Shifty Work

What makes a car your own? Purchase? Polish? Customization?

All of the above I think.

So to that end, I got to watch / help as my GTS Chronicles Cayman buddy installed the shifter assembly from the GT4 in his GTS.

It's a bit of a nerve-wracking project at first, as one has to 'unsnap' various (expensive) trim pieces in order to access the necessary components to remove and replace. It took a bit of force and elbow grease to get some of them to budge, but in the end, he accomplished that whole task.

Things do certainly fit together well, with a high-quality feel to everything. The modularity is impressive too, as you pop out the radio, the climate control unit, console buttons and such.

The end result is a shifter that sits just shy of an inch shorter than stock, without changing the aesthetic. Sure, you can change to aftermarket shift knobs that achieve the same result with less effort, but they don't look and feel stock.

The benefit of doing it this way is, if you like your stock shifter, you retain it. It just sits a bit lower and this shortens the shift throw distance a bit.

Took it out for a little drive and ran through a few hundred gear shifts just to make sure :-)

Feels good. Looks good. 

One of the benefits of having my Cayman test-mule buddy - he tries things out and then I get to see if I want something similar, since our cars are essentially identical (apart from the roof obviously).

This mod...I just might have to try it. 

~ Luke