Riceburner98

Just had an idea to shorten the clutch pedal travel.. I know about changing the stop on the pedal so it doesn't go "past" disengaged, but you still have a decent amount of throw from "foot off" to disengaged.. (or at least I seem to..) Once in a while I'll grind a gear because I didn't push the pedal 2 feet down before shifting. Anyway since it's a hydraulic system the "proper" way to change the travel would be to either install a smaller diameter slave cylinder or install a larger diameter master cylinder. That would change the amount the "slave" moves in relation to the master. Rather than find a new compatible slave or master cylinder, I thought about using another device to change how much fluid moves in the system. I saw this thing in Hot Rod magazine a month or 2 ago, but I think I gave away the magazine and thier website is like a giant advertisement, hard to find any real info from the magazine. Basically it was a cylinder with a hose connection on either end, and inside was a floating "double piston" that actually was 2 sizes - one larger and one smaller end, with the inner bores sized to match. It's intended to increase the caliper piston movement for a given amount of pedal movement. Basically when you push a pedal connected to the smaller cylinder / piston end (say it moves that piston .5"), it would move the larger piston end .5" as well, which in turn moves more fluid out of that end of the device. It would increase the amount of pressure needed on the input side of course, which in the case of our clutch pedal may be a good thing... (seems "too" easy to push compared to most cars IMO...) I've tried to search for the thing online but keep coming up empty. Anyone have any back-issues of HotRod (a couple months maybe?) that you've seen this in? I'm pretty sure it was in the "new products" section, not in an actual article. I'm just curious if this would actually work how I think it would... Or maybe I'm just nuts.. Edit to say the reason I'm considering it is I just ordered a short shifter and I'm concerned about grinding.. If I could reduce my clutch pedal throw by 1/3 or so, I'd be happy. I'd try to make one, but I haven't used my CNC machine to do anything that needs to be perfectly round and would have to seal... Maybe if I had a lathe.

engifineer

Well.. I have to say the obvious first. If you are grinding, you need to practice driving a standard more. Even with a short shifter I have never had an issue grinding on this car.. it is incredibly easy to drive.

The idea you have sounds good though, but if the system you saw is made for brakes, then the relationship may be a bit off. So you will just have to find the right sizes to match what you need. So it may take a little trial and error.

Tcguy85

i had trouble grinding gears when everything was stock but not anymore since all my tranny mods.

Riceburner98

Never had any trouble with grinding in my other standard cars... Several Fieros, '98 Eclipse, 01 Neon R/T, borrowed '92 3KGTVr4, or '05 EVO VIII.. (though with that one I would have ended up with Arnold's calf before long!) Neon would disengage within 1" from top, it was great. Didn't get the "clunky" shifting from the synchros like this one either.. I'm hoping the Redline MT90 will take care of the synchro feeling, and the TWMII and bushings will firm up the shifts. I'll probably do the lower limit stop and see how that feels too.. Maybe I should just get used to it. Still want to try a different tC to see if it's just mine. (the clunky synchro thing between shifts) I get the grinding maybe once a week when I manage to not put the pedal all the way to the floor between shifts.

engifineer

I would be checking for other issues then. Like I said, I have owned mostly standard cars with only a few autos, and have found this car to be as easy or easier than any other to drive and have never had gear grinding issues. The only complaints I have seen with grinding were people who were new to a standard or people who have had issues with the thier tC.

Mine isnt clunky, doesnt grind and shift very smoothly. So trying another tC to compare may be a good idea for you.

Riceburner98

Maybe I can do that tomorrow... The "President's Day" sales should be in full swing.. As long as they don't see me pull up in a tC I can probably test drive one. :D

engifineer

heh heh.. good idea Have someone else drive you to the lot.. they will jump on the chance to let you test drive :D

Riceburner98

Ah well, that was a waste of a couple hours. I did manage to find 2 "local" Scion dealers that won't be getting any of my business though. The first one "Copeland Scion" in Brockton, MA I decided to go to because they had a "modded" tC in the showroom. I wanted to check out the vertical doors. Well, I would be ashamed if that was my car and it was on display! The doors were really vertical unlike most kits I've seen, but as it turned out, that was the only good thing. They were supposedly "custom made" by a local hydraulic shop, the doors were really wobbly up top, there was raw welding all over, they closed really bad, and the fender was bowed out about 1/2" in the middle. Ugh. There were other custom touches like they chromed the center 'waterfall' surround thing, a "custom" grille, and the best of all, the nicely corroded battery + AEM hold down, complete with about 10 wires cranked down onto the + post. That was a scary car, and it was roped off in the middle of the showroom. Anyway, the reason I'm not going back there... I asked if there were any standard cars I could try out (that one was, but I didn't know what shifter / work it had) and he goes to find out.. Couple minutes later he comes back "sorry, we don't have any standard tCs out there.". So I'm like, uh, really? "Yep, sorry". I should have said "What about the white Spec tC I parked next to?". Duh. So I left there, and went to Boch Scion, in Norwood, MA. Pretty much the same treatment there. "Um, we don't have any standards. But you can check that one over in the showroom, it might be a standard." Huh? So I check (Auto) and he goes off to "see" if there are any others. A few minutes later I see him helping some other customers, he sees me and he's like "so that one was an auto then? Sorry.." Then went off to more people. I can see if they had both said "sorry, we can't help you with that right now", but to be lied to by 2 different places. Sorry, just rude. / steps down from soapbox / Anyone local have a standard tC I can try shifting? LOL Want to see if something's really wrong or not before I install the TWM shifter and gear lube.. Ah well.

