Note the emphasis on the "NEW" part.

Earlier this year had installed a used, incomplete Megashifter - it was short the cable, cable brackets, shifter shaft arm, microswitches. Boot wasn't too great, either. Rather than buying new all the missing pieces, I modified it to take the stock shifter, having to buy new microswitches for the neutral safety and back-up lights. Worked better than the stock shifter, but never quite as good as the Megashifter I have in the '57.

Last Friday at the track, my son told me during time trials that it wasn't shifting from 1st to 2nd. For eliminations he just put it into D and adjusted the dial-in accordingly (worked for 3 rounds, until the unrelated-to-the-shifter redlight). When we got home, I got onto Summit's site and ordered a new one. It arrived Wednesday morning, I installed it that night. Upon removing the old parts, I found the stock shifter cable had cracked down at the transmission, allowing the cable end to bend and not push properly when shifting up. For some reason, it always shifted into Park (unlike the similarly-broken original cable), never caused a problem for me in daily driving, but acted up at the track.

Lessons I've learned:
1) Be very wary of used parts.
2) Be very, very wary of used parts with missing pieces.
3) Know all of the pieces that are missing before buying (I was told the cable & brackets weren't there, but not that the microswitches were missing).
4) Figure you'll probably be better off buying new if 2) & 3) are in play.

Now, if someone could explain to me why they put a 5' cable in the kit, rather than a 2' (which they make), which would follow the original shifter cable path, and from what I can tell, wouldn't cause a single problem. . .

 

yeah, why is the cable so long? Mine is wraped ever so carefully in a big curly Q shape. Love the shifter though. Kinda stiff when new, my wife has to use 2 hands.

 

So far this one seems to shift up fairly easily, but pulling it down to first takes a little effort. I'm sure it's the cable, because it didn't act like that before the cable was attached.

I'll have to decide whether I want to be a $50 2' guinea pig. . .

 

five7 - I installed a 4ft in mine and it routes much better than the 5ft. I use a B&M Heavy Duty cable.
The 2ft may be too short but you may be able to use a 3ft.