I've got a few gear stick related questions for you all:

1. The RUBBER (not the boot) surround, what does that do? mine is all cracked and crap. there was alot of oil around it too. It's got a hole in it, i can hear everything. Including a tink tink sound and all these wired squeking sounds. Does anyone know what this is?

2. The gear stick always seems to be warm, is this because it's sitting over the exhaust? It's like that in 2 fc3s's i've been in.

3. How high is the original shifter? Mine has no signs of being cut. But feels like it's had a meter chopped off it. It's really hard to shift.

4. Does anyone have any pics of the height of the original shifter? If you do can you post them please?

5. Short shifter? is it worth the money?

Thanks guys !

 

Umm.. Not a lot of help, but here goes.

When I replaced my bushings, I also changed that rubber since it was pretty hammered (the one with metal ring and bolt holes?). Even worse after taking it off to do the bushings. Mazdatrix has new ones you can order.

As for the warmth, my old 86 shifter used to be warmer than my TII gets. I would probably check to make sure you have enought gear oil down in there.

Here is a pic of my 88TII shifter. Its stock height. Sorry, best pic I have:

http://www.teamfc3s.org/forum/member...php?img_id=113

 

and can anyone help on the short shifter?

 

Short shifters rule! The faster you can change gears the sooner you'll be back on the throttle and the faster you will accellerate. How you choose to implement this is your own personal preference.

I have a hacked down stock shifter that provides for a 2" travel bumpstop to bumpstop. Thats pretty damn short for gear changing. So quick my left foot is slower than my right hand. (I need to play with the clutch adjustment)

Aftermarket or clones of them use changed geometry to provide for the shorter travel while giving you the leverage of the long shifer to help you get there.

 

Underneath the leather cowl that sits around the shifter is a series of rubber boots. These boots keep dirt, and most noticebly engine heat, from entering the car. Hot air coming from around the shifter is a good indicator that these boots need to be replaced. AFAIK, you can only get them from a dealership (no afermarket available.)
Replace the boots and you'll probably find that your shifter isn't so hot anymore since it's no longer being heated by engine air.

Hard to shift? Two fixes come to mind.
- put Redline MT-90 (not MTL) in the tranny. It's magical stuff.
- replace your shifter bushings. You can get a complete (upper and lower) set from www.mazdatrix.com and the site even has a video you can dl showing how to install them...

 

I presume your last ride was a truck.

In general - the sportier the car, the shorter the shift.

The biggest single improvement you can make to an RX-7 transmission is switch to synthetic gear oil.