Busted shifter cable

[ronin]

Ok who has had a gear selector cable end bend on them ? Well I have the feeling I shouldn't let others test drive my car after I say drive the shit out of it and let me know what you think.....It totaly fucked up my track day with all the great people at Button Willow....couldn't get into fourth half the time...fuck......
Off to the nonLotus of South Bay in the morning to have both cables replaced for smiles.......no more test drives...

[ZJChaser]

and I never got to take you up on that test drive yet.

[Lotus F1]

Mine busted too.

[Thomas Praetzel]

As Stan the Lotus Man says, "Don't force it", not exactly sure what he was referring to though.

Aloha,
Thomas Praetzel

[Griffin]

Out of curiosity have any of you Lotus guys ever tried driving a 2000 Celica GTS and a 2002+ GTS? I'm curious which of the 2 shift patterns you guys got.

[ronin]

Patern ? It's the one that goes up and down, left and right..

[Griffin]

Toyota changed the shape of the gates in 2002 to combat all the over revs from missed shifts. The 2000-2001 Trannys have awsome gates that are like buttah - you NEVER bang a gear - you can row through and speed shift with ease. The 2-3 up shift was a fluid smooth straight motion. Same could be said for the 4-5 or downshifting from 5-4 or 3-2

The 2002+ gears are much more notchy and harder to move from gear to gear smoothly - you have a clearly defined tripple H pattern. There is a distinct 3 step forward side forward motion on the 2-3 shift and 4-5 shift. much easier to band gates and the shift cables tend to see a lot more waer due to the effort being exerted. Still almost no cable failures, but Toyota uses a more robust cable than Lotus did.

I figure if you guys have the new shift pattern that would explain the stress on the cheaper Lotus cables.

I also wonder if you guys could retrofit MR2 spyder cables.

[Bruce]

Toyota changed the shape of the gates in 2002 to combat all the over revs from missed shifts. The 2000-2001 Trannys have awsome gates that are like buttah -

That's not the one we got.

[Griffin]

Toyota changed the shape of the gates in 2002 to combat all the over revs from missed shifts. The 2000-2001 Trannys have awsome gates that are like buttah -

That's not the one we got.

so you got the crappy gates? That stinks. You can actually widen the gate mouths by increasing the chamfer on the leading edges of the blocks on the shift shafts and the nub on the selector shaft.

[Stan]

Toyota changed the shape of the gates in 2002 to combat all the over revs from missed shifts. The 2000-2001 Trannys have awsome gates that are like buttah -

That's not the one we got.

so you got the crappy gates? That stinks. You can actually widen the gate mouths by increasing the chamfer on the leading edges of the blocks on the shift shafts and the nub on the selector shaft.

I heard that all C6X series gearboxes have the present gates. Is that not the case?

[Griffin]

Toyota changed the shape of the gates in 2002 to combat all the over revs from missed shifts. The 2000-2001 Trannys have awsome gates that are like buttah -

That's not the one we got.

so you got the crappy gates? That stinks. You can actually widen the gate mouths by increasing the chamfer on the leading edges of the blocks on the shift shafts and the nub on the selector shaft.

I heard that all C6X series gearboxes have the present gates. Is that not the case?

I couldn't tell you about all of them - I do know the original C60 had very different gates than the 02-06 C60 - they were awsome but also dangerous in the hands of inexperienced drivers. I had to run the evaluation on the new gates and write a TSB for them as one of my first assignments with the Powertrain group. The new gates were terribly effective at stopping misshifts and, in my opinion, completely killed the shifting experience in the car for me.

If you want to see what changed you can see the list of parts in TC002-01

Littlerocket has the original gears in his spyder - drive it and drive one with the new gates and you will see what I mean. If you had the old gates you would know it - you can throw one from gear to gear in one single fluid motion, not a 3 part motion like the newer gates

[Stan]

Littlerocket has the original gears in his spyder - drive it and drive one with the new gates and you will see what I mean. If you had the old gates you would know it - you can throw one from gear to gear in one single fluid motion, not a 3 part motion like the newer gates

I guess the Lotus cable shifter must help, I think it's not bad at all. Have you spent much time in a Lotus?

Stan

[Griffin]

Littlerocket has the original gears in his spyder - drive it and drive one with the new gates and you will see what I mean. If you had the old gates you would know it - you can throw one from gear to gear in one single fluid motion, not a 3 part motion like the newer gates

I guess the Lotus cable shifter must help, I think it's not bad at all. Have you spent much time in a Lotus?

Stan

Nope - not enough to get a feel for the shifter anyways. I don't feel comfortable driving other peoples cars hard on the street so I tend to take a short whip around a couple of blocks and then get out. I guess its because I don't let anyone drive my car so I can't see pounding on someone elses.

The Celica cables do have a slight mushy feel to them but thats greatly improved by changing out the bushings for brass and replacing the rubber standoffs on the shifter housing from aluminum to metal. You still have the 3 part motion on the new shift gates that way but it feels more crisp and precise.

[Stan]

Nope - not enough to get a feel for the shifter anyways. I don't feel comfortable driving other peoples cars hard on the street so I tend to take a short whip around a couple of blocks and then get out. I guess its because I don't let anyone drive my car so I can't see pounding on someone elses. The Celica cables do have a slight mushy feel to them but thats greatly improved by changing out the bushings for brass and replacing the rubber standoffs on the shifter housing from aluminum to metal. You still have the 3 part motion on the new shift gates that way but it feels more crisp and precise.

Maybe part of it is clutch action too..my car up and downshifts with low lever effort and fast.

[Griffin]

Its not so much shift effort as it is wideness of gate mouths. I made a down N dirty graphic to illustrate the difference.