XuTVJet

I've spent a small fortune and countless hours trying to find all around best shifting experience in my 987.2 Cayman. My goal was direct feel, very minimal play, and smooth shifting action. I'm convinced it's just not possible with these 987/997 cars, largely because of the cable design. There's too many components that allow for play and movement.

When I got my 2011 Cayman with 68K miles last October, it still had original cables and bushings. The shift action was pretty hilarious. I researched a lot and decided to go with the upgrade Porsche cables (987-424-042-12), pivot lever (981-424-023-00), and cable support (987-424-065-01) because I had heard too many stories of the Numerics being loud, difficult to adjust, hard to shift sometimes, etc. When installing the pivot, I took apart the original pivot and it had an internal rubber bushing which was severely shot where as the replacement one was a single piece of metal with no bushing. https://www.planet-9.com/threads/fyi...part-s.253640/ No bushing in the pivot means less unwanted movement and more direct feel. I also installed the Phenix Engineering shifter metal bushings at the same time.

The cables, pivot and support were great. They were quiet. The bushings though still allowed for too much lateral (side to side movement while in gear; ~1/4" movement) and aft movement (~1/8") in the shifter housing. It was not much better than the worn out plastic bushings I replaced. Plus the shift action was clunky/noisy and you could feel a slight stiction in the shifter action. There was also more feedback through the shifter which I think was due to the solid pivot lever and the metal bushings.

I then got a Shift-Right bushing kit from Function First. It was alright. It fixed the forward movement in the shifter housing, but the lateral play shift action was still there as was the clunk/noise and stiction and feedback.

I then added tungsten putty to the inside of my shift **** to add weight and hopefully reduce some of the feedback and clunk/noise. It helped a little.

I then got a metal/Delrin shift **** from Function First with hope of improving feedback and clunk/noise. It made things a bit worse than the stock shift **** with the putty. The stock **** with the putty went back on after a few months.

I then found one of the original Porsche shift shift kits $320 (rebranded B&M short shifter?) with the OEM plastic bushings. I installed the shifter with the Shift-Right bushing kit. Nope. Way too noisy. The shift action was great though. Felt way more meaty and direct in a good way. The lateral play remained. The stiction and feedback largely remained.

I then removed the Shift-Right bushing kit and installed all the OEM shifter components including the new OEM plastic bushings. Those plastic bushings made a huge difference. The bushings improved the clunk/noise, stiction, feedback, etc. by 50% or more. The lateral play remained.

I then changed out the transmission fluid from the standard Mobil 1 fill the Porsche dealer shortly before selling me the car and I went with the expensive ($120) and hard to acquire Mobilube PTX 75W-90. That fluid improved the stiction and overall shift action.

It's taken me a ton of money and time to get to this point. If I were to do it over again, I think I'd just get the replacement cables/lever/support and get the more expensive OEM Porsche short shifter assembly for $550 and call it a day. The short shifter assembly is almost all plastic which would reduce feedback and noise. https://www.suncoastparts.com/product/99742498300.html

Denny Swift

I'm curious to know what you think is shifting perfection. S2000? Honda civic? 718 Spyder/GT4? 992GT3?

inviktus

OP that's quite a journey! The PO on my car had installed Numeric cables, I augmented with the Numeric shifter and a weighted shift **** from Raceseng, and the combo is the best I've experienced over multiple BMWs, Porsches, and Audis.

I drove an S2K briefly, but it was too long ago to get a useful comparison between that and my setup now.

Kuro Neko

Ha!
For me, my 1969 Honda S800!

The original NSX isn't bad either.
Neither is the last Type R Civic.

As to the 987 question though, my answer was the easiest of all; three simple letters - PDK!
That upshift noise on full throttle from second to third gets me every time...

Hal

Great write up. Thanks.

Do you recall how much PTX you used? I plan to do this soon, but want to be sure I buy enough.

Thanks.

M. Essaie

Pretty hard for anything with cables to match a first-gen Miata. You're hanging onto a shift lever which is directly stirring gears about six inches away from your wrist.

KrisA

I just recently got a 2023 BRZ, it I think will help me be OK with my stock shifter and updated cables. I feel like you could throw every part under the sun at the Cayman and it would never match the stock BRZ.

