Does cable shifting take away the precise feeling and if so, why didn't the GT3 ever have a rod shifter? Even the Euro Mk1 996 GT3 (1999), which was built in the motorsport dept, had a cable shifter...LOL. The last Porsche that had a rod shifter was the 993. The Q is why?

 

I am using the cup car shifter cables lot more positive !

 

I think it has to do with the actual transmission design. 993 were descendants of the 911 and 356. The trans design in those cars lend itself for a rod shifter. The actual connection to the shift mechanism on the trans is located at the end of the trans, so it was easy to run a rod from the shifter assembly. On the newer cars (996 on), the attachment point to the gear changing mechanism, is located on the side of the tranny. It is much easier to use a cable assembly to connected to the lever. BTW, the 911 with the 915 trans had a lot of slop in the shifter assembly also. Hope this helps... Lou

 

According to various websites, the GT3 gearbox was derived from the 993 GT2 (G50.53) - same crown wheel & pinion, same gears, same diff, but different casing because they wanted shifter cables instead. Another reason for casing redesign was different mounting points. But I don't see why they didn't just use the 993 GT2 gearbox though. That would have been awesome, wouldn't it?

 

I believe one goal was to reduce the transmission of engine/gearbox vibrations into the passenger compartment. I imagine as well that assembly is quicker and easier and therefore cheaper.

 

Another reason would be to easily decouple the effects of acceleration (in all axis) of the engine/transmission relative to the chassis from the shifter and shift points, as the cable lengths do not change even if the anchor points move relative to each other. This is how bicycle brake cables, or manual clutch cables work, for those that are familiar with said designs.

The 996 shifter has outstanding feel in my opinion, and certainly better than previous Porsches. To me it's preferable over Miata and S2000 shifters, but I guess "feel" is a bit subjective. Of course I'm used to much older Porsches, so a 993 or any of the above is pretty nice to me!

 

Didn't the first gen of 996 cup have rods instead of cable shifters??

like this one...

 

Wow thanks for the pic. I have some Cup car manuals but not as early as that (the earliest I've got is 2003) so I had no idea. However, that rod is awful. You are not supposed to run bent tubes in shift linkages. No wonder why they decided to run cables instead -- because there was no room for straight tubes! Thanks for the heads up.

 

The 944 series had a single bent rod linkage as well, indeed not a good design for several reasons. They actually used steel in that car, even in the turbo S, a glaring shortcoming... Anyway, I did not think that the 996 series cars ever had them. The MKII cup cars have cable, and I *believe* all street 996 variants also used cables...

 

Yep, 98 & 99 cup's had the rod linkage....

 

Cup cables and 997 gt3 shifter mech make a meaningful difference, although I actually discovered that after doing that, the problem I was having with my shifting was the release bearing and clutch fork. Now they are done its great.

 

98/99 GT3 Cup Gear box for sale on ebay with rod shifter under race parts.