I was planning to do with it.

There are four wires including power, dimmer, ground, and RPM. Based on some reading on the forum I started looking for the "light tan" wire in the wiring harness under the dash near where the driver's right leg is, but there were several wires which could qualify as "light tan". I already had the entire interior of the car ripped apart for the stereo, but I was resisting taking the gauge cluster off. As it turns out, the gauge cluster was incredibly easy to remove. Here's a picture of my car after I removed the cluster - this is just for fun you do not have to disassemble your car this much to install the light!




I have the factory manuals and locating the RPM signal wire in the gauge cluster wiring harness was easy. If anyone wants I can post a picture of the connector diagram. I spliced in to the RPM signal wire and then spliced power/dim/ground from my stereo harness. As a side note, I wound up re-grounding the shift light directly to the chassis to try to eliminate some stubborn alternator whine in the stereo. I recommend doing it this way. All my connections were done using solder and adhesive lined heatshrink.

There is a TracPac app which connects to the shift light to configure it and access data logging. The app seems stable, well designed, and easy to use. For the racers out there (which I hope to become at some point) the data logging seems like it could be extremely valuable for fine tuning your shifting, especially for drag racers. I did play with the data logging a bit, but my concern was more the configuration of the light itself.



The configuration screen is super easy to use. You do need to change the pulses per rev to "2.0" for our cars. I have configured mine to show me the orange light at 5500 and the red at 6500/redline.

I really, REALLY like the shift light. It is pretty stealth mounted in the vent and only makes its presence known when I am venturing into higher RPMs. I like the orange light at 5500 to let me know that redline is coming up, but also as a shift point for when I am not trying to eek every ounce of performance out of the car.

Here is a video from just after I installed it when all four colors were triggering at low RPMs. Just as a demo so you can see what it looks like.


In short, I absolutely recommend this shift light. Install and configuration are super easy, it is low profile, capable of being very bright so you can see it in the daytime, and it offers features that I was unable to find on other lights. As I mentioned above - if you want a highly finished light for display on your a pillar, maybe this is not the product for you. If you want a fantastic shift light that provides data logging, configurable lighting, and lots of other cool features, this is the one for you!

Corvette_Ed

Just curious....why aren't you using the shift indicator on the HUD?

endus

Not very noticeable when I'm trying to watch the road. This is pretty obvious.

Corvette_Ed

Obviously not or I wouldn't have asked the question.

doomi

I think he meant that the light is more noticeable (obvious) than the HUD, not that he did it for obvious reasons.

And I agree. A shift light really gets your attention.

Narddog

Seems like a waste of money Don't know when to shift by the engine sound and the feel of the car like the rest of the boys?

FAUEE

So when watching the road, something projected into the road isnt visible? I get that the contrast isnt great, but theres mo way something mounted out of your field of view completely is more visible than something at least on the road, unless you're looking in the wrong place.

That said, it's kinda cool. Way better than the shift lights we installed as kids on ricer cars.

449er

I like the idea of the light mechanism being hidden from view

moose.b3

So while you're watching the road, do you see the light in your peripheral vision or do you have to glance at it? Also, does your ac still work in that vent?

919cw313

Hahaha.

And don't call me Surely.

Corvette_Ed

It seemed to me that he was being a smart *** based on the wording of his response.

endus

Peripheral vision for sure. It's fairly bright and you can adjust the brightness.

AC works perfect, it's been toasty here lately and there are no issues at all. It only blocks part of it.

endus

EDIT: Reread my reply and I get it now. I was talking about the new shift light being super obvious, I wasn't referencing what you said.

endus

Yea totally an idea I got from some other member here. I wouldn't bother with it if I had to have it hanging out on the A pillar or something - too much clutter. In the vent it's barely noticeable until it comes on.