A friend of mine who is a mechanical engineer has access to a CNC machine and is going to be creating a prototype shifter that uses the stock shifter but is gated like the Cheetah. For a 200-4r, you would be able to manually shift your car without worrying about pushing the shifter too far forward. Here's how it will work:
Pull the shifter through the gate back to 1. Slide forward (or slam forward if you'd like while racing) until it stops and that is 2nd. To shift to third, the shifter arm will pivot to the right slightly, then you can slam it all the way forward which is 3rd. To shift out of third, you would need to pivot the shifter back to the left and move forward. For those of you who have seen a Cheetah shifter, it would work exactly like the Cheetah from 1st to 3rd for racing. P-OD would function exactly as it did from the factory, so you would have the best of both worlds.
We would be making a setup for the TH350 and 400 also, if there was enough interest in being able to use a gated stock shifter with a different trans.
The only other thing that might need to be modified would be the console overlay (depending on how far the shifter would need to pivot side to side and see if there is enough room on a stock overlay). We will probably mock one up and talk with someone like Mark Hueffman to see if he could produce a nice overlay from the modified one we make (if needed). The goal is to make the pivot small enough so that the overlay would not need to be modified keeping the cost down and the car would remain stock appearing.
Right now I really dont know what kind of price this would be if we went through and made it. More than likely it will be on an exchange basis (requiring you to send your stock shifter and console overlay-if needed).
I would like opinions from you guys on a few things:
1) Would there be much interest in this?
2) What would be a fair price to pay?
3) What trans would you purchase this for?
Thanks for any replies and feedback (positive or neggative welcome). The prototype will more than likely start being worked on in the next month or two, so pictures are out of the question right now. I might photoshop a picture I have of a stock overlay so you can see what it would look like when done.
Pull the shifter through the gate back to 1. Slide forward (or slam forward if you'd like while racing) until it stops and that is 2nd. To shift to third, the shifter arm will pivot to the right slightly, then you can slam it all the way forward which is 3rd. To shift out of third, you would need to pivot the shifter back to the left and move forward. For those of you who have seen a Cheetah shifter, it would work exactly like the Cheetah from 1st to 3rd for racing. P-OD would function exactly as it did from the factory, so you would have the best of both worlds.
We would be making a setup for the TH350 and 400 also, if there was enough interest in being able to use a gated stock shifter with a different trans.
The only other thing that might need to be modified would be the console overlay (depending on how far the shifter would need to pivot side to side and see if there is enough room on a stock overlay). We will probably mock one up and talk with someone like Mark Hueffman to see if he could produce a nice overlay from the modified one we make (if needed). The goal is to make the pivot small enough so that the overlay would not need to be modified keeping the cost down and the car would remain stock appearing.
Right now I really dont know what kind of price this would be if we went through and made it. More than likely it will be on an exchange basis (requiring you to send your stock shifter and console overlay-if needed).
I would like opinions from you guys on a few things:
1) Would there be much interest in this?
2) What would be a fair price to pay?
3) What trans would you purchase this for?
Thanks for any replies and feedback (positive or neggative welcome). The prototype will more than likely start being worked on in the next month or two, so pictures are out of the question right now. I might photoshop a picture I have of a stock overlay so you can see what it would look like when done.