engifineer

Well.. vertical doors are definitely not my thing to start with, and they will all end up having to be re-adjusted over and over again unless the car is a show queen and see's no real use. Definitely a show item.

Sorry to hear about that, seems that I have heard others out there complain of the first dealer you mentioned. Surely someone on SL near you has one you can drive and test out.

Riceburner98

Just noticed under someone's username in another post that he's from the town I work in, so I PM'd him.. He does have the TRD stick installed, but it should still give me an idea.. If he doesn't think I'm some flippin psycho trying to meet up! LOL

engifineer

Stalker


:D

engifineer

I do hear of some people claiming that a short shifter "fixed" thier grinding problem. But the only way that is the case is if they are simply now shifting at the exact right place (which will minimize the effect of bad synchros) or they were simply shifting out of time with the pedal movement with the old shifter. You seem to have plenty of experience with a standard, so you should be able to tell right away once you drive another one.

arbnpx

Guess who the lucky winner was.

I think I've been accustomed to the Toyota gearboxes; the one in my 99 Corolla wasn't much different in feel, and now and then I'd end up shifting too fast from 2 to 3 and grinding a little. I have almost no grinding in the tC one, but maybe it's the years of driving only Toyota (my mom had the Corolla before I bought it from her; she has a Celica now; before all that she had the 88 Nova, which was basically a rebadged Corolla). About the only non-Toyota manual gearbox I've dealt with was a Ford F-250, which was pretty fun to drive (admit it, any V8 is fun [aside from gas expenses] ).

narcturus

Hey all,

I don't frequent the forums much, but stumbled across this one while researching short-shifters. I'm posting because I happen to live in Brookline and work in Foxboro if you still wanna check out a stock car.

Anyway, I've had 3 Accords before this and they all shifted pretty smoothly. In fact, they were pretty old too (bought a '92 in '02 once). The tc shifts nicely most of the time, but for some reason I notice that I grind more in this car than in the past. I don't grind a lot, mind you, but it sure *seems* more frequent. I bought this car last August so it's pretty new (though my commute made me put over 10k miles on it already!) and I could just be getting used to it. Certainly most of the grinds are just me being inattentive, too.

I just read about the doc isotope shifters, which sound like a good deal and have gotten some good reviews here. I'm not too close time-wise to modding the car, but I'm doing research ahead of time. You're set on the TWM? Which stage?

BTW, I bought mine at Clair - they were pretty helpful, though I haven't gone back for service yet (Valvoline and a friend for the oil changes so far). I think they actually did a dealer trade with Brockton for my car when I bought it, but sorry to hear about your experiences.

Good to hear from more local tc-ers!

-Narc

Riceburner98

Well, that's pretty local! Where do you work in Foxboro? I live right next to an elementary school on South St. My GF lives in Boston, so I'm going through Brookline on 9 all the time from Natick. I just installed the TWM stage 2 today, and other than "sloppy *****" (LOL), I'm pretty happy with it. It turns out that there's some play in the main "ball" on the shifter, and some in the left/right ball that goes into the pivot arm to the cable. Front / back you can feel a little sloppyness, left / right there's more. With the shifter out, you can actually see that the ***** are loose in the sockets. The TWM ***** are exactly the same size as the Toyota shifter, so it's not TWM's fault but sloppy tolerences on the Toyota plastic shifter assembly. It translates into probably 1/16 - 1/8" of movement at the top of the shift ****, which I don't like. Overall it feels better, obviously the synchro "catch" is still there, but I like the shorter throw a lot. I do need to get a shorter boot, as bunching / rolling the stock one down just doesn't look good at all. I also installed the bronze bushings on the transmission end of the cables, but haven't driven with them yet. I did those without removing anything but the "resonator" on the air intake tube, took maybe 10 minutes including dropping parts 5 times. If you want to meet up somemtime, let me know! Always good to check out another tC!

tekstyle

if you want shorter throws, u need a master clutch cylinder that has a bigger cylinder and piston. per distance the piston travels will move more fluid in the hydraulic clutch lines. the side effect is that your clutch will be more stiff.

OMNI POWER sells one for the acura integra type r. i have it in my gsr and i love it. i can shift at lightning speed ( gsr shifter is pretty comfortable too) and engage into gear without any grinding nor lag. perfect heel toe down shifting. its great. but driving my gf's stock TC, i feel it's missing in the response department as a whole.