Gated shifter: Why?

Actually, I'd say she looks pretty normal. Maybe a short person, but I don't think I'd say she was a real midget.


Growing up, I thought TR7's looked cool. And they were so cheap! A friend of mine got a Spitfire and I found out why they were so cheap. 40mph in a TR6 feels like 140mph in a Ferrari.

 

I became a sports car junkie when I traded my uncle a Karmann-Ghia for a 1960 Bugeye Sprite. I still have the Sprite after 20+ years. I never had an MGB, but I have or had Triumphs, TVR's, Lotus, then onto the continent with Alfas and Fiats, and the lone French oddball: Matra-Bonnet (which I still have). I always wanted a classic Ferrari but never imagined I'd actually own one.

Oh, and it has a gated shifter with a really nice precise, mechanical feel...

-steve

 

I feel that gated shifter is a big big must for tracking or especially racing. I get lost of what gear I am in in a leather covered shifter but with the gated shifter I know exactly where I am at...

 

I disagree... f-1 or sequential electronic transmissions are the must have for the track. If you ride/drive in a CS then 360 back-to-back on a track, the 360 manual takes *forever* to shift gears. It might not be as "fun," but for track efficiency I can't belive there is another way.

 

May be... if we are talking F1 gear VS manual shift but my respond was for gated shifter VS normal leather cover shifter...

 

leather boot < gated shifter < F1 !

.. let the flames begin ..

 

My Car in high school and college was a 1963 MGB white/red.....man I loved that car....but I do recall going at about 75 MPH on the freeway it felt like all hell was breaking loose at that high speed and like the thing would self destruct.....it was a cool car for college for sure.....The older MGBs had a good style.....my dad still drives one!

 

uh-oh another X'er...

some of the X's i've driven were a bit like stirring soup, but i've had one that was very good with the shift, loved the feel of 8-9k upshifts. my current X has had way too much stuff done to it, including rose-jointed mounts, meaning there is basically no give (and very rattley ) and shifts need attention and are often difficult to get right (also the pattern is bass-ackwards... wrong engine/gearbox ). when i get it back on the road the gearbox has to be moved over 1/2" to line up properly, and given that i've destroyed my centre console when rewiring the sucker, i'm looking to rebuild it with carbon fibre and a gated shifter.

 

So what part of it is still an X?

I had a 79 and an 81 in college, along with the required parts cars. Got rid of the 79 when it spun a bearing, can't recall why the 81 went away. Fun cars, taught me much about Italian design and engineering -- yet I still bought a Ferrari!

Someday I'll pick up an early X just for a fun car, a 74 would be nice in that lime green

 

If you're doing 8-9K upshifts, your car is "slightly" modified .

Another ex-X-er here with a 76 model. That car was a lot of fun and got me through school. It was amazing what I could pile into (front and rear trunks and passenger seat) and on it (rear luggage rack) to move back and forth as school began and ended. I finally traded it in after about 45-50K miles. Its only problem while I owned it was a propensity to loose coolant out the overflow tank; but a month after I turned it in, I was by the dealer and they mentioned they had sold it to a young woman and it had an engine fire and burned up the next week.

I've thought about buying a nice used one also recently in a fit of nostalgia, but I contained the urge. Some experiences are better in memory and probably shouldn't be revisited .

 

well almost everything but the engine/gearbox. great handling car already but i want to put in modern performance suspension and brakes. in the end i'm hoping for something between a 308 and an Elise, better handling than the Ferrari, better sounding than the Lotus, better looking than both...

 

actually no that was a shocker stocker. an absolute piece of crap, it would barely take off at anything less than 4k rpm, but 7k plus and it was fun as hell. i'd already bought another excellent one which is a keeper and it wasn't worth selling the old one, so i wanted to blow it up. a couple times i 'clocked' the tacho, must have been well over 10,000rpm, that sucker still went, and loved it!

in the end it sat around a yard for over a year and someone gave me $500 bucks for it.

here's the only real footage i have of it.

pic - pic - pic - pic - pic

 

I believe the modern reason behind the gated shifter has to do with 'feel'. Think of it thisway, porsche and front engined cars have direct paths from the transmission shift shaft to the shifter. In a mid engined car with transaxle behind the engine, the shift linkage has to be routed through or around the engine components. This causes a lot of play in the shifter, and an overall sloppy and vague shift feel. One way to correct this problem is by restraining the shift to gates.

 

Boxster and Carrera GT don't have that problem... nor do MR2s...

 

Bing bing bing. I think we have a winner.

On the old Alfa Spiders, the gearbox was virtually right beneath the shifter, and the linkage was rock solid and smooth as silk.

When they built the '70s Alfettas, with a front engine and rear transaxle, one car mag described the shifter as "a broomstick in a bathtub". A gate would have been nice, there, methinks.

But for those who feel it's just a gimmick, there's a quick way to test that theory: Remove the gate and try it.

Both Alfa and Ferrari seem to have a fairly long "throw" shifters. Before my Alfas, I had gotten used to "short-throw" shifters that were practically wrist action only. My EVO has a factory short throw shifter ... but a rubber boot. I wish they had left the "heads-up" display to indicate selected gear: two or three times I tried to leave a stop light in third --- Of course, that was after spending 25+ years getting used to the Alfa shifters.

 

Yep, I go with what you can see. After driving a modified Porsche 911 on track I found it would easily shift down when I wanted up. No grinding, nothing but smooth till it engaged in the lower gear on a shift coming into the strait. You can't imagin how it got my attention. It would have been nice to see where I was going when the shift pattern was so tight.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mexican-Ferrari-T-Shirt-Mens-Size-Small-chicano-latino_W0QQitemZ8394451848QQcategoryZ15687QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

 

Ok. I read the whole thread & nobody said it. It's nasty & I will be flamed until I glow, but I have to say it. The child in me or something.

Gated shifters = training wheels

I'm sorry. I couldn't resist . . . flame away . . . ban me . . . whatever.

Ian

 

Please try and avoid confirming our suspicions of your complete and utter ignorance in these matters.

John

 

No banning...no flaming...just one question. When you buy your first Ferrari, will you take the gate shifter off and replace it with a nice leather boot?

.....Mark

 

prior to buying the ferrari i've never driven a car with a gated shifter. i've had the mondi now for 6months and have had no issues with the gate. i was worried i'd screw up the test drive before i bought the car but when it came time to drive it i was not paying attention to the gated issue and had no trouble. i can up/down shift as fast as i'd like and have been lucky to know exactly what gear i'm going for.
to me driving manual is second nature so the gate isn't something i have given thought to, i like the look so it stays for me. but interesting disscusion.

 

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showpost.php?p=134893633&postcount=12