Has anyone cut down the stock shifter to help shorten the throw? If so, how much should be taken off? If this can be done I was thinking of using a cut off wheel attched to a 4" grinder.

 

Honestly you can't cut too much off, less than in inch for sure, and then you'd have to drill and tap a new hole for the shift **** screw.

See this picture for reference:

 

shorten the throw? all you doing is cutting the shaft length which only makes your snifter look lower. the throw length is still the same...in fact all you have done is having to push harder on the shifter to get it into gear bc you have now reduced the moment force by cutting the length of the shaft... simple math...ill say leave it alone or get you an aftermarket real short throw shifter like MGW...

 

 

No, reducing the lever radius certainly does shorten the throw. That's why it's proportionally harder to push - the shorter throw has less mechanical advantage. It's _also_ lower, because the fulcrum (the spherical joint) hasn't been relocated to compensate.

 

Thanks for the explanation. I will leave everything stock except I did order a round shifter **** from one of our vendors. Looks like the round shifter **** is a little lower than my stock shifter **** so I should feel a little more resistance shifting as per the explanation.

 

that made no sense to me..

 

If you extended the stock shift lever by, say, two feet, the end of the lever would be as high as your forehead and would require a very long throw to get from first to second, but it would be very easy to push. Shortening the lever has the opposite effect.

 

It seems to me that a short throw shifter is one where the **** is lowered to make it closer to the pivot point. This is one of the main, but not the only difference between the MGW and the oem shifter. Cutting and moving the **** lower, by definition makes the shifter have a shorter throw. I agree that there is not much room to do this with the stock ****, unfortunately.

Changing the **** itself to a different one can make a substantial difference as the oem **** adds alot to the height of the hand on the shifter, which is the real important part of the equation.

 

I've shortened the stock shifter, it doesn't really make it that much stiffer. I was pretty happy with the stock shifter as it was, just unhappy with having to reach up for it. I wasn't aiming for shorter throws, just a lower shifter. Chopped some off the top, and some off the bottom. There's a thread around somewhere how to do it.

The Mopar short shifter on my SRT-4 is easily 2x as hard to shift than the modified shifter in my vette. It's like stirring a bucket of rocks. I honestly don't know how anyone can live with the 85% reduction shifters that you can get for that car. They're gonna end up like this guy:

 

And a quick look at a UPS truck will show a perfect example of this concept.

 

What about the shifter TPS sells for like $120?

 

I shortened mine by removing the black part along with the rubber bushing. The leftover is a short stub with that yellowish transparent coating. I use a tall Momo shift **** to top it off.

 

hmmm IDK man...sounds right but not how i understand it..what about this explanation from TWM..

What is a short shifter?

This is a question that we at TWM Performance hear from curious customers every day. The desired effect of a short shifter is to reduce the distance your hand needs to move to engage the next gear, thus reducing the amount of time spent shifting, reducing wasted time between shifts, and resulting in improved performance. A common misconception in the tuning world is that a short shifter is just a chopped off version of the stock shifter. In fact, chopping your shifter has no effect on the angle that your shifter shaft travels through between gears and therefore does not reduce the shifter's angular throw.

A true short shifter decreases throw by reducing the angle that the shifter shaft travels through during its stroke between gears. By reducing the angle that the shaft travels through between gears, the distance that your hand needs to move between gears is also reduced. In many cases, the shifter shaft is also re-designed to be shorter than stock thus creating a sportier look and feel, as well as aiding in reducing the linear throw length when coupled with the reduced angular throw.

The geometry of a short shifter differs from the stock shifter in order to reduce the distance that the upper section where your shift **** threads on needs to move to achieve the same degree of movement in the lower section where the shift rod or shifter cables attach. This ensures that although your hand is moving a shorter distance, the transmission is still fully engaged in every gear. The main pivot point, or fulcrum of the shifter lever is re-positioned on the shaft in such a way that the lower section which connects to the shift rod or shifter cables is longer than stock, resulting in the desired effect. A TWM Performance Short Shifter is carefully designed to create the optimal throw length, angular shift throw, and shift **** height resulting in the ultimate short shifter.

The end result is a shorter, more precise shift, which requires a shorter hand movement to engage the next gear, and looks and feels sportier than the unsightly long shifter shaft most cars come stock with.

 

That's an interesting explanation...they are actually moving the pivot point up away from the box to make the bottom side of the shifter longer, rather than making the top side of the shifter shorter. As they make that bottom side of the shifter longer, the angle necessary to get from one gear to another decreases...they are correct in this. Think about the opposite of the UPS truck. If we move the pivot point up in an extreme way, the angle needed to move from one gear to another would get very very small. By moving the pivot up and making the lever on the bottom side of the shifter longer, we are shortening the angle required to go from one gear to another, but we are also increasing the effort required to do so. "Give me a big enough lever and I can move the world"...Archimedes. Now that guy understood geometry.

 

The geometry isn't complicated. If you shorten the stock lever you'll have shortened the throw, but of course the lever will sweep through the same angle between gear positions.

To shorten the angle, you need to increase the distance between the fulcrum and the linkage - that is, lengthen the lever section _below_ the spherical joint. This would require a new gear selector, like the one they're selling.

 

wouldn't this be the design of a "true" short shifter...i would say MGW and TMW do have more than just a shorter shaft...if not ppl are getting ripped off....

 

i have an 09 , with factory short shifter...its great...noticable improvement over my 06....
would recommend the newer factory shifter ...

 

Was that an improvement over the 08 OEM shifter or an option from the factory and does it fit without any modifications?

 

It works well cut down. For the stock shifter it is a big improvement but not as good as an aftermarket MGW or any of the others.