Aftermarket Product ReviewProvide questions and answers about aftermarket parts for the Third Generation F-Body.
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I gotto say i just got a B&M megashifter installed in my 87 irocz and its the worst shifter ever. It takes both hands to shift from park to reverse and drive. the ratchet through the gears works nice but it makes no sense how hard it is from park to drive. I had 2 different mechanics take a look at it and nothing worked to correct the problem. It looks very nice but thats about it!
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I think most ratchet shifters are like that. My brother's B&M quick silver was the same. They were all pretty hard to shift (compared to stock), but reverse was like atleast 4 times harder.
This especially sucks if youre a lighter person.
Dont sweat it, eventually you'll learn you have to be a little rough with it, as long as youre not parallel parking they are alright.
P.S.
The hardness will make sense when you are racing, but i agree the P to R shift is hard for no reason.
Yeah am getting used to it now, however i do try not to parallel park cause it does take forever. It does make the inside look really nice with the new carpeting and new interior. All i have to say is good thing i hit the gym everyday!!!!
you have to make dead sure that you have the linkage under at the trans EXACTLY right...and also make sure that the cable is in a nice circle sitting on top of the trans. THat will make it shift from park/reverse alot nicer, but yeah it will get easier as time goes on and you'll get used to it. I hated mine when I first got it years ago.
Also becareful jerking and jackin that shifter around when pulling it from P/R or you'll be driving around with you reverse lights on and might get the attention of the MAN
Its all in the detent cable on those shifters...adjust it too tight and you'll NEVER get it out of park, ask me how I know. Since I found that out a while back, I love mine.
yea you have a MAJOR problem!!!!!!! mine is easy to move and to rachet, you got something hooked up wrong, as said before it probably in your cable, you got to have it looped in a "O" (lack of better words) over the top of the tranny for it to work right. FYI B&M's tech support is THE BEST they will stay on the phone with you and help you get it going good, i will admit it took AWHILE to get mine right, but when i did it was well worth the time, it looks nice and the rachet is just plain fun with that built trans!!
it it has to be right! also make sure that its going into 1st cause when you think it feels good coming out of park 1st will be all screwed up.
ask me how I know....pulled my trans out enough in the last 6 months to know all about it..
yea rachet it down it first, crawl under and make sure its in first by tring to move the selector on the tranny back, you need to make sure you got the bracket on the right holes in the tranny pan and that you got the cable end in the proper hole on the selector on the tranny, as said before its a pain but worth the work in the end!! also try and get a friend to help, one in the car and one under makes it easier to figure out the problem
and you said you took it to a mechanic, HAHA, i had to show my transmission guy how to get it hooked back up!!!
B&M Support line 1-818-882-6422 Hours: 7am - 11:30am and 12:30pm - 4pm
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mine isn't that bad, i'm on the southside of chicago if you want me to look at it sometime.
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i agree with it being all in the detent cable, mine was hard and it loosened up a little after a some use but once i got my manual valve body and no longer used the detent it was much easier. i did not see it to be very difficult in the first place though, it is a very nice shifter and a good investment if you plan on racing.
lol i didnt even bother reading after the first couple posts.... u must have girly hands ive had mine in my car for 2yrs almost and i love the shifter. looks amazing and i installed it myself in a day. its extrememly easy to shift outa park and revers, takes almost no effort at all. idk what u did to yours but it seems that the general consensus is the cable, u might wanna let your 2 mechanics look at it again and see if they got a certificate/license to practice lol jk, that could be the prob... the cable.
u cant beat the looks, and the fact that its a rachet and u cant miss a gear really works for me. mine shifts easy as pie and i have alot of trans upgrades as well that i did myself.
