I went to the local Pick-N-Pull today and got a shifter from a 280zx. Not sure of the year, although I pulled shifters from 2 280zx's, and they were each different. One just had a round hole for the pin to stick through with no plastic bushings.....and the other one's base is identical to the "B" trannys on the S12. It has the same rectangular hole with the plastic bushings with the round hole to put the pin through.
Here's my old shifter next to the 280zx shifter. The 280zx one is on the left.
As you can see it's quite a bit shorter than the S12 one......and if you notice there's a curve in the zx one which curves to the left, and back...which makes the shifter closer to the driver seat.
Here's another shot to show that the bases are identical to each other.
As you can see I did the "flip the bushing" trick on the zx shifter which moves the hole higher up on the shifter, which in turn makes it sit lower in the tranny.
Here some comparison photos...........
The stock shifter in neutral
The zx shifter without the trim pieces
Whola......the zx shifter installed, in neutral with knob and trim pieces back in place. You can tell how far the shifter sits back in neutral compared to the stocker. Also, you can see that the top of the knob only comes up to about the middle of the radio....compared to the stock one which was higher than the frame piece around the radio!!
One thing that I don't like is how poofed out the accordian trim piece is now around the shifter...since it's squished down so much from the shorter shifter. I might cut some of the boot off.....but haven't decided yet for sure.
One thing to note..........make sure you get shift knob from the 280zx....although it looks identical to the S12 one.....the S12 knob won't screw onto the zx shifter as it's hole is bigger in dia. The shifter I got didn't have the knob on it......but I found one out of an early Sentra that screwed on....and it also is identical to the stock S12 one.
It only took about 10 minutes from start to finish.
I haven't driven it yet....only went through the gears in the garage. I can feel a pretty big difference compared to the stock one. All gears are ALOT closer to the driver's seat.....especially 1st, 3rd, and 5th, and now I can change cds in 3rd or 5th !!
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