B&M employee seeking feedback on shifter
wooooo woooooooooo
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 3,134
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From: Twin Cities
Originally posted by westcoaststyle
Did you just say that we have FF cars?? Them's fightin' werds!!!
Did you just say that we have FF cars?? Them's fightin' werds!!!
LMAO!! You guys crack me up!!!
Thread Starter
Junior Member
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 16
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From: Philadelphia
Yea, Im on the East Coast, but I flew to Vegas. I was actually at HQ in SoCal the week before, so I stopped in Vegas for the weekend and headed back home Sunday. The meet was great.
Senior Member
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 188
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mkiimike
mkiimike
i was just curious as to how you came apon your job? i will be graduating in the spring with a degree in marketing and my dream job is to work in the marketing dept. of an aftermarket parts company....like a greddy, apexi, or B&M....hint hint
i have a really good resume for being 22 and was hoping for some pointers.
thanks
i was just curious as to how you came apon your job? i will be graduating in the spring with a degree in marketing and my dream job is to work in the marketing dept. of an aftermarket parts company....like a greddy, apexi, or B&M....hint hint
i have a really good resume for being 22 and was hoping for some pointers. thanks
Senior Member
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 188
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short shifter
also guy i was wondering how big of a difference i'll see with buying a $25-35 short shifter off ebay compared to a skunk or B&M. i just about bid on one last night, so hit me up with any problems i'd see with one of the nicer looking shifters on ebay.....that usually go for 25-35 bucks.
Thread Starter
Junior Member
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 16
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From: Philadelphia
jspeed: I would never buy any of the no-name POS rice items you see online. There are vendors online selling all the 'good' shifters at competitive prices, Id pay up for them.
The job: I was in IT consulting for 2 years out of school. Made good $$$ but hated it. I was also a marketing major, so I decided to get out of IT and pursue a sales/marketing job. Im on the wrong (east) coast, and didnt even think an 'automotive aftermarket' job was attainable. In SoCal, such jobs are dime a dozen.
I lucked out, and found this job online. They are out there man...you just need to dig
The job: I was in IT consulting for 2 years out of school. Made good $$$ but hated it. I was also a marketing major, so I decided to get out of IT and pursue a sales/marketing job. Im on the wrong (east) coast, and didnt even think an 'automotive aftermarket' job was attainable. In SoCal, such jobs are dime a dozen.
I lucked out, and found this job online. They are out there man...you just need to dig
Thread Starter
Junior Member
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 16
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From: Philadelphia
Update!
Ok, here is what I have taken away from the discussion with the lead engineer.
1. We build the shifter to fit the CRX, Civic, Sol and Integra, so there has to be some looser tolerances. Now, with stockish exhaust it should fit all of those cars just fine.
2. Enter the heat shield. In the instructions, it should state heatshield mods may be necessary. 85% of guys I have talked with via email and PM have ditched them altogether. Others haven’t, and either cut, or banged out the shield to get a little extra clearance. Between those three methods, I think almost all consumers solve the heat shield issues. We are not done yet...
3. Enter bigger exhaust. This poses a problem, since when engineering the shifter we can/did not compensate for all exhaust sizes. It poses a big engineering challenge when this shifter fits 4 different cars. Unfortunately, this is something we can not re-design, since it may cause other issues across the 4 models. Now, I have a solution that should work well. You really do not need much more clearance, so you can either bend the metal hangers a tad or go find rubber exhaust hangers that will give you a little more space. This should take care of any lame rattles, since there will be no more contact with the exhaust pipe.
4. Bushing time. When adding a performance shifter, you will almost always bring more noise into the car. Replacing the bushings with an ES kit will help, but still, I do not think it will be OEM quiet. Personally, I’m willing to deal with a little bit of noise, especially if I took care of the blatant rattles described in #2 and #3. We are considering adding new bushings (3 pieces like Neuspeed) in later months. This will raise costs of course, but it should still keep us well under Neuspeed. Now, the noise that the N1 owners have been hearing, is unfortunately impossible to stop. The 'tuning fork' analogy loosley works, and the harmonics that certain exhaust make are sometimes amplified by the shifter. A fully dampened shifter would stop that, but that is cost prohibitive and really not an option. Fortunately, it seems like there are very very few cases where the exhaust causes such an issue.
5. OEM bend. We just fit a prototype to a B18 swap car yesterday. This is well underway, and will be hitting the streets sooner than we think. Again, this will fit the CRX, Civic, Teg and Sol, so we will have to find a happy medium that works for all cars. Believe me, you guys will like it
6. Feedback needed. Would you guys be willing to pay an extra, say, ~$15 if it includes the ES type bushings? My guess is yes. That price is *not* confirmed, but that should be an accurate guesstimate. Your answer to this question is very important at this state in product enhnacement, so I await and encourage all responses.
Thanks guys, :thumbup:
Mike
1. We build the shifter to fit the CRX, Civic, Sol and Integra, so there has to be some looser tolerances. Now, with stockish exhaust it should fit all of those cars just fine.
2. Enter the heat shield. In the instructions, it should state heatshield mods may be necessary. 85% of guys I have talked with via email and PM have ditched them altogether. Others haven’t, and either cut, or banged out the shield to get a little extra clearance. Between those three methods, I think almost all consumers solve the heat shield issues. We are not done yet...
3. Enter bigger exhaust. This poses a problem, since when engineering the shifter we can/did not compensate for all exhaust sizes. It poses a big engineering challenge when this shifter fits 4 different cars. Unfortunately, this is something we can not re-design, since it may cause other issues across the 4 models. Now, I have a solution that should work well. You really do not need much more clearance, so you can either bend the metal hangers a tad or go find rubber exhaust hangers that will give you a little more space. This should take care of any lame rattles, since there will be no more contact with the exhaust pipe.
4. Bushing time. When adding a performance shifter, you will almost always bring more noise into the car. Replacing the bushings with an ES kit will help, but still, I do not think it will be OEM quiet. Personally, I’m willing to deal with a little bit of noise, especially if I took care of the blatant rattles described in #2 and #3. We are considering adding new bushings (3 pieces like Neuspeed) in later months. This will raise costs of course, but it should still keep us well under Neuspeed. Now, the noise that the N1 owners have been hearing, is unfortunately impossible to stop. The 'tuning fork' analogy loosley works, and the harmonics that certain exhaust make are sometimes amplified by the shifter. A fully dampened shifter would stop that, but that is cost prohibitive and really not an option. Fortunately, it seems like there are very very few cases where the exhaust causes such an issue.
5. OEM bend. We just fit a prototype to a B18 swap car yesterday. This is well underway, and will be hitting the streets sooner than we think. Again, this will fit the CRX, Civic, Teg and Sol, so we will have to find a happy medium that works for all cars. Believe me, you guys will like it
6. Feedback needed. Would you guys be willing to pay an extra, say, ~$15 if it includes the ES type bushings? My guess is yes. That price is *not* confirmed, but that should be an accurate guesstimate. Your answer to this question is very important at this state in product enhnacement, so I await and encourage all responses.
Thanks guys, :thumbup:
Mike
Still here... sorta...
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 17,177
Likes: 2
From: CO
WOW! Good info! Thanks a lot for coming through man!
$15 seems a little high to me. NOPI sells the bushing kit for something like $10.... FYI.
Keep us informed on the new info!
Thanks again!
$15 seems a little high to me. NOPI sells the bushing kit for something like $10.... FYI.
Keep us informed on the new info!
Thanks again!