Shifter cable slack

[Neeraj Ahluwalia]

Hi everyone. I have heard lots on these forums about the provided shifter and cables being poorly designed.
I just installed my shifter and it has so much slack in the cables that when you are in any gear, the shifter will return back to center, and when you look down you can't tell what gear you are in.

Here's a video showing the slack:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/jZQV6osopret3Pb98

In addition the effort required to shift is very high.

I can't imagine that this is the way the shifter was intended to function.
Anyone have any ideas?

[Ajzride]

That is exactly how mine functioned, which is why I ripped it out.

[lance corsi]

That sounds about right for cables. It’s one of those things that unfortunately FFR decided not to allow for much brain time. Cables are the easy way out, but function poorly. There are alternatives. You can decide for yourself which one would work best for you. I would look at other mid engined cars for examples.

[Ajzride]

Lance and I took the hard road and made mechanical linkage, but a rear facing cable setup should be perfectly capable. The only out of the box solution I’m aware of is from zero decibel.

http://zerodecibelmotorsports.com/pr...gine-vehicles/

[Hobby Racer]

A rear facing cable shifter setup with a Zero Decibel Motorsports bell crank setup in the rear will give you a great shift feel and the shortest cables. There are many examples here on the forum in various build threads.

[aquillen]

Here is my solution. Not simple but the feel, slop (not), function on this is excellent. You'll need to follow the threads quite a ways to get all of this digested.

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/show...18-build/page3 (116)

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/show...18-build/page5 (188)

[Neeraj Ahluwalia]

Thanks everyone for the very useful information.

It seems like I have a couple options:

The Zero Decibel Motorsports shifter + bellcrank
VCP k-tuned shifter
Toyota MR2 shifter
Some other DIY method (e.g. linkage)

I will have to figure out which one of these I choose. I will probably end up going with the cheapest option as I am a 19 year-old university student on a bit of a budget.

Also, I must say everybody's build threads are such an inspiration. You guys ended up doing past what I could dream is possible with this car.
Art you are also very talented with all the custom work you have done on yours, it looks amazing. Your fiberglass clamshell transforms the look of the car.

Once again, thank you to everybody for the ideas and help.

[Ajzride]

The absolute cheapest method to achieve something usable would probably be to fabricate some cable clamps on the frame so you can run the cables from the stock shifter out the back. You would then have to make a bell crank that would invert the motion from stock, but that is pretty easy. I made my bell cranks from cheap flat bar from Lowes and a rod of delrin I bought on Amazon for $7.

[Neeraj Ahluwalia]

So if I ran the cables out of the back of the shifter, and kept the lengths the same, the shifter feel would be better?
I was always under the impression that the length of the cables was the issue.

[Ajzride]

It is, you will need shorter cables too but still cheaper than a new shifter.

[aquillen]

And the slop primarily comes from any curves in the cable routing, which adds up with each curve, because the internal cable "slaps" back/forth with push/pull in the sheath. The SeaStar Xtreme cables are some of the best with minimum slop, and can help somewhat.

[Mechie3]

The bends in the cables (and the length) is what gives it the terrible feel. Each time it bends the cable core is pushed to one side of the outer housing. When you shift, the cable first has to take up that slack and then engage the shifter. By going straight back you can use 7 or 8 foot cables (depending on routing and shifter placement) with only 2-45deg bends (vs a 180 straight off the back plus a 90 and some 45s in the stock setup). Find or make a setup that lets you use short cables and the feel will be great.