Reply to "Gear shifting problems"

Coming into this discussion late- sorry but here's a few comments. I can make any stock Pantera shift lever go into the wrong gate-slot... simply by shifting so fast that I 'beat' the transmission synchros and twist the long shift rods. This used to happen to me a lot when I was autocrossing, until I slowed down my shifts and went quicker as a result. I also removed the stock finger-gate on the console, as it's much harder so it wears and will ultimately break a Pantera shift stick. Check yours for a groove worn in the side from the gate. I've seen grooves more than halfway thru; they are not easily repairable nor cheap.

Three mechanical things to look at in your racer: first, worn or aged motormount rubber isolators or loose bolts will allow the whole powertrain to shift slightly under power and it gets worse as things get hot. Next is a worn, loose or mis-adjusted shift rod support trunnion under the left header. Finally, many of us in the U.S. remove the redundent shift detent under the shift lever and rely only on the detent built into the ZF. This was a D. Quella mod' from the '80s that's so simple and effective to do, he doesn't even charge for removing it on cars in his shop.

As George mentioned, Lloyd originally developed the cable shifter to work with the ZF 6-speed option when he was trying to sell it to Ford for the then-new Ford GT, but he said it was expensive and no real improvement over a stock Pantera. He sold the design to another group who has developed it further, so today's unit is somewhat different from his original. I had a sample to fiddle with last year and it's well made but quite heavy. IMHO it WILL solve the shifter-in-the-wrong-slot-for-the-tranny-gear, and WILL compensate for aged or loose motor mount components but will NOT solve a too-fast shift that binds up the synchros inside the ZF.

FWIW, the steel-on-steel ZF synchro design is almost identical to the early Porsche 911, which can also be 'beat' by shifting too fast for the steel synchros. Don't know who licensed the design from whom. Note the ZF is a '60s design well before synthetic diff-lubes appeared. I only use 80W90 mineral oil diff-lube with limited-slip additive in it. YMMV.

Also FWIW, Porsche (911 & 914) used to have a cable shifter that was often criticised for being vague; the mid-engined Pontiac Fiero had a cable shifter as did the MR-2 Turbo and I've had trouble with all of them. Cable alignment is critical: I've owned and driven them all in anger and see no advantage over a properly adjusted Pantera rod-shifter.