So after about 3 hours of a little b*tching and twiddling, and a broken nail, I finally got the T1R short shifter installed and working. I didn't remove the whole console, but rather kept it all in there and worked around it. A lot of people were complaining about the difficulty of getting the ball seat unclipped, but after everything was said and done I think that was one of the easiest parts. The biggest pain in the ass was getting the small white adapter off the bottom of the stock shifter, and onto the T1R shifter. That takes a lot of effort, and was very very aggravating. The problem with that is the small white adapter's opening is relatively small compared to the ball size on the bottom of the shifter, so it takes a lot of force to squeeze it past the opening and into place.

I drove it for a bit right after installation and boy does it feel nice. The shifting distances feel a lot shorter than the 20% or so that AJR states, and the shifting is a bit stiffer too, which may be because it's new or just the way it is...either way I kinda like the solid feel of it. Definitely worth the <$100 investment IMO.

As for tips for people who plan on installing this themselves, the best tip I can give you is getting the ball seat out of place easily. Like the AJR installation tutorial (https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/aj-r...tion-tech.html), you'll need 2 flathead screw drivers. Take a look at the picture:

What you want to do is start off by picking one of the locked clips (where the screwdrivers are in the picture) on one side of the open end of the ball seat (circled in red on the picture). Then while putting one of the screw drivers and prying upwards (not too hard!) into the open part of the ball seat (circled in red) push the clip in until it's unclipped. Then while keeping the prying screw driver still in place (and prying upwards gently), unclip the other clip on the other side of where you're prying. Both clips should still be unclipped right now. Continue prying upwards lightly and do the same with the remaining 2 clips on the other side and the ball seat should come off like a charm.

As for the white adapter on the bottom of the shifter, I don't really have any good advice for removing/installing it, other than be careful.....Ben from AJR suggested using hot water to expand the plastic so that it would slip off easily, and I did that and it MAYBE helped a bit, but in the end a lot of force was used. As for putting it back on, I basically put the little plastic piece on the cement ground and pushed the shifter in with as much force as I could...and eventually it finally popped in.

Hope this will be useful for some of you guys who plan on installing it!

Cheers.

 

very nice

 

yea i have the t1r short shifter and it definitely is work getting. but be prepared to fight tooth and nail to take out the stock shifter, it is a b*tch to do.

 

Got any pics that show the difference from OEM?

 

^^ +1 how short is it compare to the stock one?"height"

 

I think someone else has a before and after picture somewhere, but in all honesty pics are kind of useless in this case 'cause it really doesn't tell you much (since there's not much of a difference). If I had to guess it's at most 1" shorter in height than the stock. Reason why I say that is because after I tightened my spoon duracon shift knob on it, the stock shift boot was sitting down below the ring (that holds it in place) and it looked reallll awkward....so I loosened my shift knob by 1 or 2 revs and it looked fine after, which to me meant that it's at the same height as the stock one. As for how it feels when I'm driving, I don't notice any difference at all in terms of if it's actually shorter (or even possibly higher).

 

Man its really that hard to install? Im really considering mugen now... Ive heard awesome things about it and the install doesnt take more than 20 minutes.

 

Is the mugen one a whole console? Because it must be if it takes 20 mintues.... Heh I had to install it with the console in place because I couldn't figure out how to remove the 2 cables.....didn't want to break any of them! It would actually be appreciated if someone who has taken the whole assembly out before give some insight into it.

Looking back it's not *that* hard to install....it's just some of the parts are a b*tch to take off/put on because they're so tight fitting. It actually would've been 1000x easier had AJR included new adapters already installed on the shifter, which would've made installation probably no more than 10 minutes haha.

 

Yeah mugen comes with the whole assembly. Just undo the cables and the 4 bolts and remove the entire console with the shifter already installed and swap assemblies.

 

haha that's the part I don't know how to do...undoing the cables. They're attached to the assembly and I'm not sure how the attachment works. Looks like they're snapped in but I don't want to pry it out in case I snap it or something. There must be an easy way of taking them out!

 

The install is simple if you remove the shifter from the car. I did mine in 20 minutes. Undoing the cables is straight forward and pretty simple.

By leaving it in the car I feel you made it much harder for yourself.

 

Does it rattle? My past experience with short shifter is they tend to make some noise.

 

I haven't noticed any rattling at all. Like I said, mine seems way stiffer than the stock one, so rattling should be lessened if anything.

 

The reason I ask is because after market short shifters tend to have stiffen shift action because the use of stiffer bushings. Drive train vibrations would travel through the shifter assemble without much soft bushing damping causing vibration and noise. The stiffer shorter throw the more likely it’ll carry more vibration.

 

ah, well that would also depend on a number of factors including how stiff it actually was, and the intensity and frequency of the vibrations. Nonetheless and saving the complications of those considerations, I have yet to notice any when driving!

 

That's good to hear thanks.