SOLDSHORT

I drove my brother's BMW 545 and it was great. I like auto shifters.

beaustang

A little off subject but where do race open track? I assume you mean road type racing not drag racing. I checked my local track and they won't let verts on without roll bars.

Tres Wright

I don't know where you heard that, but I'm guessing that rumor may be from the same people that brought us such pearls of wisdom as "girls shouldn't swim in the same pool as boys because they can get pregnant" The tranny shifting is controlled by the on-board programming, you can't cause any damage to the tranny by manually controlling the shifter. Think of it like this, when you shift down you're telling the computer "Hey, I'd like to shift down a gear". The computer checks the speed and RPMs and if it determines it's safe to do so, it will shift down. If the computer determines you're traveling too fast to shift down, it will assume you've lost your mind and will not shift There's a safety check built into the software.

As for the point of an aftermarket shifter, here's what I posted on the other forum:

"I don't ever race my car and don't need the shifter for racing, I would agree with you that an aftermarket shifter isn't going to help much there. But I do a lot of manual shifting in traffic to take advantage of tranny braking and to keep from having to constantly ride the brakes. Manually shifting the stock shifter just feels so wrong [] It feels like you're doing something you're not supposed to be doing. It's too soft shifting between gears and too easy to overshift in both directions. Plus it feels like a big clunky hunk of plastic. Not gratifying in the least I've had a B&M shifter auto before and I really liked it. It's a great solution to all my gripes about the stock shifter Plus with the threaded rod we can install all kinds of cool ***** that now are limited to the manual tranny boys, check out flameball.com for some really cool ones!"

05 Cayuse

In response to beaustang, You're right that you can't be on the track in a vert without a roll bar. I made a custom 4 point removeable roll bar for my vert that turned out pretty cool. A lot of the guys at this weekends "open track" school came over to check out the mustang running top down at 110 mph on the straights. You'll have to check around to find tracks offering "open track" or HPDE (high performance driving events) events. They're not races, because they are not timed events nor do they offer prizes. This keeps your regular insurance from being voided. It's just a bunch of guys flying around the track as fast as their cars and skill levels allow. I'm totally hooked after my first event, and am already scheduling a return. Check out NASA's web site at www.nasaproracing.com under their HPDE section. Someone will tell you where you can go. Go luck!

lureynol

Wait... you mean that's not true?

...How about driving with a member of the opposite sex in your stang?

beaustang

Can you post pics of your roll cage set up, and maybe how you fabed it?

Tres Wright

Not a good idea, someone is bound to end up pregnant in that scenario

05 Cayuse

Hey, Beaustang! I'd be glad to post some picks of the roll bar we fabbed in a couple of days when I get back from a trip. I'm a little leary of showing everyone how I did it, cause sure as shootin' some techno wizard / mechanical engineer type will spend three pages telling me why it won't work. But, hey, what do I care what that guy thinks? I just want to pass tech so I can get on the track. Most likely I'd be fubar if I did a series of high speed rolls in a vert anyway.