For those of you who don't routinely blueprint your engines and have the prowess to tear through this install, here are some words of advice. . .
1. I started at 10pm. Not such a good idea, you need some descent lighting in there to get anything done, and with my bloody windows tinted, I felt like I was in the middle of Big Bend national Park at 2am with no flashlight.
2. Don't need to take the entire console apart, like it suggests taking the cigarette lighter, etc. apart. There are two tabs up front and two screws in the back. Don't need to worry about torx bit here either.
3. Be gentile with the ebrake. The tabs will pop off - and on a side note, HOW DID YOU GUYS REATTACH THE TABS??? Superglue, silicone?? What? So, pull the ebrake up all the way, and if you have a removable head unit for your stereo, take it out so you don't scratch it up accidentally.
4. Use an electric drill with a torx 30 bit to get the stock bolts off. Also, before you do this, disconnect the tabs, it's easier than I thought, just stick a THICK screw driver inbetween and yank the opposite way of the direction your pulling the shifter.
5. Get neoprene or latex gloves. Luckily I had some from lab, so I was set, but it's a goppy, gooooopey, nasty mess.
6. When taking apart the stock shifter, the centering spring is the little thing between the plastic housing to the right of the shifter and the actual aluminum casing. Take it off. I installed the whole thing with it on wondering where this magical spring that every speaks of falling off and guess what, if you're careful in taking everything apart, the spring will not come out unless you take it out. Don't lose any of the parts either.
7. Here's the KICKER, and it caused me to reinstall the whole damn thing a third time. Yes, THREE bloody times. If you plan on using the MOMO shift knobs that have a screw that seeds into the actual shifter, well, the stock plastic shifter ain't gonna cut it, it's too tall. So, you'll have to go with the aluminum one they give you. And you'll have to take apart the leather boot, that's what the zip ties are for. The directions don't point this out. So I sat there all cocky and confused wondering why I had to zip ties and a metal thing left in my kit. So I took it all apart, and installed it again. OH BUT WAIT, it gets better, that little metal pin to helps hold the new aluminum shifter attachment in place, you need to install that BEFORE you attach everything to the car. Otherwise, you'll spend an hour like me trying to figure out how to get a hammer in there to get the damn metal dowel in. I ended up using a zip tie through that little hole. I gave up trying to be a perfectionist at around 12am.
8. Once everything is in place, you're set. I was too lazy and didn't give enough of a [censored] to actually reglue the tabs on the ebrake. And I didn't have any superglue.
First impressions????
Well, I am short. Being 5'10", I felt like a little boy trying to drive with the thing.
The shifts are crisp, short, and very precise. I had a subtle grinding from 2-3 before probably because of some play in the stock shifter, which is now gone.
I can easily see one getting some sick 60' times with it, it seriously reduces shift time and effort. And it matches a fidanza flywheel perfectly, because at around 6.5k when the revs are flying, the flywheel is very light and lacks the rotational inertia to keep spinning, and the QUICK shifts from this steeda short shifter are fast enough to keep the engine up in that power band, while your mind still thinks it's a gear below it's in
PS, the order it goes so you know where the riser plate sits:
(a)Stock plastic thing where the torx bolts screw into,(b) stock metal braket, (c) riser plate, and (d) aluminum housing (from bottom to top). It may be obvious, it was to me, but it's worth mentioning. . .because I'm a rookie when it comes to this stuff and I like knowing EVERYTHING before I kill an evening . . .
2002 F150 SuperCrew