Findanza Short Throw Shifter Arrived!!
 

Hey my fidanza short throw shifter came in today and its a nice little piece of engineering the rod has a nice weight to it and all that jazz but for some idiotic reason there is no installation instructions. Ya I know its only a shifter and its fairly straight forward but heres my problem...the entire thing came in pieces and I have no clue what goes where...

Below is a picture of what came with the kit (note the bushing was placed inserted in that position by me) <---thats sounds so dirty I love it!

http://i414.photobucket.com/albums/p...r/img_0132.jpg

Has anyone out there installed one of these before and can anyone tell me how I should put humpty back together again here? Or will it all be kinda self explanitory when I pull the old one out?

Thanks for your time!

I did one a few years ago. Don't remember the procedure, but there wasn't much to it.

Ya there really isnt much to it, me and the other guy are here looking at all the pieces scratching our heads cause the B&M one we put in his EG6 was a single piece. I am willing to bet once I get home and take it all apart I will be like "OH Duh that was so obvious" but here at work its like an enigma without seeing whats in there currently. Just hoping by the time I get home in a couple hours someone might have some info.

Edit: Not a bad pic for an iPhone either!

remove old shifter. pull the plastic ring out of the turret.

IIRC

Part B snaps on to part C but you may want to use the OEM piece because that cheap plastic is known to break.
Part A goes in first the way you have it sitting on the table.
The plastic ring you pulled out goes next.
Then part D.
Then drop the shifter in.
Then part E but flip it over.
Then part F.
Then you should also have 3 new bolts that are longer than the stock ones.

Locktite the 2 parts of the shifter together or they will loosen up.

Yes there is a little bag of hardware that I didnt open cause I know I would lose something if I did. Thank you very much for the description paul if Fidanza included something that simple in there instructions it would have been cake to figure it out. Cant wait to get home and see how this puppy works.

to follow up, hell yes listen to paul, that piece b WILL break. do not use it. use the orig. bushing. To go further - this kit is not that great as delivered. modified it's pretty darn good. here's what I did. as delivered the knob height is way too high. The shift level is in two pieces screwed together. Why? I dunno. But paul is right, they will come apart. Take em apart and dremel off most of the threaded end. Leave 1/2" or so. Dremel off as much of the upper, female threaded part as matches what is left on the threaded portion. That has the effect of shortening the whole assembly pretty significantly. Now coat the threaded portion in jbweld and screw back together. It will come apart unmodified but it darn will now without the jbweld, with fewer threads. I can't recall, but I think I also lopped off some of the threaded portion up top where the shift knob threads on.
So, that addressed my gripe about the height, and the halves coming apart. The next issue I had was the bolts that held the assembly into the tranny tower. They came loose. a lot. Even with loctite, even with spring washers, anything I did. Nord Locks. They stopped that problem dead. Take one of the supplied allen screws to your local fastenal store and get three nordlock washers that fit.

I also modified one of these shifters to fit my NB. It has two dowel pins in the tranny shifter tower, you can either knock one of them out or do what I did, cut a groove 180 degrees form the groove machined into the fidanza spacing ring.

So yeah, I've had the fidanza in an old, sold NA and NB...they are ok in both, I like it a ton better in my NB with the mods done to it. I've got a rare KG works shifter in my current NA, and I prefer the modded fidanza. But both are piles of crap compared to my friend's real mazdaspeed shifter. That thing is like butter.

Off-topic a bit:
how much does a mazdaspeed comp. shift assembly even cost, because the shifter in my car is teh suck. (and I have a mazdaspeed car, go figure.)

Ya its definately not anything to write home about but for $70CAN I cant complain since its the only company that I can find that really sells them. I wish B&M did one as the shifter we put in my buddies EG6 was really sleak, but alas those commies dont!

Also I dont know if fidanza changed there design but were the two pieces for the shifter rod can not be shortened it screws up to an edge that doesnt allow it to drop further; however you can still shorten the area that the knob sits on. But I dont really have any gripes on the height of the shifter as the stock one is still at its original height. It would be nicer a little lower but I can work on that now.

its not meant to get shorter, that is why you cut the metal with a dremel/cut off wheel ;-)

That looks pretty nice, I might say nicer than my mazdacomp one (C's). Now I need a shifter for a 6 speed I'm putting together, the 5 speed one I put in there seems to feel right, but I've heard that it won't work? Are there any displace fulcrum short shift kits for the 6 speed?

This shifter works on all Mazda's from 1990-2000 doesnt specify if it will work with a 6 speed or not. I got it all installed last night it was easier then I thought, probably would have been even easier if i had proper lighting but its in and works very well cleaned up alot of the play the stock shifter had, I am very impressed.

Just to add... the above pictures look identical to my ebay short shifter. I really do mean identical.

I have seen people selling the fidanza on ebay for pretty cheap here and there.