I bought my car 6 months ago and was not wild about the shift linkage. I considered the short shift kit but was a little concerned about difficulties when cold. I considered aftermarket but was not comfortable with those options.
Howard Gilson at Gilson Motorsport in Troy suggested the GT3 shifter and let me play with the one on his Boxster. He thought the metal bushings were better than the plastic oem/short shift bushings. He installed the GT3 shifter last week and I love it. The shifts are much more direct, tighter and have an almost gated feeling. It is fine when cold. It feels a little shorter shifting than the OEM linkage and it is overall a significant improvement.
I had Howard put clear side lights on while it was there and that is a significant cosmetic improvement.

 

What did they charge for this? Did he sell you a new or used unit?

I paid about $500 for the normally $700 Numeric (demo, not all anodized black). I did my own installation.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

 

He orders from Suncoast and charges their retail. It was $430 plus 1.5 hours labor. Well worth it.

 

I was told that the Numeric shifter can be difficult to get into reverse. Your comments?

Thanks!

 

this is very true on mine... not impossible, but very high resistance detent

 

Coupla comments:

1 - The shifter, regardless of brand, has no detents.
2 - A "short" shifter will naturally require more effort due to the removal of leverage
3 - Reverse is the gear requiring the most effort due to the spring (in the transmission) requiring you to push harder

So......

Biggest misconception about shifters including the cable adjustment under them, regardless of brand, is that they are responsible in some way for shifting performance such as notchyness or grinding. They are not. They are a floppy system... there are no detents, springs, or anything. The cable adjustment is merely to stand the shifter up straight in neutral. The cables are slack when in position and put no pressures on the transmission until moving position. The transmission provides the springs, the "detents" and knows nothing of the upstream system moving its two levers. When you are in say 2nd, the shifter and cables are slack and held there by the internals of the transmission holding the cables and shifter steady. This is oposite of what you would think given our brains were programmed tweaking bicycles. All the experiences we feel, except for effort, are in the transmission.

Another misconception is about cables. They are not like bicycle cables where they hold tension and are floppy when slack. These cables are "flexible rods" and push as well as pull. When you move to forward to 1st for example, the cables are actually pushing a lever on the transmission. Move left-right, you move one cable in out, move forward back, you move another cable in out. Move in an arc, you will move both cables simultaneously and you may have notchy shifting performance.

Alternative shifters and cables are for feel only.

Specific to the Numeric shifter, it has three alt positions. I use the stock Porsche position as I tried a short shifter and just don't get why people like it. For me, there was no advantage and it requires more work. To each his own.

To be fair to others, there are folks here to swear adjusting cables and swapping shifters effect notchyness and other evils. I suspect doing this work changes your shifting behaviour making you shift more precisely such as in direct left-right front-back motions that move one cable at a time. As I already noted, moving your shifter in an arc may cause jamming up (especially if your fluid is old and or not the Porsche recommended PTX).

Peace
Bruce in Philly

 

no doubt bruce is correct... my comment about the notchiness and hard detent feeling is in the overall feel i experienced with the shifter in place in actualy use (with stock cables)...no doubt the shifter itself is just transmitting a feel from the rest of the linkage...the wrist bone connects to the arm bone, which connects the elbow bone... LOL

 

I also believe the cables were adjusted during installation and gave a tighter feeling.

 

The cables can not be "tightened" like a bicycle cable. They are always slack. There is nothing to tighten against. If there is wiggle, then it comes from the following:

1 - Slop inside the transmission - nothing can be done that I know of
2 - Looseness in the pivots of the shifter - I don't believe you can improve this, I examined my stock shifter pretty closely after I pulled it, and it is all snap assembled... no nuts to tighten
3 - Loseness where the cable ends, the snap/***** attache to the shifter and back at the transmission levers - these were snaps so again, nothing to tighten
4 - The levers at the transmission - I have heard a few folks replace these on high-mileage cars.

If you want to tighten things up, the only way I know how to do it is to replace the shifter, the cables, and maybe the lever assembly at the transmission with new or tighter aftermarket products.

If they really did tighten things up, I would be interested in how they did it. Not saying you are wrong, I just don't know how to do that.

Tonight when I get home, I will pull my original shifter from my shelf and take a closer look at it. If I am wrong and there is an adjustment on it, I will report back.

Update: I looked the unit over pretty good and it is virtually all snap-together plastic. There is one plate with four screws, but it is not an adjustment. The whole thing is pretty much plastic and metal ball-socket affair with snap-together construction. I am sure they did something to change the feel, but I can't figure out how they did it.... maybe back at the transmission.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

 

There's no adjustment but adjusting the shifting positions which you need a Porsche guide for. That helped my shifting, but nothing else can be done as Bruce said.

 

damn good write up bruce, and spot on. yeah, i have a bit of notchy (mostly when cold) and as much as i always used to hope it was the easily swappable shifter, i know it's the trans. however i do have a little wiggle in the OEM shifter so i think i will upgrade to GT model sooner or later.