Installation Time
(approx) 1 Hour
Difficulty Level:
Light to Moderate mechanical skill required.
Installation Guides
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Hey, guys, Adam here with americanmuscle.com. And today, we're taking a closer look at, and, of course, installing the SR Performance Short Throw Shifter for the TR-3650 transmission in '01 Cobras, late '01 to '04 GTs and '03 to '04 Mach 1s like the one that we're sitting in right now. You should be checking this out for your five-speed if you're looking to replace the factory sloppy mishift causing shifter with one that is shorter to reduce throw times to get a firmer more precise shift, eliminating the shifting, and honestly get a better driving experience for your Mustang. Now, this guy here from SR Performance is a lightweight billet aluminum with a separated shifter handle here to reduce any of that NVH. It's also got two self-centering springs in the shifter base to make sure that it's guiding you back into position and neutral and back into each gear every time.This is really gonna help transform your driving experience because we all know going from second to third, fourth to fifth and back can cause some mishifting, and the factory shifter is so long and has so much travel time between gears. The SR Performance one here is going to eliminate all of those issues. This guy is one of the most affordable options in the category as well when it comes to a short throw shifter coming in right around 165 bucks. Having such a reduction in shift times between gears can make such a difference on the drag strip as well. And as you guys know, every 10th of a second counts, so if you're looking to crack down on some ET times, this is a great way to reduce those shift times.Now, this guy here is an extremely simple install for the TR-3650s. It is worth mentioning here that this does not fit the T-45 equipped early '01 to '04 GTs. This guy here is just for the late models that have the TR-3650. Now, it's also worth mentioning the shifter here does have the factory shifter thread pitch, so it fits all factory shift knobs and aftermarket knobs that would otherwise fit on your factory shifter. So, if you have a Hurst shifter, if you have a Hurst shift knob, those are a little bit different of a thread pitch, won't work on the SR Performance option here.Install is gonna get one out of three wrenches on our difficulty meter, believe it or not, working in these SN95 and New Edge Mustangs, the transmission here is super easy to swap the shifter out of. It's about eight bolts start to finish, and you're only removing this little trim piece here around the shifter. Super simple, and you can transfer over your factory shifter boot very easily as well. I'll take you through the entire process. It'll take you maybe an hour max start to finish. What do you say we get started?All right. Tools used in this install include a 1/4-inch ratchet, a small extension, 8 and 13-millimeter deep sockets, 13-millimeter wrench, 6-millimeter Allen key, flathead screwdriver, and recommended would be blue Loctite, and I'm using gray RTV or black RTV for our gasket, but you can also purchase one separately.All right. The first step here, we, of course, want to get our shift knob out of the way. Now, for that, you're just gonna lefty loosey. Get this guy completely off, and I'm gonna set it here in our cup holder. The next step, we're gonna focus on the entire trim panel surrounding your shifter boot. Now, this guy is relatively loose from the factory. You just want to pry up on one of the ends, and it snaps out of place. Now, if you're having trouble with this, a panel removal tool can go a long way. I don't recommend something like a flathead screwdriver because you don't want to scratch or damage any of the trim around here. So, that pops off. So, here we have our cigarette lighter, that's we're going to set in our cup holder as well. All right. Just like that. The boot does come with it. So, this, we're gonna slide up off of the shifter. Now, underneath, we want to unplug the cigarette lighter, and that's just gonna be a pinch and disconnect, just like that. All right. So, now we can set this aside.Next step here, we're going to remove the four 8-millimeter bolts holding on that bottom plate. Now, for these bottom two lower guys, I'm gonna push the shifter up into third to get myself a little bit more room. All right. Now, these bolts, you want to make sure you're not dropping them down. They might go under the car if you do, but I'm gonna keep them in the cup holder for safekeeping. For the top, gonna pull it down into fourth. All right. The last one is at the top right. All right. From there, we can go in and lift up on that plate. Now, oftentimes, depending on the condition of your vehicle and if this has been messed with before, the plate is actually stapled to the boot underneath of it, so you kind of need to pull them up together. There we go, tight squeeze but we can get it. So now you can set this aside.All right. So, next, we're gonna take the entire shifter assembly off, and that's with four 13-millimeter bolts holding it to the TR-3650. So, grab your 13 socket, and again, I'm using an extension here. Throw that guy in third, and we can get these four off. All right. Bring her back down into fourth and get the other two off. These are pretty crusty, so it might be a little difficult to get some of them off. A lot of them have, like, quite a bit of grease on them. All right. With those four out of the way, you can start to break this