Is anyone using this?

Hurst 83-92 Camaro Dual Gate 2 Automatic Shifter

It looks nice, but it's pricey and I was wondering if there are any advantages over the B&M Megashifter other than it's something different. Like myself

 

There are no particular advantages to that shifter.

It's the old "his & hers" stock shifter from the 60s & 70s, that GM used to buy from Hurst. We all hated them then, I don't think they've gotten a whole lot better since.

"They" all say that the B&M is the best auto shifter, as far as function. I wouldn't have a clue about that though, as I don't drive an auto. I'll defer to "their" wisdom in the matter.

 

i love my hurst duel gate.... awesome.....

 

How does the "fun" side work is it a full ratchet shifter like the megashifter?

 

no nothing like it.... it has two gates..... one is like stock and the other one is race version.... you hit it and it goes up one gear.... its cool i like it...

 

Everybody likes stuff like that, until they see something better; then they realize how pitiful it is.

Kind of like, maybe you think your 305 TBI car is fast, after you flipped the air cleaner lid over; then you get into somebody's 10-second big block car. Now all of a sudden yours seems mighty weenie.

That Hurst shifter is like that. Sure, it's "cool"; but that doesn't mean it's "functional", or that something else isn't A WHOLE LOT BETTER. the "hers" side, and the "his" side.

Wait until the first time you get a little over-excited and hit it a little too hard, and it goes from Drive to Neutral with your foot on the floor. You won't like it so much after that.

 

Exactly what I was afraid of! I guess I'll go with the Mega shifter. Maybe I can put a nice old fashioned round **** on it! Maybe rig up a leather boot? That may look cool!

 

I've never shifted mine into neutral, not sure what you mean. I enjoy my Hurst dual gate shifter. I have a stock 350 TPI and I almost always drive using the his side. I don't go into 1st with it much unless I want to chirp the tries on the 1-2 shift but I can easily do that by rolling in first then gunning it right before it automatically shifts into 2nd. I like the ratchet shifting and keeping my TPI in the 1750-2500 RPM sweet spot. Exhaust sound awesome, get great gas mileage (20mpg+) with 2.77's.

 

You're just lucky. I've rebuilt more than one motor for people that blew theirs up at the strip doing that. One guy actually exploded his transmission at the same time when it went all the way to reverse.

That shifter is a giant steaming POS. All that about exhaust and gas mileage and those awful slow gears doesn't make it any better.

 

Even on the hers side there are notches for neutral, if you pull towards you when you shift it up to neutral you won't go into reverse. I cannot fathom how you can go to reverse on the his side. The plate literally blocks you from going past neutral.

I've had two in two separate cars. I wouldn't recommend the shifter for anything but a stock car, it's not for racing or the carless as it is fairly delicate. Also, if you get one apply a good amount of grease to all the moving parts and make sure the parking/neutral safety switch is working properly.

 

Thats when you know people embellish on the interwebs

 

I love that after 15 years of nothing...someone questions his opinion and Sofa is back on it as if it was yesterday! Bam. No soup for you! LOL. Made my day.

 

@ Abubaca: some things just refuse to get better with age. (myself included, along with that crappy shifter)

 

This thread needs a bump, lol. I have the Dual Gate and it works absolutely fine. Plus it looks cool It is exactly like the his/hers shifers of yore. My uncle had one in his GTO Judge. It's not a ratchet shifter but does have detents on the "his" side for each gear so you can "slam" shift it without skipping a gear. There is no possible way to wind up in reverse from the his side. You could wind up in neutral but you'd have to be pretty ham fisted to manage it. As for Sofa's opinion, since he doesn't have the damn thing his opinon counts for *****. You know what "they" say about opinions...

 

No I don't have one. I'm not that stupid. Pretty stuuuuupid I'll admit, butt not THAT stuuuupid.

I got rid of every one that I had in my cars back in the 60s because IT WAS A PIECE OF CRAP. So you're right, I DON'T have one; every one I ever had, I either sold on to The Greater Fool such as blownzed, or if they didn't come around soon enough, it went in the next week's TRASH.

Butt after rebuilding my customers' motors back in the day when they got all excited and slammed it upward a bit too hard and hit Neutral or Reverse, I have recommended against it for the last 40 or more years.

