I am working on a design for a shifter for sim racing and I need a bit of help. I currently don't have access to a car with a manual gearbox, the only vehicle I have is an automatic at the moment.

Now, I have all of the design thaught out, this is something I plan on designing and possibly selling in small batches, though thats still up in the air.

One of the things I'm missing is the stick shift shaft diameter, I need to find out what the best shaft diameter is for this shifter, Optimaly it would be the shaft diameter used in a real car, because that would take the most abuse without being too big, but I can't find a solid answer as to what the usual diameter of a stick shift is.

The next thing is the throw of the shifter, from gear to gear I need to know how far people would like the shift knob to move. This is not something I'm asking because I don't know, I realy want to know what kind of throw sim racers want on a shifter. The Ideal answer for this question would be from 1st to 2nd in inches if you can. After I get some replies I'm going to see which distance is most prefered and hopefuly thats how it will be made.

So there are two questions I'm asking

What diameter should the stick shift shaft be?

How far should the throw be from gear to gear? (eg. 1st to 2nd)

I've got a G25 next to me here (can't be bothered to go check my car) and the shaft is 10mm (3/8") diameter. I understand that most aftermarket gear knobs fit the G25 shifter.

I think most people would want a short throw distance for racing, instead of the safe long throw of a family car. Unless anyone can advise the distance in something like a Caterham?

yeah i don't mind the G25's shift, its good. If you could build one like that, but stronger, and slightly stronger self centre springs, etc....and stronger switches...something that "clicks" into gear. BTW, the shifter on my MR2 is only slightly longer than the shaft+knob on the G25 (that'd be a real car thats close then)

so a 3/8in shaft and a moderately short shift then. But I still would like some numbers for the actual shift distance, something I can look at as a reference.

As I said, a distance in inches would be nice. How far is the throw on the G25? is it decent? I haven't used one in a long time, and I own a DFGT so I have no reason to buy a G25 since I'm making a shifter.

With the way the internals are designed I can pretty much make the throw any length I want. I can't say much about the design because its still a concept and NFPE. But I can say that the center axis/upper length of the shaft can be moved/changed to change the throw, but only in the design phase, If I made it user adjustable it would reduce reliability and make it a mess to re-design.

I'm designing this shifter to be the AK47 of shifters, I'm trying to make it as reliable and as realistic as possible. I want people to have to replace the shift linkages in thier real car before they even notice wear on this thing.

I have a tape measure now, i can get the throw distances, do you need fotos of the shifter or just the length of it?

OK here it is, these measurements (throw) were taken from the very top of the shifter knob, and the car is NOT fitted with any kind of quick shift kit, it is a Factory 1987 5 speed AW11 MR2. Numbers rounded to nearest whole.

Stick height from pivot (including shift knob) 190mm
Throw from Neutral to:
3rd - 70mm
4th - 60mm
Left hand (1st and 2nd, sideways only) 50mm
Right hand(5th and Reverse, sideways only) 50mm

Let me know if u need more info, or different info, and i will attempt to aquire it for you.

Those are perfect, thank you.

Now I can adjust the stick and the lower assembly to get close to those dimentions. A 6cm or 7cm throw seems pretty short for stock, but then again an MR2 is a sports car.

A full throw from 3rd to 4th should be about 12-13cm on the final design. Side to side is going to be a bit different, I don't know if I'm going to go with gates or let the bottom mechanics keep it from going side to side in gear.

If I don't use gates then the top of the shifter is going to be right at the axis of the stick, I'm using a ball socket type assembly so It will look pretty nifty. It will also mean that the whole thing will be smaller because I don't need the bulky top section for the gates.

Big edit:

After doing some research on the existing shifters available such as the Lightning SST, the Act labs and the G25's shifter, I've found that every single one of them makes this horrid clicking noise when you shift. I thaught the more expensive ones wouldent, but it apears they all do. I'm going to make a quiet shift one of my to-do items.

I plan to make sure the one I build is reliable, realistic, and doesn't make horrid noises when you quickly move through the gears.

As I said previously though, no one should get thier hopes up for this. I'm not promissing a product yet, since I still need to figure out who is going to make them, if anyone at all will.

Bump with some bad news.

I can't get anyone to build a prototype for the shifter, so I can't produce these things for sale like I wanted. I'm pretty much just sitting on the design now untill I can find someone who'll be interested enough to atleast build a prototype.

Plus for anyone who was waiting for my sound pack, I've dropped the project, LFS's sound system can't do what I need it to at the moment, And I realy don't have time. It took me three days to get the XR GTR sounding close to a real car, and its still not finnished, I had atleast two more samples to get and adjust.

I am however working on a very simplified DIY design that should give realistic feel and good reliability, and can be made out of hardware store components. It will still have a realistic throw, and may actualy be gateless like the other design.

The plans for the DIY shifter are a collective effort of both myself and my Dad who is as much a car nut as myself. I will not release them untill I build a prototype and test it, I want it to actualy work before I give out the plans.