A common misconception in the industry is that a short throw shifter
is just a chopped off version of the stock shifter, in reality it
is a much more complex part. The geometry of a short throw shifter
has been altered in such a way as to reduce the distance that the
upper section of the shifter needs to move to achieve the same degree
of movement in the lower section. The pictures below illustrate the
stock throw versus the reduced throw of the TWM short shifter.
The end result is a shorter, more precise shift which requires a shorter
hand movement to engage the gear.
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2. Why should I purchase a TWM Performance short shifter?
We have taken the extra steps in order to make TWM short shift kits the
most complete on the market. For example, where required we include
special tools which simplify disassembly of stock parts without damaging
them. We also include machined shoulder bolts, specially designed stepped
bushings, which hold themselves in place during installation and allen
keys to ensure that you'll have all the necessary tools needed to install
the kit. In some applications, aluminum bushings are provided to replace
the stock rubber parts thus removing unwanted play from the shift assembly.
We have applications for the most popular manufacturers of sport compact
cars. When you buy TWM, you're not just buying a short shifter, you're
buying a new shifting experience.
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3. How much do your shifters reduce the throw by?
The degree of throw reduction for all of our short shifters is determined
by the vehicle itself. Every car uses a different shifter mechanism
and has a different center console and seating position. The amount
that the throw and knob height of a shifter can be reduced by is dependent
upon driver comfort and the throw and height of the stock shifters.
Some of our shifters reduce the throw by more than 60% and the knob
height by well over 4", others offer smaller reductions in order
to ensure that the optimal knob position and shift throw for that
specific car is maintained. Countless hours of testing go into each
shifter design to ensure that the perfect degree of throw and height
reduction is achieved. Please feel free to call or e-mail
us for specific statistics on the throw and knob height reduction
of any of our shifters.
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4. Will my stock shifter knob still work with your shifter?
5.
What is the advantage of having a TWM shift knob on my short shifter?
Our shift knobs
do a lot more than just look good. In addition to adding a beautiful
polished stainless steel or gun blue accent to your interior, it also
greatly enhances the overall shifting experience. Because the knob
weighs over 500 grams it acts as a counterweight for the shift lever.
This added weight at the top of the shifter reduces the amount of effort
needed to shift. The knob is also height adjustable so that the user
can increase the height of his shift knob if needed. We highly recommend
purchasing our shifters with the shift knob included (we offer package
deals which are a great value) in order to maximize the benefit of
your short shifter.
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6.
Will it be harder to shift if I install a short shifter?
In
some cases there will be a slight increase in the effort it takes
to change gears. This is 100% a result of the reduction in leverage
due to the lower height of the shift knob. A very effective solution
is to install a weighted shift knob to counteract the reduction in
leverage.
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7.
Is a short shifter hard to install?
All
TWM Performance short shift kits include a detailed instruction manual
which illustrates each step in the installation process. All kits
require only simple hand tools to install and the majority of the
installations can be done from inside the car. In some cases a jack
and jack stands are required but anyone with only very basic mechanical
knowledge is more than qualified to install a shifter. Also, to make
installation as simple as possible we include any special or unique
tools that may be needed so that you'll have everything necessary
to install the kit.
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8.
Is a short shifter damaging to my car or transmission in any way?
This
is one of the most inaccurate myths present in the aftermarket industry
today. A short shifter is in no way damaging to the transmission
or any related components. It is worth mentioning, however, there
is a period of time after a shifter is installed where some care is
required in order to become acclimatized to the new part.
After
a short shifter has been installed the time it takes to shift is reduced
and the timing between your hand and your clutch foot must be adjusted.
Some people install a short shifter and immediately proceed to shift
as quickly and as hard as possible. We recommend that all of our customers
take several days to become accustomed to the new shifter before they
try any high-rev shifts or faster shifting. Once the timing for the
new shifter has been adjusted there shouldn't be any problems shifting
the car in any circumstances.
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9.
Can I go back to using my stock shifter if necessary?
We
recommend that all of our customers keep their original shifter and
accessories. All of our installations can be reversed back to stock
form if need be.
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10.
Are TWM Performance products under warranty?
Yes,
all TWM Performance products are covered by a full, lifetime warranty.
