I really love how it feels but I'm in the process of taming down my car now making it quiet and seem like it's stock again. I can hear the transmission winding through the shifter and these weird sounds come from it. No rattling I don't think just weird alien like noises when it's in gear. I do have some dynamat could that help? The thing is I feel it through the shift **** and hear it easily during slow city driving which I never did with the stock one.

Thank you for any advise

 

The noise is probably coming from the pivot point. The Mazda shifter has plastic bushings and steel springs to isolate it from the direct vibration of the engine and trans. I'd look to see if you could modify the Pettit one and incorporate some bushings similar to stock ones.

I hear you on the modded vs. stock FD. When you drive a modded FD your like "wow" that car handles good, is fast, whatever.

Then after driving it for a while that sorta becomes the norm, then you get in a stock FD and drive it around and your like "wow, this is quick, quiet, smooth and nice to drive"...

 

Gear noise and vibration are transfered up from the tranny and to the ****, which makes a very good acoustic transducer.

The way the factory dealt with this was to isolate it [the ****] with that large captive rubber isolator and then add a high mass [heavy] ****. This effectively prevents the noise from being transmitted by the shifter.

What I did to circumvent the noise problem when I installed a short shifter was to make a hybrid by mating the lower portion of the short shifter with the top, isolated portion of the stock shifter. I did this by cutting both, then I drilled the lower portion to receive a press fit from the remaining stub of the top. I also tacked it, just for insurance.

This worked great. I have a functional short shifter with the quiet manners of the stocker. I'll check to see if I have any pics of the conversion.

 

Jeff it's my only car and I know exactly what you mean there's something about a stock correctly maintained fd. It's better in a way because it can always be transformed into a beast if it wanted to but the modified car once tampered with at all can never be like it was new. Although my car is about as modified as they get I used an approach that I call stock modifying. Not changing the systems or ideas of the factory just upgrading them with beefier parts.

Speed of light I have the stock shifter and shift **** here and I have NO clue what you did. Are you talking about the part inside the stock shift **** is what silences it? And somehow you couldnt just put the stock shift **** on the short shifter because it sits higher right? is that why you modified the shaft? I'm interested. I used to love the stock shift **** feel but it does sit too high on the short throw shifter and kinda ruins the purpose. Ive been using the greddy aluminum shift **** and Im really happy with the feel and looks!! Please let me know what you did. I also am hearing a new rattling sound now that I got my exaust leak fixed. I think its the flywheel or 6 puck clutch making its natural sound but it very well could be the rattling people talk about with the pettit short shifter.

Thanks again for the great info guys

 

Are you using anything like solid motor mounts or a diff/tranny brace or a torque brace?

I noticed no extra noise or vibration from adding the Pettit/RX-7Store short shifter (but I had stock mounts and no braces).

 

I had the same problem with the pettit shifter. I had the slot on the side of the pivot ball machined so you could put the plastic guide that the stock shifter has in it and that got rid of the noise.

 

mahjik none of those
I am using stock motor mounts and had a differential brace but decided against it. Also I have a very nice engine brace but haven't installed it yet. Do you think this would make it worse? The brace does have it's own mount it uses a gm transmission mount to go on the firewall.

007 I know it would be a pain in the *** but could you show me on this pic of the shifter what you did and how much you had milled out?

 

I'm running the Pettit shifter with the stock ****, what I did was make a few passes of electrical tape around the shaft and one or two passes aroung the threads where the **** screws on.....problem solved. Worked like a champ and its been that way for 3-4 years now.


ph yea, I also stuffed a little elec tape way up in the shift **** incase the top of the shaft touches the ****.

 

When and if you install the engine brace, your shifter rattle noise might increase.
I have the Mazdaspeed short shifter with the aluminum bushing and it vibrated ever so slightly producing a very low noise. Now after the ETB the vibration noise has been amplified.
If I put the rubber bushing, the noise is gone.

 

wait the rubber yellow/clear looking bushing on the end ball of the shifter? I have that installed. I think the flyweel sound im hearing is actually the rattling of the shifter. If thats the case I think I will go back to the stock shifter I don't think I'll tolerate that for long! And its going to get worse with the engine brace install no thanks

why cant a company such as pettit take these things into consideration especially for the price you pay it should be 20fold the quality of the stock shifter without adding several annoying sounds to ruin the ride quality of your car. im pretty annoyed with it

 

whens the last time you changed your fluid?

 

1 year

what do you suggest using to keep the transmission solid with a high hp engine?

 

Would this also be the case with an engine torque "dampner"?

 

my tq brace uses a gm transmission mount as a dampner

any more suggestions before I rip this thing out?

 

Surge ill take pictures of what i did to my shifter and post them. The pettit shifter felt too good to take back out. I also used a small amount of epoxy to glue in the first space that you have to drop in the trans for your first bushing to set on. because it was just metal on metal. After these changes i had no noise at all..

 

Heres The pic of what i did to get rid of my shifter noise.

 

hey bro nothing showed up
I can host it for you if it's too big for here pm me

 

My Gotham shifter rattled. A quality **** (Momo) reduced the rattle by 80%. This link might be of interest; it is basically Mazdatrix' shifter noise disclaimer.

http://www.mazdatrix.com/shiftrat.htm

 

Surge, What I did was mate the top half of the stock shifter (including the rubber section on the top part of the shaft & heavy ****) with the lower pivot portion of a short shifter mechanism. In so doing I raised the pivot point for short shifting while keeping the overall length (and hence ratio) about the same as the short shifter.

It is important to understand that the rubber isolator section on the stock shaft works in conjunction with stock heavy **** to form a filter that keeps higher frequency vibrations (those really annoying ones) from propagating into the cabin. This is why I went to the trouble of modifying the shifter in a manner to keep it functioning as a system. The factory encountered this problem and engineered a solution to it, might as well use it.

Anyway, I cannot find any pics of this mod, but what I did was 1.) measure everything very carefully; 2.) cut the (new) shifter off above the pivot and drill into the pivot ball to receive the shank from the stock shifter; 3.) I then cut the stock shifter off its original pivot ball below the rubber isolator with enough length to press it into the new lower pivot section (where you just drilled); 4.) Finally, join the two sections--I pressed mine together with about 1/2" insertion depth and an interference fit. I put a small weld at one point as a precaution, but the press fit takes all of the load.


So there you have it. This mod will give you the best of both worlds--short & quiet--and a side benefit is that you can rest your hand on the shifter without it going numb from vibration!!!

Let me know if you need any further clarification.
Joe