MrMoose

Ha, this sounds a lot like what I've ended up with to try to make the shifter better on my 987.2:

- Numeric cables with silicone hose insulation
- Ben Auto short shifter and side lever
- Weights and tungsten putty in shift ****
- Silicone rubber rod into left transmission input to tighten it up
- Rebuilt right transmission pivot (the L piece from cable to linkage across the transmission)

It shifts pretty crisply now. With the silicone hoses, some good sealing at the firewall, and a whole bunch of Dynamat in the center console it's no louder than stock, and I haven't noticed any "clunk" or anything, just more direct shifting. There is still more side-to-side play in the shifter than I'd like, but I've determined it's in the transmission itself, not the linkage, so nothing I can do there, I guess.

If I were doing it again I'd probably still do all of the above except go with the OEM Porsche short shifter and install the Function First Shift Right kit on it (Instead of the Ben Auto setup) but that's a minor quibble. The Ben Auto parts are nice but they do raise the shift **** up a little.

harveyf

Clearly, a cable shifter going several feet to the rear of the car will never match a stick going directly into a transmission. Although it is possible to screw up both.
Here is a video I did. The shifter itself has zero ability to limit side to side or front to back motion. That is a function of the transaxle primarily and the cables secondarily.

In my 2007 CS track car I have the full Numeric setup. Shifter and cables. Side to side at the handle is about 1/8". My wife is the original owner of a 2006 CS with 75K miles. Hers moves side to side about 3 times farther than my track car, with its totally stock setup. My 86 928 has some sort of short shifter that a previous owner installed. It moves side to side about twice as much as my track car. And I find it to be really notchy. And that is a shifter directly into the top of the transmission! So I'm pretty happy with the Numeric setup on my track car.

Fun fact- Ferrari started using gated shifters because their transmissions were being broken by overexcited drivers. The gate part limits the motion and reduces the loads on the transmission internals.

lain09

I learned manual on an S2000 and that's my gold standard.

I wanted the best and got the Numeric short shifter kit within 1 week of buying the 987.2. It already had the upgraded OEM kit w/ the lever and kept it for NVH reasons like you.
The Numeric SSK got to 9/10 of the S2000 shifter. I then added the Heavy ***** set sold on this board that goes in the stock shifter and that smoothed it out a bit more to where when the car is warmed up it feels awesome.

XuTVJet

4 liters from Suncoast Porsche. I used maybe 10% of the last container.

XuTVJet

NA/NB Miata, S2000, 1st gen NSX, or current gen BRZ/GR86. I've never rowed the gears on a GT series Porsche. Porsche did change the shift mechanism in the 981+ generations and that's when all the mags raved about the manual shifters so that probably plays into it a bit. All those cars except the NSX pretty much have direct hard rod connection to the transmission. The 1st NSX cable (really a pliable rod) setup is just like Porsches, but the shifter lever and shifter housing is way more robust and almost all metal with hard plastic bushings. It's quite reinforced as well. Even makes the Numeric setup look chintzy in design.

My other car is a 2016 BMW M235 6MT. The only mod to that shifter is the M Performance shift **** which slightly weighted and shorter so it gives the sensation of a shorter shift, but better yet, fixes some of that rubber feeling so common in late model BMW shifters. My Cayman definitely has a much more engaging and heavy mechanical feel for sure. It just has more play while in gear and more stiction, basically more racecar like.

XuTVJet

Last night I did some experimenting. There's quite a bit of play side to side play in the white plastic pivot located to the left lever. I drilled two small holes in the pivot and used two coax cable plastic clamps as shims. The screws I used were about 1/4" in depth and don't go into the area where the lever pivot ball operates. I trimmed about 1/4" off the clamp. It took it about 50% of the lateral play in the shifter. Doesn't impact shifter operation either.

SeanPatrick31

Is there any additional NVH with this setup? The OEM GT3 shifter is almost the price of the Numeric. The Numeric shifter with upgraded OEM cables might be perfect for me.

Thanks.

harveyf

I know this is a hard thing to evaluate but I am perplexed about NVH complaints with the Numeric setup. I put in the Numeric shifter and cables, including putting the split rubber hose Numeric supplies over the cables, in my 2007 Cayman S. As a comparison, my wife has a 2006 Cayman S with OEM shifter and cables. I don't hear any significant difference in the noise profile. My hearing has "patina" but I am not deaf! The Cayman engine is a noisy beast, that is a feature to me, not a bug. The improvements to the shifter feel versus my wife's car was dramatically better. You do want to be careful about the seal where the cables enter the cockpit through the firewall. Maybe add a little dum-dum sealant.