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i personal like the look of the hurt dual gate better but i have had the megashifter for a while and it looks good chillin in its box in my room cant decide if i wana put it on or not
thanks for the advice. I did try to adjust the cable a few different ways even with the cable in a "o" and the ratchet works really smooth but park and reverse are still very hard. Yes i probably do have girly hands but i do bodybuilding for a living sooo i dont think thats the problem lol....I actually took it to a mechanic recomended by B&M and they cant figure it out so that didnt really help alot, am starting to wonder if there is something wrong with the shifter itself. I followed all the instructions correctly and had someone in the car as we did all the gears and it seemed fine but after putting the car down and got it running the park and reverse are still hard. I will call B&M again and see what else they suggest i do. Yes and i do agree it makes the interior look alot nicer
well it MAY be a problem with the shifter,it may be a good idea to send it back and get another one, atleast now you know how to install it, see if you can only send the shifter back, leave the cable and brackets in the car...
toxik IROC....i do like the hurst dual gate also, its a bit more $$$$ but looks sharp!! is one side a rachet and the other normal or what on that???
im a fellow meathead as well. my friend did a show in the spring and took best in his weight class and overall i believe he was in the 175 group. not sure if im gona do one yet.
i would just send the whole shifter back and see what they can do for u, i had a prob with the shifter after a couple months of use... i kept blowing the radio shack fuse block thingy that they tell u to buy... i went through 2 of them within a yr, so i said screw that and just put in a 40amper and that works till this day. be careful tho somehow when i had it all hooked in about a yr after i installed it i guess the cable that works the dial that tells u what gear your in hit a positive lead...? and obviously the shifter is grounded so all i saw was a lil puff of smoke and i couldnt figure out why the shifter indicator wasnt moving... the darn wire musta heated up real quick and mealted itself in the plastic surrounding tube, no way to fix it so i just took it out. i can tell way gear im in just by how its driving or a remember lol
Ive had three of these shifters and I will be buying another one for my new camaro. I will admit they are a lil hard to shift when you first install them but after a couple months they loosen up a bit. I agree that you should make sure you looped your cable correctly and have no kinks in it that will cause it to shift hard...
i think i found the problem, I installed the shifter were the original shifter was at cause thats what the instructions suggested but i called B&M and they are now telling me it needs to be installed on the actuall floor pan... you guys think that can be it?
i installed mine where the stock shifter was. u should check the cable bc it has to be looped a certain way and that was a pain to do... idk how u would install it on the floor pan, theres no threaded holes. i just used the supplied brackets and installed in stock location. dont go cutting or drilling into the floor if u dont have to
the guy at B&M said that in order for the shifter to work properly in the iroc i have to screw it to the floor pan and not were the original shifter sat. So am going to try that because everything else seems to be just fine. The cable is set right so thats not the problem. xpndbl3 vbmenu_register("postmenu_3601171", true); Once i get the seats back in the car i will drive it over so you can take a look and let me know if that is how yours is too. Maybe you could take a look and see if you can figure out whats wrong with it
I did intall mine to the floorboard you have to drill the tack welds out of the raised sections for the factory shifter to do it but it makes it feel much more solid too
Girly hands? you should look at my profile lol
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Thank you i will try to put it right on the floor pan saturday and see how that works out and fixes the problem
Last edited by Monica9; 01-16-2008 at 06:42 PM.
Reason: Automerged Doublepost
To get away from the lotion discussion I´m gonna put in a few words
I´ve just installed a Megashifter and mine is also hard to shift from park. I have tried the shifter without having the cable attached to the tranny and it is ok so the cable feels good, but when it is attached its hard again.
