Quote:
Originally Posted by endur0
Bumping this thread as I just installed one in mine. Have a couple comments. Use my suggestions at your own risk.
Bought a 2021 version directly from CAE. The holes pattern in my shifter is different than in the OP; there are now five bolts and the shifter now installs without any drilling, though you do have to trim the console. It uses previously unused holes which I'm guessing are in place for a DCT or other variant. It now has screws which are driven from below and which thread into the upper base of the shifter.
Mine came with a trick looking 2 piece DSSR from CAE, this rod includes a replacement for the gear selector rod.
For my car, the OEM gear selector rod dowel pin exits only toward the ground, the part is such that you can not press it up toward the firewall. It took a decent amount of force to get it out, so it also took a while to determine the correct direction to push. Hammering wasn't necessary; I used a 5mm allen wrench and good hand position in order to get sufficient force on it.
I need to check with CAE, but the only way I could get mine to not interfere with its mounting plate when selecting reverse was to have the shifter shaft leaning a few degrees to the right when in the zero position (3-4). Otherwise, the DSSR would interfere with bottom plate when selecting reverse. For a left hand drive car, this moves the shifter a >2 inches away from the steering wheel compared with a vertical zero, something I didn't want. Would be great for those who drive on the wrong side of the road. Unless I found I made a stupid mistake, I will grind some material out of the bottom plate to enable me to move the shaft to a vertical 3-4 position.
First thoughts after installation:
- Throws are extremely precise, it will be difficult to miss a gear with this one. Feel is excellent.
- The shifter is a very good antenna for transmission noises. It's very loud in certain RPM, gear selected, and load conditions, in others it's pretty quiet. Several resonances and modes. This is good and bad depending on your taste and objectives.
- Be sure to cut the cross brace in the lower console trim before installing the shifter. Not much room to work if you try to do it after installing. Leaving this piece complicates setting the zero point for the centering spring.
- Aligning the zero point for the centering spring is very annoying. The spring screw and its plate bind and have to be finessed, and it's helpful to mark the DSSR shaft with a fine pencil so you can see what adjustments have been made.
- As currently adjusted, the right tilt of the shift pattern means the shifter isn't necessarily much closer to the steering wheel than OEM, the pattern is now just higher up. As indicated above, I will likely grind material out of the bottom plate to allow more desirable placement.
- Looks bad ass.
I will report back if readjusting things changes any of the above.
Whether or not this is for you very much depends on your goals with this mod.
My goals are very precise shifts with a positive feel and good placement, and I'm fine with racecar type NVH. So except for the position, I'm really liking it so far.
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Just chiming in for anyone else who happens to get a 2021+ CAE Shifter for our cars.
The installation was straight forward, however, aligning everything was an extreme pain.
* The bottom mounting plate needs to be grinded down or else it'll make direct contact with the shifter rod when going into Reverse.
* As mentioned above - the DSSR forks needs to be PERFECTLY aligned dead center with the transmission or else it'll bind and cause you to have issues engaging Reverse. Took almost 3 hours of going back and forth between realigning and double checking gear engagement. With the limited space down below it's extremely difficult to see that the forks are perfectly aligned so it was a lot of guessing based off "feel".
* Once adjustments are made - the DSSR adjuster screw/bolt needs to be torqued down to the point where it will not twist the shaft. How I knew it was twisting was that my dead center mark/notch I made on the DSSR shaft was getting misaligned after rowing through gears.
Going past all the negatives - the shifter feels fantastic! Having upgraded from an RTD v4 shifter previously - this is a huge improvement in regards to shifting "feel" and build quality.