Now that the exterior of the car is essentially finished (new tires and wheels down the road, but that's another story), I am moving on to performance modifications. Since I don't want to void my warranty, I am keeping the peformance mods limited for now, however, when I saw that I could get the
Saleen short throw shift adapter for $30 (they have now raised the price to $45) I couldn't pass that up.

The parts that come with the shifter are quite simple.

Basically what it does is extend the lever arm of the shifter down further so you don't have to shift as far after you install it. I like this mod because it is cheap and retains the stock shifter (I haven't been impressed with the looks of the aftermarket shifters I have seen so far).

First things first, I drove the car up onto 4x4 in. wood blocks so that I could get the jack under the car (since my car is lowered you can't get a large jack under it otherwise). I then put ramps under the tires but I don't fully trust those ramps, so I also kept the jack centered under the front crossmember so the car didn't fall on me and cause my untimely and bloody death.

There isn't much room under the car to work but I managed to get a picture of the shifter. I've highlighted in yellow the 13mm nut that you want to remove in order to separate the shifter from the linkage.

After separating the linkage you remove two white rubber bushings from the shifter. You then install the bushings in the saleen adapter, put an aluminum bushing in place of the rubber ones, throw some red Loctite on the threads, and carefully snug the bolts back down. Don't tighten too much, that's what the Loctite is for, otherwise you will have difficulty shifting.

NOTE: Saleen's directions are not correct. When you get done you will have installed their adapter with the supplied bolt's head facing the driver's side. The original nut you take off will still face the same direction, towards the passenger side. In the picture below, you can see just above the nut which was originally removed the end of the supplied Saleen bolt threads sticking through the adapter. The head of the bolt is obviously on the other (driver's) side. Finished installation took only half an hour.

I took it for a quick test drive and everything seemed fine. I measured that the throw was decreased approx. 36% from stock (even though Saleen only advertises %26). For forty bucks you can't beat that. It felt solid, and it's a bit more difficult to shift, but that's the nature of a short throw shifter. On the next page I will show you how I painted the rocker panels and lower rear fascia.