OP
Thread Starter
#41
Thread Starter
#41
My thoughts on the Shifter as I installed it yesterday morning and had a solid day hooning around town doing errands.
The Throws are significantly shorter. I already had the adapter plate installed before hand, but with the shifter they seemed to decrease by another 30-40%. Shifts into the even gears "towards the rear" seem more solid now. With the old shifter it seemed like shifter would fall into each gate, now with this upgraded one, I have to pull the shifter into the gate. The installation was not difficult at all. It took me about 60 minutes from start to finish, carefully reading the color printed instructions. The only step that took a while was removing the "U" shaped copper pin from the shaft that holds the shifter to the base. The shifter bends a bit more towards the rear of the vehicle which enables me to more comfortably rest my elbow while shifting gears. Overall the shifter in constructed very nicely and offers an amazing tangible experience.
My Gripe.
The PRICE. I think $230 is too much to justify this piece. If I had to do it all over again I would have saved myself the money and just kept my setup as is with the boomba adapter plate on the transmission. I don't think that the extra reduction in throw is worth the extra $230 + another $16 for shipping and handling. For $230 I would expect a whole shifter box with base included like the kits that buddy club sells. They sell theirs for half the cost of the Boomba price.
The Boomba piece is nice and is beautifully machined which may warrant the price, but I feel is a bit too steep.
Overall I am happy with the performance of the piece, although I do have the some bit of buyers remorse because of the price. I paid $270 for this and the base bushings shipped.
The Throws are significantly shorter. I already had the adapter plate installed before hand, but with the shifter they seemed to decrease by another 30-40%. Shifts into the even gears "towards the rear" seem more solid now. With the old shifter it seemed like shifter would fall into each gate, now with this upgraded one, I have to pull the shifter into the gate. The installation was not difficult at all. It took me about 60 minutes from start to finish, carefully reading the color printed instructions. The only step that took a while was removing the "U" shaped copper pin from the shaft that holds the shifter to the base. The shifter bends a bit more towards the rear of the vehicle which enables me to more comfortably rest my elbow while shifting gears. Overall the shifter in constructed very nicely and offers an amazing tangible experience.
My Gripe.
The PRICE. I think $230 is too much to justify this piece. If I had to do it all over again I would have saved myself the money and just kept my setup as is with the boomba adapter plate on the transmission. I don't think that the extra reduction in throw is worth the extra $230 + another $16 for shipping and handling. For $230 I would expect a whole shifter box with base included like the kits that buddy club sells. They sell theirs for half the cost of the Boomba price.
The Boomba piece is nice and is beautifully machined which may warrant the price, but I feel is a bit too steep.
Overall I am happy with the performance of the piece, although I do have the some bit of buyers remorse because of the price. I paid $270 for this and the base bushings shipped.
While we can understand your concern with price, there is a reason why no one else makes a short shifter for this car. A lot of engineering went into this piece (about twice as much as our Focus short throw) and there is a lot on the design side that made production challenging. If you haven't noticed yet, there are no other short shift lever options for this car simply because of the fact that the piece is very difficult to engineer. I'm not sure what you were referring to about Buddy Club, but they do not make a shifter for the Fiesta so comparing their Civic short throw to our Fiesta one is really comparing apples to oranges.
