Short Shifter Install
- Thread starter Racebrewer
- Start date
They're working on it. I'm glad I didn't drill another hole in my shifter arm. If Corksport is like any other business, they will most likely not accept an exchange for the revised part if you destroyed it by drilling a hole in it. This is why I let CS do the engineering for me. Granted, you most likely will not have to exchange your part if you drilled a second hole in it, but I care about resale value.
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Or you could just bend the plate a little more and be good to go. I've found when it comes to aftermarket car parts, they all don't fit perfect. And if you don't feel comfortable making small changes on your own (or letting a shop help you out) then you will either rarely be happy with your parts, or run into trouble when then fail due to improper fittment.
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Really?
I've never had to make any adjustments (other than ones that were built into the product) to any parts that I have installed. And I've installed quite a few. I've worked on an RX-8 built for BSP, and a miata built for STS.
I don't know about you guys but I like to do things right the first time. Even though I race my car for 60-80 seconds at a time, I'm still racing and my parts need to be built to that specification. If I need to bend something and weaken a part, its not for me.
Sorry, but I have a high level of detail with my cars and zip-tieing, drilling, bending, unless stated in the instructions on an aftermarket part is a NO-GO. If I wanted to jerry-rig parts I'd buy a LeMons car.
For the record, I installed mine 2 Weeks ago and have had zero problems. The plate sat perfectly flush from the minute it was installed so there must be some variation in the cars. And for those who the plate doesnt fit a few minutes and some zip ties does the trick. I actually added them just for precaution.
It's all about the quality of parts you buy, for the most part. $40 ebay parts are a 50/50 shot if they fit as well as their $200 equivalent. IMO, it's not worth buying a part unless it is perfect, otherwise I'd just make it myself.
I don't want to beat up on Corksport, I think they do a great job of servicing the community and come out with some good parts, but designing this with only 1 hard anchor point wasn't the best decision.
Yes, really. Apparently you've been getting lucky. How do you think the plate was made in the 1st place? They cut out a peice of metal, and then they bent it. Making a slight change to the angle of a bend on a part like this will not adversely affect it, unless you bent it back and forth a bunch of times. And I guarantee you that you are the minority of racers...I've been modifying and racing cars for about 14 years and I have changed and modified so many parts I've installed that it just seems normal.
Yes, the part doesn't fit properly straight out of the box, but its pretty close and only needed minor adjustment. Sure a 100% perfect fit on all our cars would be nice...but its not a perfect world, and we are only human.
I hear you, I'm okay with making minor adjustments... but because this is my daily driver as well as my weekend autocross/future HPDE car, I'm going for reliability first and foremost, with resale value second. I don't want to be driving a 2 in STF forever, and I don't want to be wrenching when I should be on track.
In some cases I'd agree with you. If, for example, my coil overs didn't fit quite right, I wouldn't be drilling holes or filing things down. If my clutch kit hadn't been quite the right fit, I'm pretty sure i wouldn't be drilling my flywheel to make it work.
However, keeping in the context of this thread (and to a certain extent in general), I think that a person's level of tweaking, modifying and jury-rigging is usually dictated by their comfort and knowledge level. I'm fairly mechanically inclined (being that i do some metal fabricating for my own business), and when I noticed the failure in the plate I had two options... Wait potentially weeks (as has been my experience before with CS) for a new part to be engineered and come back to me, or take 10 minutes with the car already mostly apart and drill a perfectly safe and secure hole and mount a solid appropriately graded bolt for the job and be off and running. For a $50 part I chose to enjoy it right away. As far as the bend is concerned, unless they used a particularly brittle steel, (or made it out of cast or aluminium) a small bend in a piece of already bend/stamped steel isn't going affect it at all.
I had no intention of returning it to CS, however my experience with CS would lead me to believe that in this situation I could reasonably expect that they might anyway, they're generally pretty good like that..
I also like things done right the first time and i take a great deal of care with my car modifications, as i do with ANY work that I do. If I don't feel that I can do something right, I don't do it. (Thats why half my installs were done by a proper mechanic, and half were done by me: I know my limits and i want things done right) I take some small offence to the implication that I (or anyone else on here) would approach things otherwise, simply because I was willing to properly modify a part to work better and more reliably on my car. To be fair, if you're going to mod, you need to expect that sometimes a bit of "beat to fit, paint to match" is going to be required. If you don't accept that as reality then you really shouldn't be modding afaic.
For the record I have been in contact with CS and sent them pictures of both my failure and my fix and they were quite happy with my fix, so I'm satisfied that the manufacturer is cool with what I've done.
However, keeping in the context of this thread (and to a certain extent in general), I think that a person's level of tweaking, modifying and jury-rigging is usually dictated by their comfort and knowledge level. I'm fairly mechanically inclined (being that i do some metal fabricating for my own business), and when I noticed the failure in the plate I had two options... Wait potentially weeks (as has been my experience before with CS) for a new part to be engineered and come back to me, or take 10 minutes with the car already mostly apart and drill a perfectly safe and secure hole and mount a solid appropriately graded bolt for the job and be off and running. For a $50 part I chose to enjoy it right away. As far as the bend is concerned, unless they used a particularly brittle steel, (or made it out of cast or aluminium) a small bend in a piece of already bend/stamped steel isn't going affect it at all.
I had no intention of returning it to CS, however my experience with CS would lead me to believe that in this situation I could reasonably expect that they might anyway, they're generally pretty good like that..
I also like things done right the first time and i take a great deal of care with my car modifications, as i do with ANY work that I do. If I don't feel that I can do something right, I don't do it. (Thats why half my installs were done by a proper mechanic, and half were done by me: I know my limits and i want things done right) I take some small offence to the implication that I (or anyone else on here) would approach things otherwise, simply because I was willing to properly modify a part to work better and more reliably on my car. To be fair, if you're going to mod, you need to expect that sometimes a bit of "beat to fit, paint to match" is going to be required. If you don't accept that as reality then you really shouldn't be modding afaic.
For the record I have been in contact with CS and sent them pictures of both my failure and my fix and they were quite happy with my fix, so I'm satisfied that the manufacturer is cool with what I've done.
kcdirtbro54
Member
- :
- mazda2
Glad I read some more of this thread before putting in an order. I'll be standing by to make sure the "fix" works.
Installed.. took somebodys earlier recommendation on the hose clamp instead of zip ties. The zip ties wouldnt last a week here in texas. I was a bit worried that the metal might interpere with something but it seems to clear everything ok. Anybody see any possible failures with this? If so I may have to drill.
The shifts are stiff.. about 3x stiffer but more solid and a lot shorter than I thought. I like it and the hose clamp gives me piece of mind. I tried lifting on the end of the arm prior to installing the hose clamp and I could see how easy the arm could slip off the old ball joint disc thingy. After the clamp it absolutely would not budge. No drilling and clamped solid. If corksport includes this little hose clamp I think it would work. I.ll update if I have a fail.
Okay, so my order just went through for the short shifter, after being held for a while. I wonder if someone from Corksport will be explaining the fix on here, or maybe just emails to the people who got the "older" style.
Either way, I'm excited to get my new parts.
Either way, I'm excited to get my new parts.
algoesfast
Member
- :
- Mazda 2 sport red
Your going to love it. I can't live without it.