Please read below for details:
LIMITED
WARRANTY:
A. Installation of some TWM Performance products may or may not
void factory warranties. Always keep OEM equipment that has been
replaced in case work is required at the dealer or the vehicle is
sold.
B. This warranty covers the original purchasing consumer. This warranty
is limited to repair or replacement by TWM Performance of any TWM
Performance product that fails because of a defect in materials
or workmanship.
C. The manufacturer does not assume liability for this product under
the following conditions:
a. Damage incurred to related vehicle components
b. Regular day to day wear on vehicle
c. Shipping costs for replacements
d. Installation costs and vehicle down time
e. Products that have been modified, incorrectly installed or
misused.
f. Mounting hardware and bearings
D. TWM Performance warrants this product to be free from defects
in material or workmanship to the original purchaser with proof
of purchase. Please see the warranty card enclosed with the product.
E. TWM Performance does not assume liability beyond repair or replacement
of this product.
11.
How long does it take to ship my order after I place it?
Orders are processed
within 2 days of their receipt depending on back order status. All
products are shipped using UPS, estimated delivery
time is 4-7 business days within the Continental US and Canada, international delivery time depends on the service, contact
us any time for a quotation!
When it comes to short shifters, the conventional product will give you a nice short throw in between the gears and a lowered shift knob height. This is great for your daily commuter in order to improve the driving position and give that extra little aggressive feel to your gearbox. However, when it comes time to take your car out for a day at the local track to have some fun in the twisties, you may be looking for something else from your short shifter.
What I’m getting at here is shifter extenders. It’s a new craze that has brought these awkward looking extended shifter shafts from the race track to the street, and I’m here to explain to you the advantages of installing one of TWM Performance’s brand new 4 inch shifter extenders in your ride!
Well it’s pretty simple. It’s basically a 4 inch tall extension to your shifter shaft. TWM Performance has designed what we measured was the ideal height for extending your shift knob in the widest variety of vehicles. Like all other TWM Performance products, you can expect the highest level of quality and finish with our shifter extenders. Each piece is made of solid stainless steel and carefully machined and finished to offer the most durable, resistant, and great looking end product possible.
Why would I want my short shifter to be tall?
I should start by mentioning that these aren’t for everyone. Some people like their short shifter short in height, and as short as can be in throw distance. However, when it comes time to performing on the race track, this is where shifter extender really shine when mated to a short shifter.
When on a circuit, the objective is to always have both of your hands on the steering wheel in order to maximize your control of the vehicle. As we all know, certain manufacturers have even gone to the extent of locating the shifting mechanism on the steering wheel! Unfortunately, we don’t all have the luxury of having a Ferrari F430 with a paddle shifter to whip around the track, so we were forced to come up with the next best strategy.
Enter the shifter extender. The prime objective of this modification is to get the shift knob as close to the steering wheel as possible. However, anyone with a simple understanding of basic geometry can tell you that by extending a shifters lever on the rowing end, you will essentially make the distance that the hand must travel between shifts even longer. This is precisely why short shifters were originally invented; to keep the extended throws in a race car, short!
Basically, with the shifter extender, you are optimizing the distance and time that the hand must be off of the wheel to grab the shift knob. Then you are once again minimizing the distance and time that it takes for the hand to engage the next gear. The goal is to find the best balance between shift knob height, and the throw distance to engage the next gear. TWM Performance has achieved that with our 4 inch shifter extender.
That being said, some people would prefer to give up slightly more throw distance for a shift knob position that is closer to the steering wheel, and vice versa. Therefore, we plan on releasing a couple of different height options in the near future, as well as bends to better relocate the shift knob in certain cars. Stay tuned for announcements on those!
Truth be told, there is a lot more that goes into making the perfect shift assembly than the average consumer may believe. Most people suppose that once you throw in a short shifter and a nice heavy shift knob, you’ve exhausted all of the possibilities to improve upon your shift feel. This is simply not true, and it is even more so when dealing with your typical, modern cable actuated shifter. Cable actuated shifters often feel more spongy or vague than their rod shifter counterpart simply because of their complexity. In a cable actuated shifter, there are multiple points between the shift knob and the shift actuator on the transmission where large rubber bushings are used and often offer generous amounts of flex. This flex is transmitted directly to the shifter as a sloppy vague feel.
