I was thinking about trying this... got to drive a Ferrari 328 GTS in August and just loved the way it looked... how would this look/work in a 3rd gen?

I thought about doing this in my car already. I took some half-assed measurements and came to the decision that it wouldn't work. There isn't enough space between gears for you to have the metal between them. In order for clearance, you'll need 1 big hole.

I may take better measurements and see what happens if I use a solid, narrow shifter instead of the fat hollow stock one. I'm not optimistic though.

I hope you get the answer you want. That would look sweet in a thirdgen.

Brian

I hope so too. I've got a full "theme" planned for the interior down the road that includes a lot of aluminum. That shifter would tie in nicely. If it doesn't work out, I'm going to go with an aluminum trim ring, similar to the Audi TT. except rectangular so that it'll match the car's interior better.

Man that would look awesome.....

I agree that would look sweet.

There is a shifter out there that looks like that for our cars but i think it is black. Is it the Hurst Dual Gate? I think it is. Maybe you could get the shifter and just make a template out of their console piece, no? Plus, under performance situations, how well does that shifter work? I don't see too many cars with them. And yes, an aluminum interior would kick ***!

The hurst dual gate is an automatic shifter. Big difference.

Hell yeah it is! Sorry, i thought thats what you were talking about, an auto. I would think it would take some time to get used to that manual shift. I would rather have just a boot i guess. I don't know, never driven a manual with that type of console shifter before.

I'd be afraid of while banging hard through the gears missing the tiny little notch to go from 2-3 and 4-5...or banging the metal hard enough to bend it...

Well, if i was going to make it, i think i would need a shifter with a smaller diameter shaft (Hurst possibly?) to have some clearance between the shift gates.

And if i was going to make this plate, i would probably use some 3/16" thick sheet steel that i saw at a hardware store, it was something like $5 for a square foot, so durability is not an issue, lol. I've seen this stuff when it is polished up real well, and it looks sweet.. sort of a gunmetal color. Last night I was looking at how the boot itself is held onto the plastic console peice, and i think all i would need is some longer screws for it to be held on tight.

But Jim85IROC is right, the stock shaft is too big do do this with, so i'm 99% sure you would need a shifter with a smaller shaft for this to work.

Iansane... i know what you mean about it looking like it would be easy to miss gears, i thought it would be a problem too when i drove the 328, but it's not nearly as bad as it may appear

Besides, most of the time, powershifting is going straight down (1-2, 3-4) isn't it? hehe, just some food for thought...

shift gates look good, but it makes it harder to shift fast. I remember reading a motor trend and the guys were complaining about the ferrari's shift gate


but it would look cool though

I think how fast you shift is based more on the shifter mechanism itself. The trim piece should be designed not to interfere with the motion of the shifter. Of course, with a shifter/transmission as sloppy as the T5, you're going to wind up with some awful wide slots because of all the slop in the shifter.

Good race driving doesn't involve "banging" the shifter, anyway. The best drivers smoothly, almost casually move the shifter into gear.

I think Jza has a good point here... Those of you who have ever had the opportunity to watch a talented race car driver, a real one with a racing licence and the whole bit, would be surprized to see what it's like when they shift gears.. they don't bang gears like most of us do (yea, i'm guilty, lol) but its almost like a casual cruise. I've seen this often, as my dad has a sweet '73 Z28 that he otfen races in organized competition. BTW, about 10 years ago, he won the Canadian Slalmon title with that Z28, which has a suspension thats built to the hilt.. i've seen it out-handle a '95 Corvette and blows my Z28 ('83) out of the water, hehe.

nice :hail: