B&M wants to borrow your car!

[TomoHawk]

1. I hate spinner hubcaps. they give me a headache.

2. I won't ever be buying a Honda. Unless Ford buys them too.

3. I don't remember saying that I'm leaving my console with the rough edges.

Dude, before you go making irrelevant remarks, you should ASK and get clarification as to what the purpose of the object is. Presumptions on YOUR part make you look foolish. A LOT of that going on here with people just blurting out irrelevant remarks like "Nobody makes one" when the point was to get somebody to MAKE ONE.

I've been working on this idea for years. I thought there might be somebody with connections, or an engineer who could figure it out. It looks like all we have here is "experts." Very few, if any, constructive options were given.

Apparently, all you guys understand here are 1-word phrases, like P30, or N42.

thx

[instigator]

Dude, before you go making irrelevant remarks, you should ASK and get clarification as to what the purpose of the object is. Presumptions on YOUR part make you look foolish. A LOT of that going on here with people just blurting out irrelevant remarks like "Nobody makes one" when the point was to get them to MAKE ONE.

There is no question as to what your purpose is. You've stated it clearly enough. You want B&M to make you a "manual-shift" look-a-like for your automatic transmission so that your car will look like it has a manual transmission even though you can't drive stick, for whatever reason. Your inability to drive a standard is not of my concern. Based a quick look at B&M's website, it appears that they are a "for profit" company that specializes in performance/competition/race products. You want to ask them to make you a fake shifter for your auto transmission. That doesn't appear to be their business. You need to go to JC Whitney for that!

You need to quit playing with the chemistry set because this idea is really lame.

[TomoHawk]

It's not a FAKE shifter.

No idea is lame unless you give up in it, or don't develop it. Give non-sarcastic, constructive input. What features would you want?

You are assuming the company is SO GREEDY that they won't do anything that won't profit them millions a day. WRONG! This is the U.S.A., where companies give millions, altogether, to give to people in ravaged third-world countries. Just for the feel-good purpose! Then they write it off.

Where would we be if the Wrght brothers gave up on the airplane, just because

EVERYBODY--- EVERYBODY ---- EVERYBODY --- EVERYBODY

told them it would NEVER WORK!

thx

[CoastGuardZ]

2. I won't ever be buying a Honda. Unless Ford buys them too. thx

What the hell does that mean? Are you implying that Ford makes a better quality product than Honda? If so you must be legally retarded. Honda makes a damn good vehicle, none that I feel the need to drive but I never thought twice about buying my wife her Integra. 165,000 miles = a $95 radiator and a $50 master cylinder- the car owes nobody anything. Now my biggest automobile purchasing mistake was the *cough* Ford I once had that started all it's major problems at 10,000 miles.

All this BS bickering back and forth makes every participate here look like a bunch of bitter old women, myself included. In fact if the whole thread disapeared it wouldn't be an injustice to anyone.

No futher traffic to pass.

Out.

[Bambikiller240]

You are assuming the company is SO GREEDY that they won't do anything that won't profit them millions a day. WRONG! This is the U.S.A., where companies give millions, altogether, to give to people in ravaged third-world countries. Just for the feel-good purpose! Then they write it off.

Where do you think these companies got the money to "give to people in ravaged third-world countries. Just for the feel-good purpose!???

Oh, I know, they got the money from designing, building, and marketing products that only one guy in OH wants to see on the market.

I've been working on this idea for years. I thought there might be somebody with connections, or an engineer who could figure it out. It looks like all we have here is "experts." Very few, if any, constructive options were given.

Judging from the responses to your thread, I think you are on your own here. For having worked on it "for years" it doesn't seem that you've gotten very far with any of the established manufacturers. But hey, you're still a young man; maybe this idea will come to fruition sometime in the next 20 to 40 years. Of course by then there might only be 7 S30's with automatic transmissions left in the world. A small production run ought to cover any sales orders that might be generated.

[TomoHawk]

My experiences with Hondas are of the kind that they suck, and My Ford has been perfect since day one.

That's a subject for another forum. Go start one there iof you will.

It appears that you should change your username to reflect that you are an expert on cognitive processes.

thx

[CoastGuardZ]

It appears that you should change your username to reflect that you are an expert on cognitive processes.

thx

Your request is for me to change my username to reflect my being an expert on rational and/or reasonable processes? Or were you just trying to use your new word of the day in a sentence? You are revealing just how odd you are with each new reply.

Your constipation of the brain and diarrhea of the "mouth" has caused even yourself to wonder grossly off topic. Back to the point... You would like to see an aftermarket manufacturer of shifters produce and market an automatic shifter for the S30 model that replaces the stock auto shifter with one that is designed to look like an aftermarket manual shifter. Furthermore you would like people at this online forum to rally around you and help support this cause. Currently you have found not one soul here that has the same desire as you. Good luck in your search.

Now, since you seem to love the last word, the floor is yours.

With discretion being the better part of valor, I have nothing else to add to this thread... especially since there is not a single automatic in my driveway.

[PrOxLaMuS©]

i'm not flaming...

I just wanted to say... you have a unique idea.... go for it!! Let me know if you can pull it off! I would like to try it out in my Z

[beandip]

I have a notebook full of ideas on the subject. Not having machining tools & stuff means I gotta get somebody else to do it. Nor am I a shifter engineer. My specialty is Chemistry, so I'm be better at designing a new metal for the shifter, or a new paint.

And like I said, I can't use a manual-shift transmission. And, AFAIK, you can't get a sequential transmission to to fit the L28 engine. It would be easier & cheaper to just change the shifter.

It's not a question of being a manual shift wannabe! It's just a different kind of sporty shifter! How many people haft 'short-throw shifters?' By your logic, you don't need that, do you?

Pancho-

Sorry, typo. My fingers are tired & tangled. What's a dog-leg shift pattern?

I BET YOU HAVE A BOOK FULL SOME KIND OF IDEAS. ONE DAY WE MIGHT HEAR ONE .

[EScanlon]

Unfortunately, the exact type of transmission you are envisioning is an impossibility due to the inherent contradiction in purpose.

An AUTOMATIC transmission was engineered to eliminate all but the most basic of gear choices, i.e. forward or back, and to eliminate the control of the slip mechanism required to connect a continuously moving shaft, with one that stops intermittently and occasionally. The separation of the forward set of gears into D, D2 and L; or D, 2 and 1, depending on what U.S. car you have drive, was made to allow the operator to LIMIT the transmission in forward operation to only one or two gears due to their characteristics (tipically higher torque, although I vaguely recall one that had an "overdrive" gear.) Since gear selection is basically down to it's most basic choices, a complicated arrangement of gear selection throws is not required. Typically the distance from one setting to the next on an automatic transmission is measured in DEGREES of turn on the main gear selector shaft.

A MANUAL transmission requires that the operator choose the gear and operate the connecting mechanism to power the wheels of the vehicle. The operator is totally in control of what gear and in what sequence those gears are connected in between the engine and the rear differential, even to the possibility of stalling the engine or shifting into reverse (only in very old manual and only certain types of automatic transmissions). Since these selections are now being made by a human, the consideration of how much FORCE is required in order to make that selection becomes critical.

Transmissions are typically heavy complicated collections of gears that receive a very high torque force applied to them and in turn, with the smallest reduction in torque force transmitted, transfer it to another mechanism to propel the car forward. Typically, the tolerances between one gear face and another are measured in thousandths of an inch and not in conceivable fractions of an inch. They also require lubrication at high temperatures that would cause many oils to literally "boil out". These gears are for the most part, heavy. Put all these factors together, tight tolerances, heavy oil and heavy parts and what at first seems like a simple slide the little doohickey over 2 inches becomes, literally, a big job. At this point, LEVERS are introduced to allow a human to comfortably change the gears.

That lever and the type of fulcrum it uses is what defines a shift linkage as a short throw or a long throw.

Levers are force multipliers. A given force on one side of a lever will, combined with the length from the fulcrum point of the force applied and the force imparted, either multiply or reduce the amount of force required to move the object being moved. A simple child's playground see-saw provides, in a most elemental form, a physical example of what and how it works. For those that may have grown up on video games, a lighter person can, if they shift the fulcrum, balance evenly with a heavier person.

Just cutting or lengthening the length of the shifter, will radically change that force. Companies like K&M speciallize in changing the force equation inherent in the standard set of linkages provided by the manufacturer.

To request a transmission that is automatic, implies by inherent definition, a transmission that does not require shift input from the operator. A manual conversely specifies that it will be.

Sadly, your combination of an automatic transmission with the shift characteristics you requested, i.e. a "horizontal" H pattern for gear selection(someone explain that one to me later), and that it be automatic, i.e. that no clutch is required, is not possible with the standard automatic gear selections, i.e. PRNDL2, simply due to the complexity of the shifting mechanism with regards to the simplicity of the gear selection in the transmission.

Now, a MANUAL transmission that does not require a clutch has been made and was sold by Volkswagen many years ago. This encompasses your wish to have a gear box that does not require a clutch, while still giving you the choice of what gear to put the car in. Having never used one, nor ridden in a car equipped with one, I can't attest to whether you would stall the engine if you insisted on starting from a dead stop in fourth gear.

But, since you have stated that you cannot use a manual shift transmission, then why would you ask for an automatic transmission to be operated as if it were a manual. Wouldn't this make it non-operational by you?

If you were hoping to keep the PRNDL2 format, but now arrange it in a typical shift pattern, you might be able to do it, but would become a very complicated and difficult to calibrate rube goldberg mechanism. It may appear to be a stick shift, when the car is stopped, but in operation would be obvious that it wasn't. The lack of a clutch pedal would give it away on close inspection.

Enrique

[sblake01]

Much ado about nothing----William Shakesphere

(I'm not knocking your post, Enrique, just remarking on the fact that this post has reach the point of needing such an explaination)

[TomoHawk]

No offense to Enrique, but I think he'd make a good politician

(j/k Enrique)

I agree that the mechanism looks to be complicated, and I've been working about it for a LONG time with little success, which is why I think it would be a good idea at this time to hand the idea off to the people that are better at it.