So now the question persists, what can I do to improve upon this vague feeling past your typical short shifter and shift knob modification? The answer comes in the form of superior bushings; both on the base of the in-car shifter assembly, and directly where the linkage meets with the transmission. We’re often asked what the differences are between TWM Performance Base Bushings and Cable Bushings so we’ll try to take an in-depth look at their different purposes and designs in this article.
It should be noted that for every cable actuated shifter, we offer base bushings! Essentially, our base bushings are precise CNC machined aluminum bushings that replace the soft and flexible OEM bushings that attach the shifter assembly to the floor of the vehicle. The result is a completely differ shift feel. Due to the fact that aluminum won't flex like rubber, your shifter will feel much more solid and precise.
The most noticeable difference after installing TWM Performance base bushings is the definition of the "H" pattern. What I am referring to here is the gates in the shifter. With this added feel and gate definition, locating and selecting gears is easier than ever before.
Once one side of the shift assembly has been taken care of with the base bushings, it’s time to move onto the other side to where the cables connect to the transmission. Many cable actuated shifters have bushings that connect the cables to the transmission shift lever. This is our final point of interest with our shifter overhaul.
By nature, many of these soft rubber cable bushings are in a housing that must pivot and rotate with the cable. Therefore we had to find a material that would allow for this rotation without causing friction resistance and possible binding, while being hard enough to remove the flex and play that is inherent with the OEM rubber bushings. What we came up with was our Bronzoil metal alloy.
Bronzoil is hard enough to eliminate all play, slack, and flex in the cable linkage, while having “lubricating” properties to prevent all of the potential negative effects that were mentioned above. While it is not mandatory to use the Base Bushings in conjunction with the Cable bushings, the combination is a recipe for a solid feeling shifter, and more precise, gated shifts each and every time.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and as always, if you have any other questions or concerns, feel free to let us know!
14. What is the difference between a short shifter adapter and a full replacement short shifter assembly?
Hello everyone and welcome to our newest article!
We, at TWM Performance, as you all know, specialize in every product related to the manual shifter. Most commonly, our main market is short shifters. We cover the widest range of sports compact cars and sedans in the industry when it comes to short shifters and shifter accessories. But the questions we often get from our customers are about the differences between some of the short shifters we manufacture.
What is a short shifter adapter?
What is a full replacement short shifter assembly?
This short shifter will replace the stock shifter shaft in my car, correct?
In this article, we’ll answer all these questions, and probably more that you might already had thought about but were afraid to ask!
Short shifter replacement
The first short shifter design we manufacture, and probably the most common design in the industry, is a shifter shaft replacement. Whether it’s a shift rod actuated shifter (like a 1993 Civic or a 2010 Genesis Coup) or a shifter cables actuated shifter (such as a 2008 Evo X or a 2006 Scion tC), most of the time the best design for us is to change the shifter shaft itself. What we are looking for is to change the different pivot points to actually shorten the shift throw, lower the overall height of the shifter for a sportier and more comfortable driving position and make sure that the dimensions and tolerances of our product will be even better than the stock unit. We strive to have a better than stock fitment!
Most of the time when we make this specific type of short shifter, we’ll also look at the different bushings that can be upgraded in the shifter assembly and on the shifter cables. You can find out more about our bushings in this article. By doing so, we improve the shift throw, the shifter height and fitment, as well as the overall solidity of the unit by replacing the stock rubber bushings.
Short shifter adapter
The second type of short shifters manufactured by TWM Performance is the short shifter adapter. A few years back, TWM Performance became a pioneer in the industry by releasing a short throw shifter adapter installed on the transmission arm of the 2002 Nissan Spec V and we’ve came up with several other original designs since then.
The principle behind a short shifter is to move the pivot points of the shifter to reduce the angle the shifter travels through when shifting gears, thus reducing the shift throw. The traditional way of doing it is, as explained in the first part of this article, to change the pivot points on the shifter itself. But it can also be done on the transmission end of the shifter cables, on a cables actuated shifter. By moving the attachment point of the cable on the transmission arm, the shift throw is reduced without affecting the shifter height. But why would we go that way? Well, car manufacturers sometime like to make our lives a bit harder by designing the stock shifter assemblies a certain way we can’t just replace the shifter shaft without breaking everything. Or the pivot point we want to move is just too close to the center console that there is not enough room to go as aggressive as we want. While this design may seem simpler because the parts are not as big in dimension as a regular short shifter, the engineering behind short shifter adapters is as intensive!
