Hi guys,

Yet another PDK Q

I find the lever direction, forward upshift, back downshift, to be reversed from what my brain expects. (Think of braking and downshifting, pushing forward is more natural, or kinda like doing a 4 -> 3 downshift in a manual)

Is it possible to reverse the wire connections?

Cheers.

 

I don't think anyone has experimented with this yet. There was another thread opened with the same question.

I can see someone messing this up and taking it to the dealer and they say you need a whole new PDK.....even though you just messed up a $10 part that is not sold separately.

 

pony up the cash and do it right

 

This. For less than 1k (keep checking the classifieds here) you can have a proper paddle wheel.

 

Think of braking... braking is push forward and so is accelerating, thus no correlation with shifting direction.

Think of downshifting... 5th to 4th and 3rd to 2nd (on a conventional not dog leg H-pattern)

It's all conventional and in one's mind. I find the original Porsche interface upshift with a forward push and downshift with a reverse pull more natural than the reverse. The redundant buttons are far more useful than the conventional paddles. I have both systems and proficient without limitations in either, but always felt the Porsche system is superior. And incidentally... other brands have the same scheme too.

For those with a me-too paddle system and +pull -push in one car and the original Porsche PDK in another, I encourage you to be proficient on both - teach your brain to control either, instead of taking the most traveled path and succumb to mediocrity and cerebral sclerosis.

 

Until you get the hang of it, just picture in your mind the whole shifter mechanisn as being mounted vertically. That way UP would be Upshift and DOWN for Downshift.

 

I disagree. When you are braking, your entire body is pushed forwards and when you are accelerating your entire body is pushed backwards. To me (and I know I'm not alone in this one) it feels unnatural for your hand to push the lever forward when the rest of your body is being pushed backwards.

Every single racing car that I've seen that has a sequential (non-paddle) gearbox, uses the push forward to shift down and pull backwards to shift up method.

At the end of the day it doesn't bother me either way since my car is a manual and I will not be getting an auto in the foreseeable future

Carry on...

 

When I said that "braking is push forward and so is accelerating" I was clearly referring to pedal actuation not related dynamic forces. And I doubt dynamic forces play any role on our 1G cars. Now... on a 6G F1 sure.

So in a manual car you only downshift to 1st 3rd or 5th (and that is coming from an even cog) as those are the only cogs where downshifting is along your preferred dynamic force direction? Forget 3rd to 2nd or 5th to 4th as those are unnatural downshifts demanding enormous anti-g forces (in a braking dynamic force sense).

 

Close the thread. Best advice you're gonna get.
I purposely didn't learn those accursed buttons, because I didn't want to retrain my muscle memory from my other cars that have paddles. But, then again, I'm the old dog who would prefer not to learn a new truck. Once my 997.2S is outta warranty, I'll do the upgrade...T

 

I wasn't really sure what he meant by "pony up the cash". Initially I thought that meant swapping to a manual car. Anyway, I have paddle shifters and would still like to swap the direction for the hand shifter.

 

Never driven a PDK or equivalent, but even the up and down paddles seem backwards to me.

 

I read somewhere Porsche is finally gonna reverse it on the new cars, like all other cars in the industry.

 

Short answer - No


The PDK shifter is connected to the gearbox over the CAN bus, so the shifter is sending a 'shift up', 'shift down' encoded message rather than a pulse signal down a wire. To make things harder the shifter uses sensors and a microswitch to determine the position of the lever (P-R-N-D or +/-) so if you take it apart and change the sensor wires over you'll reverse the P-R-N-D changes as well.


So you are left with reprogramming the processor (beyond my capabilities) or seeing if the later GT3 shifter will fit - I believe this is possible as someone on here paid the dealer to do it but you're looking at $$$ for an OEM GT3 shifter from a later model year.


Your options are 1 - Paddle shift steering wheel or 2- rewire the steering wheel buttons to reverse the shifting direction, which is possible as that does just send a signal don the wire. Search and there are threads on how to do it - you have to take steering wheel apart though...downside is steering wheel and shift lever will work in opposite directions.... :-(




Hope this helps....


TJ

 

The steering wheel fix is almost a perfect fix. Column mounted paddles would be the perfect fix.

I agree though...shifter should be pull back towards the rear for upshifts and push forward for downshifts.

Paddles should be right upshift, left downshift. Never seen it down the other way.

 

If the shifter uses microswitches to detect + and -, then it should be swappable... just swap the wires to them...