Lately I've noticed that I seem to be dropping down and hitting second rather than fourth on downshifts. I've always caught myself when I start letting out the clutch and can feel the higher revs start coming on, so I jam down the clutch and do a mid-course correction....so far I haven't contributed to any Range II over-revs.

From you guys who have BTDT....is the OEM shifter prone to dropping into the wrong slot...or is this a simple matter of operator error? I've been seriously considering going to a SSK since I had a B & M on my 99 996 and liked it.

 

Chuck, I do not or never have had this problem...I have the B&M SSK.

 

I haven't installed or otherwise handled a Porsche SSK out of a car, but I've installed aftermarket shifters on other cars that had no "gate" in the shifter itself. If you took the shifter out of the car you could move the **** around in a circle. The gating action lived in the transmission. So...

If the 996 is like that, and the problem in your case is the "it", not the "you", changing shifters isn't going to make it any better. If the problem is "you", I expect a SSK will make it worse.

If the 996 shifter includes some gating action, then a new shifter may improve the situation.

Jeff

 

I have never mis-shifted in my 996TT, but I did it once in my old Mustang. I was on the interstate at 80mph and hit 2nd instead of 4th. The bad thing was it was a slow, deliberate shift, not a quick shift that just missed the mark. It basically blew out my whole rear end which had to be rebuilt, although there was no damage to the engine or driveshaft. The engine didn't overrev, the rear end just basically refused to spin that fast and blew out the differential and ring gear, the tires locked up and the car slid sideways too. I was back out of the gear in less than a second, but that was all it took.

 

Get a short shifter in there asap. It is night and day how the car will perform for you. The oem piece is slopping. With the short shifter each shift will have a precise quick shift and you will never miss a beat!

 

Before I do anything....I'm going to have a couple of other guys drive it. I don't want to start swapping out shifters if the problem resides with me. If the consensus is there's slop in the shifter, then I'll go for the B and M.

Thanks for the insightful response Jeff.....I need to be methodical in trying to determine where the fault lies....however I did have an SSK in my 99 996 and in comparison..... the TT shifter is definitely long and somewhat sloppy.

 

I thought the shifter was crazy long when I first got the car, but now I've gotten used to it. I don't know if I'll change to a short throw shifter as I don't want to increase my chances of developing the 2nd gear popout issue.

 

Chuck, call me. I will send you these 2. Put them, if you like it pay for it, if you dont, send it back.
http://www.vividracing.com/catalog/a...ency+996+shift

 

There is no correlation between SSK and the second gear pop-out

 

Uh, I don't think anyone has proven that there is no correlation. There may be a thread on here where people have posted, but it is no scientific study of the problem by any stretch of the imagination. I am not saying there is a correlation, but it is an unnecessary risk I'm not willing to take.

 

FYI...you can't prove anything (I'm actually a statistician)! However, limited as it may be, the data set does not show any significant correlation. In fact, there is a negative correlation (based on the correlation coefficient.

 

Yeah, but if you are using the population from the poll in the sticky thread on here as your sample, you only have 25 data points which aren't even random, so you can't draw any statistically relevant conclusions.

 

You don't know what you are talking about. Let's stop there.

 

I know you can't prove that installing a SSK won't increase the chances of damaging the transmission. There just isn't any reliable data available on the subject, unless you work for Porsche and have access to their databases.

 

OK one more time...you can't prove anything to be true (only have sufficient evidence to not reject the presumably null hypothesis). The only actual data we have is the information posted in the 6speed thread. Granted this may be a small sample of the overall population, but if there were significant correlation there would be clues, possibly, even in the small sample. Actually the clues point to no correlation (remember correlation is NOT causation...It is simply a measure of linear relationship.) So unless you have additional data...don't imply relationships that aren't there.