Kind of amuzzzzing in a way; people without experience, or with a "very small sample size" (ahem... not calling the size of your "sample" into question, butt...) such as ONE, "mine" in blownzed's case, often fail to see The Big Picture. Which in this case is, that thing is a total POS, designed and sold to poseurs starting back in the 60s which was well and widely known even back then as a POS, butt since it got a reputation as "cool", has persisted even up to today. Back when Algore invented the Internet we all had such high hopes that truth and "crowd sourcing" and whatnot would drive CRAP like this out of existence, butt it hasn't quite worked that way.

 

Ah... I think we found the ham fisted one. Sorry for your dexterity issues, missed shifts and that you blew up your engine (rev limiters work wonders I've heard). But you droning on and on saying "it's crap" over and over when you have absolutely no experience with the product, fortunately, doesn't actually make it "crap". Please remember this thread is about the HURST Dual-Gate and not brand x split shifters.

I didn't buy a used one from a hack. I bought mine new from Summit in the early 90's. And it's bloody lovely. Well made and a straight forward install. You do lose the lighted shift indicator though . Mine's been on board for 30+ years and I've never had any kind of issue with it; never missed a shift or slammed my way into neutral (or reverse). Never blew up my engine either. In fact, I enjoy it immensely. It's better than sex. The ladies love it. I've had many compliments on it and even an offer to buy it from an adoring fan. I'd go so far to say that I don't think there's ever been a better shifter made for our cars by any company ever, ever, ever! I mean really, if you're using any shifter other than the HURST Dual-Gate you're working with inferior equipment. Unfortunately, they're hard to find now and expensive if you do. It sounds like sofaking is now out of stock having sold all his without trying them.

But that's just my opinon. But I do feel like my opinion carries more weight than sofakings because I actually have the item (so not just blowing smoke). Seems like other actual owners of the thing on this thread agree that it's a wonderful shifter.

To sum up:
Actual owners of the Hurst Dual Gate rate the item quite positvely.
People who never actually had one are quite negative on the whole split shift genre of shifters and angry at anyone who owns one.

In closing, I'd just like it on record that I personally would never tear the OEM shifter out of a '69 Ram Air GTO Judge, call it junk and sell it in place of...well anything really. What sort of hack does that? That's sacrilege!

 

It was my engine customers back in the day who had issues with that POS. Actual owners. More than one. Not my engines, not my cars.

That was originally the stock "his & hers" shifter in certain Olds 442s equipped with the "Hurst Olds" option. Those were the first people that reported problems with it. The only cars I've personally had that were equipped with them were Chevelle SSs which I was always careful not to get too excited when using the "his" mode. Buying it as an aftermarket addition directly from Hurst didn't make it any better. The old stock "staple" shifter in Chevelles was pretty poor too.

The Dual Gate was, is, and always will remain, a POS. I can think of few things that are a poorer add-on to one of our cars, or to any other car for that matter. The fact that it came stock in certain classic cars doesn't make it somehow automatically "better". No I would not tear up an old GTO or whatever just to get rid of it; not sure where n00b up there got that idea and tried to put it in my mouth; butt I also wouldn't go out of my way to waste money on putting it in something else.

Most of the shifters for automatics, both stock and aftermarket, seem to be pretty crappy. IMO that's one of the strongest weaknesses of the auto trans in general for a performance application, is the controls for one of them. Regardless of how well a transmission itself works, if you can't reliably put it in the right gear at the right time with the parts external to the trans that are available, then it's a problem.

Just my opinion. Which carries no weight at all, since it's just opinion, as far as that goes. However, the FACTS that it's based on, are a different matter. If n00b up there is happy with his, then good for him, I can't and won't argue with that, he's welcome to it and I'm glad he enjoys it. For all I know it might be ahelluvalot better than whatever he took out, if indeed he even has anything he can compare it to. Doesn't make it A Good Idea for everybody else. Ignore his "recommendation".

 

I had one of these too in my IROC. Absolutely awesome, if you shift in the right 'lane' it is bam, bam up through the gears with absolutely no fear of hitting reverse or neutral. I would definitely get another if I was auto.