What is a Short Throw Shifter and How Do They Work? Step-By-Step Guide in 2023

When you are driving, you will naturally want to maintain a short angular distance between your hand and the shifter of your car, thus you can easily move your hand and shifter during the travels. And for meeting this necessity about less movement of the person’s arm or elbow through the shifter, car manufacturers launch a modern material which is known as ‘Short Throw Shifter’.

So, for having an undisturbed, faster, and smooth driving experience by setting Short Throw Shifter, we should need to know- What is a Short Throw Shifter and How Do They Work?

Let’s get into the details.

What is a Short Throw Shifter?

A short-throw shifter is one of the simplest and least expensive mechanical devices that places a progressive performance in your manual transmission car. As the saying goes, this upgraded tool shortens the distance of your throws or shifts by minimizing the angle of throwing distance between your hand and pivot point of the shifter.

A short-throw shifter creates well-structured, stiff, shorter gear shifts and all the related benefits that you get better from buying any regular shifter from the market and perhaps having a good choice of materials that can create a more solid experience.

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Stock Shifter vs. Short Throw Shifter

The basic difference between the stock and short-throw shifter is the experience of throwing shifter by the owner of the car.

Stock shifter or the current shifter offers a gear-shift experience and focus on the effortlessness and comfortability of the car’s driver- though its throwing is pretty long.

If you are satisfied with your current or stock shifter and its throwing distance and also think that it will be taken a lot of time to change gears, you can continue with the current one.

But car manufacturers recently have noticed some frequent discomfort issues of the stock shifter users where lengthy throwing distance is very common. These long throws are often more likely to a feel of boating with an oar lazily rather than drive a car. Hence, we can upgrade the shifter if we want to fix this uneasiness.

Now let’s come to the short-throw shifter and its features. A short-throw shifter is an upgraded version of a regular or stock shifter. As before we said, it is stiffer and less sloppy. By having fewer hand and arm movements in less distance, you can get an experience of effortless driving and manual drivers also like most that they can change gears in a small space, feel more connected to the process of changing gears and get the rigidity through a more responsive shifter.

How does a short-throw shifter work?

To say bluntly about the functions of a short-throw shifter, it shifts the lever in a less distance where it is reducing the angle at which the gear has to travel.

But before getting into a discussion about how a short-throw shifter works, let’s look at the basic function of a shifter- a shifter is a shaft or passage attached to a gearbox. When you step on the clutch and move the gear from one position to another, it slots on the pre-defined ‘gates’ and then the required gear has been selected.

Function of a short-throw shifter

A short-throw shifter works similarly to a stock shifter but its functions take place because of some new components that make the throw less and shorter.

There remains a misconception about short-throw shifter that it might be a chopped version of a stock shifter. Please do not cut your current shifter, chopping shifter does not bear the advantages of a short-throw shifter. And it will be a bad setup for your car.

Thus we should need to understand for which features we call it Short Throw shifter. A stock shifter and a short-throw shifter are differed by the shaft which is a part of the shifter that travels between gears as we mentioned just a while ago.

A short-throw shifter helps to reduce the angle of the shaft, making lower the gear knob and changing the pivot point within less space, which is its actual function. By reducing the angular length of the shaft using a short-throw shifter, you get shorter throws which will be more confident.

Installing a Short Throw Shifter

Installing a short-throw shifter is easy enough even if you are not a skilled person and have less knowledge on fixing mechanical devices particularly. As we mentioned earlier, this is an upgraded part of your car that you can use regularly.

Here is no need to make any rush or be advanced while fixing the short-throw shifter. And as you get more benefits from this instrument, here goes a constant reminder to you to be careful while installing it because setting things up in rush will mess up your car.

Moreover, the installation method will not be similar for all brands. For this reason, here we bring up some common things that you should bear in mind for any model-

• Ensure that all mechanical devices and parts are properly lubricated.
• Try not to tighten the screws too much
• Keep watching on the gear stick thus it will not hit the transmission tunnel

Now let’s see what materials are needed for setting up a short-throw shifter-

• Flat-head screwdriver
• Quarter- Inch Ratchet
• Wrench set and Rags
• Box cutter/ gasket scraper
• Hammer and a block of wood
• Thread lock

And your new short-throw shifter

After gathering all of your materials, read the installation guide thoroughly which has been provided for your specific shifter.

Installation Cost

Cost for a short-throw shifter will depend on your application. So if you want to have a sustainable and also cheap kit, you will get it within a range between $150 up to $500 with all parts and pieces you need to install.

You will get branded one which will cost just a little bit more than this range but at an affordable price. Overall this is by far the most cost-effective mod for your car.

Advantages of using Short Throw Shifter

• Shorter Throws: Through an experiment, it has been found that using a short-throw shifter could reduce throws length by more than 50% which is a notable and also much considerable feature. It spends less time keeping your hands away from the wheel. And based on these features, you can make your choice of replacement of the current shifter.
• Elevated Performance: Placing a short-throw shifter will be able to increase interaction level with your car, give you a quicker shifting experience which is an improved driving experience.

Here quick-shifting refers to accelerating and deaccelerate quickly. Altogether this improved experience could be safer and more comfortable for you.

• New and polished appearance: Once you can choose the exact shifter kits along with the gear knob for your car, see how that enhances the visual appearance with upgraded performances of the cabin. You will also get the chance of customization such as giving a ‘sporty look’.
• Cost-effective tool
• Helps to make the gearbox swifter
• Worthy as a daily driving material
• More compatible for competitive and track uses

What is a Short Throw Shifter and How Do They Work?

Final Words

Setting a short-throw shifter will not only shorten your throwing angle but also provide a tighter and smooth driving experience. Though some retrials might need for the starters and those who want to experience back driving- here owners need for efforts.

But overall, still it is a more suitable and least expensive tool to enhance the fun- factor of your manual transmission car. Thus whose are looking for better shifting deftness, a well-modified car with a quicker gearbox and shaft, a short-throw shifter will be the ideal selection for your car without any hesitation!

Therefore, I hope that your quest of “what is a short throw shifter and how do they work” is address in a detailed that you can easily move from stock shifter to short throw shifter.