A friend of mine told me to buy a shifter for my 91 Camaro Automatic. The thing is I'm not really sure what they are for. http://www.amazon.com/80690-MegaShif.../dp/B000CIN06Q I'm thinking of buying one. Are they easy to install? What I believe they are is to shift like a Manuel only without clutch? Do I need to install a shift kit before I install the shifter.

 

Unless your drag racing, in my opinion, it's a waste of your time and money.

 

A "shifter" for an auto is basically just a handle.

Stock ones wear out and get sloppy. Also, it's real easy to shift through too many gears at once, like, go from 2nd to neutral with your foot on the floor. Aftermarket ones are supposed to address these problems.

They have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the way the trans shifts.

 

Basically agree.

An aftermarket shifter wont make your car any faster. But if you like to go drag racing etc. They do help out. Because you dont have to focus on shifting. If you go from gear to gear, some peopole just put it in drive and go. (i dont). REALLY thier are better things to spend your money on. If you decide to go dragging often then i'd step up to the console model for our cars. I have one and I love it. But It didnt make my car any faster.

Hopefully this helped you.

 

Too expensive for a bit of polished aluminum and a steel rod. You know its all cast, mass produced on an assembly line for the cost of peanuts and what not.

 

i was wondering about this myself but my shifter is a little sloppy when i manually shift... i have to pay attention when i shift because it will easily shift into another gear... but i only manually shift when people have the ***** to try to take me on from a stoplight.. but i manage.... .. i dont see the purpose of it other than to fix the easily shifting into other gears problems...

 

Im not sure what this "sloppy" means. My shifter seems normal to me, may not be normal to another person tho. I have the button lock removed and the steering lock cable out cus all of that was a hinderance. Dont worry I know my automatic well enough not to throw it into reverse while Im cruising down the street lol

I say, to hell with an automatic, Im looking for a Muncie M22 (: I havent had a stick since I sold my Ford F150 to fix up my Camaro

 

Yeah well me and my buddies like to go to the track and race are cars for fun. Do you guys manually shift on stock automatics? How would one do that? LIke start at 1 then when it redlines go to 2 then again and just go on d?

 

Yes..And to answer the OPs question more specifically an aftermarket shifter for autos is generally a ratchet shifter, basically it will only allow one shift at a time, also imo it feels more solid, in my case I planned to eventually get one....then I broke a flimsyass piece of plastic on my shifter when I bumped it while tearing down my interior...was that white piece with a hole in the middle(making it even more flimsy esp how small and cheap it was....) that the button sits on, and rather than replace it with another flimsy thing that might also break I opted to just get my megashifter ahead of schedule, have not installed it yet though, working out some engine issues....

Theres also "gated shifters" btw, basically its like two shifters in one, with the stick on one side you have your normal driving gears, but pop it over one, and you just have the forward gears, no reverse, park, or neutral to worry about. I'm not sure if they can skip a gear or not when shifting, they are also kinda rare, would be a nice setup though.

 

That would be the old Hurst "dual-gate" aka "his-n-hers" POS.... used to come stock in alot of late 60s / early 70s muscle cars.... ANYTHING BUT "nice"... arguably THE WORST automatic shifter ever made. The single easiest shifter I know of, to shift past the right gear with, on the supposedly "ratcheting" side. That thing has single-handedly probably blown up more motors than ALL OTHER automatic shifters PUT TOGETHER. Whatever you get, if you get anything to replace your existing one, DON'T get that.

 

yea you might need to shift a little before red line because of the shift lag. unless you have a shift kit

 

Maybe, mine has worked great for, well, since you could buy a Dual/Gate 2 Console model from Jeg's or Summit.

 

I tried using my stock shifter from the 700r4 on my TH400 swap and it worked great but my car is full manual valvebody so i have to shift it. With the stock shifter its VERY easy to skip through a gear. I cant tell you how many times I been 1 to 3 or 2 to neutral I have a B&M megashifter now, ratcheting style. I like it for the upshifting in drag racing but I hate it for the street. Getting reverse/park down the drive etc is a PITA. Have to be in "D" to get it to go to park or reverse, but I can NEVER hit reverse straight from "D" so I have to slam to park then slide down to reverse. And currently the indicator doesnt line up so you think you are in 2nd when it actually is in drive. I have to adjust it if I can.

 

yea ive heard that alot about the megashifters but you CAN get it to work right. The people ive heard that have them either LOVE it or HATE it. It has a lot to do with how you place the cable it comes with, or something like that.

 

It shifts fine now, there was an issue with the cable before and now it seems to losen up. I dont mind the shifting of it, but its just abit more inconvenient than a stock shifter. I like simplicity but my car is complicated

 

So would you recommend it? i have been thinking about getting one but want to do some work on my tranny first..

 

Very true from what I've heard, basically you have to have the cable in a loop above the transmission for it to shift smoothly.

 

To me its a good shifter. The purpose of my car is mostly straight line performance so getting into reverse quickly isnt allll that important Hitting gear shifts is.

You can get used to it, but nothing beats the ease of stock shifter. If you have a regular auto shift valvebody, then you dont need a ratchet shifter IMO. Since I have to shift gears, I have no choice really. It looks ok but I want to black out the brushed aluminum/chrome look since I have no chrome on the car. Just my accessory brackets are polished but I wanted them black.

 

I still believe the stock shifter is better than most after market ones.
I've tried 4 different ones and I keep putting the stock one back in.
The worst was the dual gate Hurst=plastic JUNK!
The best one I've had was the B&M hammer that was reworked by a local transmission shop.

 

Well all you need is a good shift kit and servo and it would be just as good. You dont need a manual valve body for a rachet shifter to benefit you. Keeping the auto valve would mean you could still shift manually and hold gears to any rpm like when racing or just for fun, or you can just put it in drive and go..so you kind of get the best of both worlds if thats whats wanted.

 

I have heard manually shifting your automatic valvebody is bad for the trans...thats why they make manual valvebodies. I dont know much on transmissions but thats what i've always heard.

Given that, I manually shifted my 700r4 all day long with the 383 motor.. 6800-7000 rpm shifts are fun. Didnt hurt a thing but only put on 1600 miles

 

well i have never heard it was bad, but not sure. I'm pretty sure its not. All a shift kit is really is taking the valve body out of the transmission taking the stock springs out and replacing with the ones in the kit and some other things. Then put the valve body back in. It may be, but not to my knowledge.

 

I love my bm no problems at all. LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!

 

Good deal..so you most likely would recommend it? haha. I would like to get one for my bird but i want to put a shift kit in it first. But i also heard you have to do some cutting to the console when putting one in a firebird, but im not sure if its all that bad. So yours shifts in and out of park just fine and reverse?

 

manually upshifting is ok, a forced downshift is what can put a hurtin on the trans

 

park to reverse is slightly hard. not bad at all. other than that its great. Well yesterday i had a little microswitch problem. Reverse lights were coming on in D gear.

 

I have a B&M console ratchet shifter. It allows you to shift from each gear in sequence 1-2-3-4. then your OD for regular driving. i highly recomend you get a shift kit as well. If you notice when shifting manually now it takes .5-1 second for the tranny to shift after you have already shifted. The Shift kit shifts on a dime as soon as you slam that shifter. it really makes a difference when drag racing. I just put both kit and shifter at the same time and its greatt!!!