As an example, our short shifter adapter for the 2007+ Nissan Spec V features a great deal of new ideas. If you never tried to disconnect a shifter cable from the transmission arm on this car, give it a try and you’ll realize how difficult it could be! We actually designed a special tool to disconnect the cable and make the install that much easier. For this specific short shifter, we also had to design a special bracket to correct the angle of the cable once the short shifter adapter is installed. Without this bracket, the cable would sit at a weird angle and the shifter would not feel as smooth as it should. Add to these innovations the development of the short shifter adapter and you can see that a lot of work is going in this short shifter you hold in one hand!
Another type of short shifter adapter
After reading the part of this text about short shifter adapters, you might be thinking to yourself: ”What about my short shifter adapter on my 2007 Civic? It’s listed as an adapter but it’s installed on the stock shifter, not on the transmission!”. Well, correct you are. This is another type of short shifter adapter we manufacture at TWM Performance. The goal of these adapters, also available for cars like the Acura RSX, is to change the pivot points of the shifter while keeping the stock shifter and shifter assembly installed in the car. It’s the option we choose before going the route of a full replacement short shifter assembly when it’s not an option to simply change the shifter shaft in the assembly.
A good example of an occasion we would do so is a stock shifter assembly like the 2006+ Civic where the metal part of the shifter shaft we would normally change is actually molded in the plastic assembly. In this particular case, it’s either an adapter or a full replacement short shifter assembly!
Full replacement short shifter assemblies
That’s a long and nice sounding title, isn’t it? Well, the product is even nicer and even longer to develop than the name is!
The last point we’ll be talking about in this article is a new line of products we’re releasing here at TWM Performance. It all started with the 8th Generation Honda Civic. We had a complete line up of products for this car: short shifter adapter, base bushings, cable bushings, shift boots and shift knobs. But we wanted to push the envelope even more and come up with the ultimate short shifter available in the industry. We decided the whole plastic shifter assembly, you know this big chunk of plastic under the center console, needed to be changed to provide the best our customers could get. Everything was re-designed to allow the most aggressive throw and height reduction, as well as a more solid all steel and aluminum construction for better shifting. The end result was beyond our expectations!
With this great new product still fresh in our mind, we decided to apply the same process to other cars that were in desperate need of a more solid and precise shifter. Newer cars like the 2010 Mazda 3 and MazdaSpeed 3 are lacked with a terrible shifter feel from the factory. After more investigations in the car, we determined that not only a traditional short shifter would solve this issue. The shifter assembly is in plastic, and the shifter shaft itself is in plastic. The tolerances are very vague and there is play coming from everywhere. The viable solution is to re-engineer everything from scratch and from solid steel!
Stay tuned to our site, more of these exciting new products will be released in the coming months!
So you’ve just finished installing your complete TWM short shifter kit, with a full solid bushings setup and a weighted stainless steel shift knob of your favorite model and finish. Looking back on your hard work, you realize that the stock rubber shift boot or fake leather shift boot in your car does not do justice to the quality of the parts you’ve just proudly installed. There is a bit too much material sagging off the boot, the color of the boot stitches are just faded and boring or, let’s face it, it’s simply old and cracked.
At TWM, we have a great solution to complete the interior of your car with our high quality leather short shift boots, available for many makes and models. Specially designed to accommodate the shorter design of a TWM short shifter, the dimensions of our shift boots are always a perfect fit. We also took the extra step to make sure fitment with the console is exactly like stock, no modification needed to stock parts.
We use only high quality leather to manufacture our shift boots, superior to any material found on stock shift boots. It will give that nice touch to your car’s interior. As well, the different colors available for the shift boot stitches will give you the choice to personalize your car even more. Whether you want a subtle yet quality touch with a black on black design, or a reminder of the color of the car with assorted stitches, we cover it all!
TWM short shift boots are also unique in the industry with factory like plastic bushings and retainers when needed. No need to rip apart your stock MazdaSpeed shift boot to re-use the plastic retainer, our boot is already glued to a Delrin retainer for a direct installation. As well, if you install a TWM shift knob and shift boot in certain models, we have designed great aluminum shift boot retainers to create a seamless finish between the boot and the shift knob. More on that in one of our next articles!
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