Spent a few hours today installing my B&M Megashifter into my 92 RS. Install went pretty smooth, adjusting the switches on the shifter to get it to start properly and keep the reverse lights off took longer than I expected. But all else is great!

But I do have two things...

I've read all over this site that these shifters are really hard to pull out of park into any other gear. A lot of people even have to use two hands to do so. But mine comes out of park with ease, just as easily as any other gear on the shifter. Is this just luck? Or are other people exaggerating a bit on how stiff this is?

The second things is that when I'm shifting manually from 1st to drive it works fine. Except 1st gear will still automatically shift itself into second gear despite me not moving the shifter itself. What can cause this? Do I not have my cable installed 100% correctly? Or is this supposed to happen so that the transmission does not become damage from me reving to high in that gear??

 

I re-adjusted the shift cable and it works perfectly. And with the easy shifting out of park, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

I have a mega shifter also. The reason most of them shift very hard is because where the cable bolts to that bracket in the front of the bracket is too low to the floor and binds the cable where it bends. I modified mine to raise the cable up about a half inch and readjusted the cable and now mine shifts very easy vs very hard. You are lucky that you did not have to modify anything to get it that way.

 

The only thing that I did differently than from the instructions, was that I pushed back the rear mounting bracket a little less than half an inch farther back. Maybe that gave it a little bit extra room for the cable? Not sure but it works great, I'm lovin' it!

 

I need to adjust on my cable, It is hard to shift, and I have to slam the shifter into first.

Also it shifts from 1st to 2nd automatically without a shiftkit iirc

 

After I adjusted my cable again it no longer shifts from 1st to 2nd on it's own. I had to much pressure pushing forward on the cable and when I got into a higher RPM in 1st gear. It caused the cable to push just hard enough on the shifter arm to push it into 2nd gear.

So I just re-adjusted and presto! All issues are fixed and it shifts nice and smooth through all the gears with no problems.

 

I just bought one of these today, any way you could give me some tips on installing this thing. I'm not much of an automatic trans. Genius...

 

I need help, I'm completely lost on how to install this thing. Do I cut this purple wire? It says connect both ends of the cut wire to the switch. But there's only one end, right?

 

wanna know too ^^ before i buy

 

He directions weren't very clear and I wasnt notified to buy some relay for it, so what I did was took the selector switch from the stock shifter and sliced the purple wire with the relay on the b&m and now it works fine. But it takes up too much room in the center console so I need to figure out how to wire it right. And it only shifts down to 2nd, can't get it into first so I need to adjust the linkage tomorrow as well.

 

Any problems with moving the shifter between gears, is caused by the cable being incorrectly adjusted or kinking. That is why not everyone has problems with that. The only thing the ratchet shifter does, is prevent you from accidentily skipping gears, as each time you move it it hits a stop, and you have to let off of it for it to reset before it will move into the next gear. It is an automatic transmission, without a shift kit, or valvebody, or directly modifying it to hold gear, it will not hold gear to what the shifter is at, other than park, neutral or reverse.
As for the wires, there are 4-6, I think not all cars have 2 of them, the 2 it might not have are for TCC lockout so the car doesn't stallout when put in gear(though this won't generally happen even without it) the other 4 are for the NSS and reverse lights, you should have, and if not, have to buy two microswitches to connect the 4 wires to. The other 2 you can either get some other relay type thing for, leave be, or wire to a toggle switch if you want.
You have to cut all of the wires that go to the thing that kind of looks like an ammo mag, And rewire to the microswitches. And fyi, the microswitches for some reason don't come with the right gauge crimp terminal connectors for 1 or 2 of the wires for some reason. Last but not least, the directions are on B&M's website, as with most things, they won't really make a whole lot of sense, till you have everything in front of you and can actually see what's what.

 

The shifter itself can shift all the way into 1st but the transmission doesn't, that's why I need to adjust the linkage to the trans. Then all will be good, except for the wiring, the b&m came with two little switches that attach to it. I connected the purple wire to it, not sure about the back up light either.

 

my buddy has that shifter and i cannot stand it, too hard to shift, then again it's an automatic so no shifter will improve that

 

Idk why people constantly rage about them being too hard to shift, again, they shift just fine when installed right...if its hard to shift the cable isn't adjusted properly.

 

^^ thats what i keep reading..makes sense

 

I'll concede that they can be quite tricky and temperamental, mine I got used and it was in a 1st gen I think, well I didn't have all the parts so had to retrofit it to use my stock cable(plus I was on a budget, and my stock cable works fine, so if it aint broke don't fix it...even if I had money floating around would be hesitant to spend it on a $50 cable that may or may not be harder to get to play nice. Long story short I don't have as minute an amount of adjustment in my cable as I would like due to the way I have the bracket mounted, I couldn't quite get it perfect, it shifts into every gear fine, but wants to pull out of reverse into neutral, which isn't a huge deal, and it wouldn't pull out of it unless bumped, though it is slightly annoying, if I adjusted it elsewhere, it caused issues with being able to shift in almost all of the gears, and even not reaching some, though I imagine the proper setup has a bit more range of adjustability in it.

 

My battery keeps dieing ever since I put it on there. I think its the way I wired theconnector on the shifter. What is this radioshack fuse box im supposed to get? What I did was wired the stock gear selector switch to the one lower switch on the b&M shifter. I know for sure its not wired right but Ineeded it to start so I could get to work and didn't have time to fix it. Someone please help me

 

installation took longer than expected and I do get my reverse lights randomly coming on at sometimes when im upshifting, most times at the racetrack. but overall its a good product and not that hard to install.

 

The problem I had with the reverse lights coming on was from pulling the shifter to the side. Mostly coing around left hand turns. Actually got pulled over one night because of this. Somthing to think about.

As for the hard shifting, its all in the cable adjustment. If its a new shifter it needs a little time to break in, maybe a week of normal use, then re-adjust if necessary. Had mine for about 7 years, still love it.

<-- post 666

 

If the reverse lights are kicking on, you just need to tweak that metal tang on the switch a tad, just don't overdo it and break/damage it.

 

Sorry to bump a old thread, but what's so great about the megashifter vs. the stock shifter? beside the way it looks?

 

Mostly for manually shifting, without fear of skipping a gear, most effective when used with a shift kit/built transmission.

 

be nice to have hurst make the lighting rods for the 3rd gens

 

I daily drive my Z with a B&M megashifter and a full manual valvebody. Some people like it and other people want every aspect of their car to be as smooth as a cadillac.

The masculine feel isn't for everyone

 

I prefer gate shifters over ratchet shifters.


I have a megashifter in my second gen, shifts smooth, just like everyone says, its all about proper installation. But, I do plan to replace it with a Pro stick.