Description
This is the ALL NEW short shifter designed by the man himself, Ben!
A longer shaft puts the shifter a touch closer to the steering wheel, making shifter easier and faster. This is the way to improve the feel of your 1997-2012 Porsche 911 / Cayman / Boxster!
5% shorter throw than the 9X7 Shifter.
Threaded design (M12x1.25 thread) offers the option of using a wide variety of aftermarket shift knobs. I do not carry shift knobs for this application.
(Note: THE STOCK PORSCHE SHIFT KNOB AND BOOT CANNOT BE USED WITH THIS KIT!)
Ben’s Short Shifter is unlike any other short shifter on the market: Fitted with ball bearings, it will eliminate all the play you may have in your old shifter. The precision of the ball bearings will give you a “rifle bolt” feeling on every shift.
Tried and true, this is the ultimate shifter upgrade at any price, it just so happens that this one is affordably priced !
Here is the installation video:
Installation instructions:
- Remove cable ends from the shift lever using a large flat blade screwdriver to pry them off.
- Using a hammer and a chisel or screwdriver break off the white plastic mounting tabs for the stock shifter lever bushings on both ends. Be careful and wear proper eye protection as this little suckers go flying! (the black housing is very strong, made from Nylon filled plastic.)
- Pull out the stock shift lever.
- Now is a great time to install the Ben Auto Design side lever kit if you purchased it as well. 😉
- Press the bearings onto the lever, 2 per side if not already present.
- Have the housing in front of you with the side lever on the left side. Insert the new shift lever, rear end first into the housing.
- Insert the spacer washer in one of the screw caps. Hold the housing up vertically and insert the cup (with washer inside) through the hole in the housing and onto the lever so that the bearings slide in. (Note the location of the locating notch on the black housing and orient the cups to match.)
- Repeat for the other side.
- Loosen the lock nuts on the screw caps so that you can press the caps in fully.
- Push the caps in so that you can insert the cir-clips in from to top to hold them in.
- Adjust the black threaded screws on the screw caps to position the new shift lever approximately centered in the housing. (Note: it does not need to be perfectly centered.)
- Use a 19mm box end wrench to hold the locknut, then insert a (6mm allen wrench into the black threaded screw and tighten FINGER TIGHT ONLY! Any more than finger tight and the shift lever will be difficult to move!
- At this point move the lever around to make sure that it rotates freely in all directions.
- Install into your car and enjoy your fantastically upgraded shifting experience! 🙂
**NOTE: On a small percentage of the shifter housings, you may need to file out the housing so that the new cups can slide in. Porsche had changed the diameter of the cups and the Ben Auto Design cups WILL NOT FIT without making the holes in the housing larger with a file. After making them larger the new cups should slide in easily.
Video from PCA detailing how to remove all of the plastic trim to install your new short shift kit:
TERRY JONES (verified owner) –
Works great, much improved shifting–more direct, much shorter as it is meant to be.
Jan Bauer (verified owner) –
Very high quality.
Doug B. (verified owner) –
Shifter is crisp. Stalk is tall. My wife designed a new boot.
I love how it’s so solid.
Francis (verified owner) –
Ben’s Shifter 2.0 feels great in my 986 Boxster.
Be sure to leave your center console off because its more than likely you’ll need to readjust the allen screws to adjust the shifter to your liking after a test drive.
James (verified owner) –
Along with the side lever, this totally changes the feel of driving my car. This is what Porsche should’ve used in the first place. Installation is pretty straightforward; highly recommend the help me diy center console removal video on YouTube, and the video for B.A.D. short shifter installation linked here was also helpful
tim a. (verified owner) –
The BAD short shifter is awesome. It transforms the Boxster’s driving experience via a very high quality assembly compared the competition. The price/to value ratio is the highest I’ve experienced and I have purchased and installed a Numeric shifter on my Cayman S.
Anonymous (verified owner) –
Very nice quality piece
Thomas L. (verified owner) –
The shifter is gorgeous, and works great. The install was a little tricky, as the video on the site I believe shows an older model. I had to undo the white side piece and slide it up to allow the main body to go into the centre section. I was not able to remove the bearings as shown in the video (at least it seemed like they would not come off easily without damage so I left them on), if they were able to come off, it probably would have been easier. I did have an initial problem with the white side piece binding so the shifter would stick in the full left position, to fix it all I had to do was change the cable clip location to allow full unrestricted movement. After doing that, it is amazing! The additional height will take some getting used to, but so far so good. I added a shift boot from Amazon, which seems to work pretty well and was fairly inexpensive.
Kenneth K. (verified owner) –
Quality part
Dan (verified owner) –
very easy to install and it feels tight & like it will accomplish exactly what I want.
Calvin (verified owner) –
Martin S. (verified owner) –