I´ve taken the detent spring from my spare tranny and bent it a little to reduce the pressure. This will make the gear box lever easier to move and hopefully make the Megashifter shift smoothly.
if you guys are thinking it suppose to and gonna work as smoothly and move as freely as stock then your wrong and trying to fix something thats not going to happen the shifter is just not setup that way.
thats what i dont understand, i had installed it in the stock location with nothing done to the spring or anything, ran the cable correctly and mine shifts easier and smoother than the stocker, mine shifts outa park so easy i actually pull it over reverse go into neutral or overdrive. so to say it doesnt shift as easy as stock... u should shift mine.
as far as bending the springs.... i wouldnt do that. not smart... u could weaken the spring and cause a premature failure at that point.
the only thing i dont like with the shifter is that u cant go from neutral to park.... u gotta be in drive or reverse. other than that, the band manual shifts make it so i dont need lotion... ha jk, monica9 seems like a vanilla or cucumber melon kinda guy lol
can anybody give me a quick explanation on how to route that long *** cable on top of the tranny???! i route mine on top of my driveshaFT which was the fastest i could do but dont liKE it... thanks.
with the cable connected to the shifter but not the tranny... straighten out completley
it has to loop coming out from the front of the shifter going towards the front of the car. then loop cable in circle making a complete 360 over the cable coming out of the shifter, then have it fall down to the driver side of the tranny and connect. thats it.
over the drive shaft is not smart... moving parts will wear away cable causing failure, i would get that away from there fast!
i ordered the 3 ft cable with mine and it was tight when i installed it. it is fairly easy now. i just had to break it in. i didnt like the look of it in my trans am because of the console mod so i put in a iroc console and now it looks stellar.
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I guess it depends on the person. It was heck trying to install the thing. But when it was all said and done, I love it!! Yeah, it was hard has heck to shift at first. But its broken in now. Shifts fine!!
__________________ Tried to tell the police that my TH-350 trans doesn't work with my speedometer. They didn't buy it. But I bought a $355 speeding ticket.
Yeah. They send u a kit. I had a similar problem. I had a bracket and the instructions told you to use it. Didn't fit right b4 i bolted it down. I just bolted it down to the floor and had no probs. Just make sure that the cable sits on the trans right and there are no kinks in it and you'll be fine. Trust, u will love that shifter. Its a MAN'S shifter!!!!
__________________ Tried to tell the police that my TH-350 trans doesn't work with my speedometer. They didn't buy it. But I bought a $355 speeding ticket.
Ive been having some problems with my stock shifter and aftermarket shifter cable and stumbled across he megashifter in Summit catalog. Whats this "ratcheting" feature? Im not too familiar with alot of aftermarket performance parts and terms
basically... when you shift into drive you can then down shift exactly one gear at a time by just pulling on the handle. you have to sort of pull, then pull then pull until you into the low gear. so if you a racing then you drop down to you and then push forward it will only go one gear at a time. i had your problem with the sock stuff. bought the megashifter and life has been wonderful ever since and mine is just in a daily driver. i love it. down shift going down bridges and stuff or pull up next to a rice burner and they think you got a stick. only you dont have to press on a clutch just keep shifting. or just put into drive and go. still awsome to look at. my wife loves the way it looks in my car. i would say it was well worth it. and summit is the place i got mine. i order from them all the time. great place with very fast shipping.
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Last edited by theimpaler68; 04-14-2008 at 05:30 PM.
Im looking at one on evilbay right now. Says its missing some sort of bracket or something. Does the kit come with any brackets that attach to the cable on the tranny side or is he thinking of a stock bracket that was missing on the car it was removed from?
Its the auction thats at $57 or so right now. I know this site doesnt like linking to there so I wont
the b&m shifter cable hooks up a little different than the stock one. you need the bracket that original comes with the b&m. you dont use the stock cable that is one of the best reasons to switch to this shifter. and there is a bracket that hooks to the bottom of the shifter body. if you look at the installion instructions on summits website they have some pics of it so that you can get an idea of what you are looking at. that is what i did before i purchased it. you also need to know that there is relay that you have to go to radio shack to purchase to this shifter it is only like $5. you need this so that you can have the new neutral safety switch and the new reverse light switch working. it isnt very hard to do with the step by step sheets in front of you. if you need any additional help ill see what i can do.
for the heads-up! 
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