free. There it goes. You know, this is a pretty high mileage vehicle, so it can be pretty stuck on there. You also want to be careful of any trans fluid that's at the bottom of the shifter base, gonna let that drip, and I'm gonna grab a rag to pull this guy out, so we don't get it inside the car.We have our factory shifter off of our TR-3650 from our Mach 1 behind me, and it's on the table next to our SR Performance Short Throw Shifter for the TR-3650. So, let's take a look at some similarities and differences between the two. The first thing and the most notable difference just looking at them right on the table here is the size and height. Now, the factory shifter comes in from base to top at just about 10.5 inches tall. Your new SR Performance shifter comes in at about 8 inches tall, so it's a big 2.5-inch difference just in height of the shifter handles. That is shifter base to top, but it is worth noting that is a sizeable difference. You'll also notice that your factory shifter comes out at a curve, and it has that long arm that is more angled toward the driver. Now, right out of the box, the SR Performance Short Throw Shifter is pretty straight up, but they do have these two Allen head adjuster bolts that allow you to angle it to more of a personal preference type of feel inside the vehicle. So, if you want it angled a little bit toward you, you can definitely do that with those two adjustable bolts.The SR Performance shifter also has two adjustable stopping bolts. Now, those are right at third and fourth gear to help prevent overextension, and it really clicks the shifter back into place for third and fourth. So, those two bolts are there. They are adjustable to give you a little bit more throw forward and backward, but personally, I like to leave them as is right out of the box in more of that neutral position.Now, this shifter here is also gonna completely reduce the shifting experience as far as the distance that you're throwing into each gear, and that's obviously pretty straightforward being a short throw shifter. Now, while I don't have the exact percentage of throw reduction, it is quite noticeable and does completely change the driving experience. They have two self-centering springs inside of the SR Performance shifter base to help guide it back into neutral from each gear, but also to make sure you're getting a precise shift every single time. A big thing with the factory shifter is a very loose linkage and loose spring inside the shifter base connecting it to the transmission. That sloppy shifter feel will also result in mishifting specifically from second to third and from fifth to fourth and vice versa. Going from the left gate to the center or the right gate to the center or back can result in missing and hitting that wall in between. Not gonna be the case here with the SR Performance shifter due to those self-centering springs.Now, aside from that, this is also made from a high-quality billet aluminum, little bit different than the steel construction you'd get from your factory shifter. This guy is a little bit lighter weight. It's also very thick. It also feels a lot sturdier than the factory loose shifter. Now, what we can do is set the factory shifter aside. We're gonna head right into the vehicle. The first thing we do before we install this guy is to scrape off any residue leftover from the factory gasket. Now, our Mach 1 behind me has some pretty high miles on it, so there really isn't any gasket existent at this point. There's just the residue leftover. We're gonna scrape that guy off, and we're going to apply new RTV gray silicone or black if that's what you have. Now, you can also pick up a specific gasket for this transmission separately, not included in the kit, or you can use the RTV method that we're using. It's all personal preference. So, what do you say we head back into the vehicle and get finished up?All right. There is one thing we have to transfer over from the factory shifter, and it's this little adapter grommet at the bottom of the shifter ball that connects to the transmission. Now, this guy is sort of a ball and socket type of assembly. I'm gonna use a flathead screwdriver to just pop this guy off of that ball. All right. So now, we can take this guy, and I'm gonna set it on the ball joint, and this guy is super tight, so what I'm going to do is place it down on the table and just push straight down on our shifter base. Now you make sure you're not going at an angle because it will slip. Go straight down. You'll hear that loud click, and now it's on.All right. So, now looking at our trans, what we want to do is take off all the excess residue from the previous gasket. Now, what I'm gonna do is stick my hand in here and just pull up any that's easy to take off by hand, just like this rubberized little bits. Toss that out. All right. So, once you get the big clumps by hand, I'm gonna take a razor blade and go along the edge here to just clean up a little bit that's on the edges. And you can see how much that that takes off. So much of it using such a sharp razor blade. All right. So, we scraped the majority of the gunk off of the surface there. Now, we need to apply our RTV silicone gasket seal. Now, I'm gonna use RTV gray. You can use black as well, or you can again purchase a new gasket. So now, what we're gonna do is just apply about a 1/4-inch bead all down the side here.All right. So, we applied our silicone gasket here, and you want to make sure you're giving it a generous amount. You want to make sure you're getting all the way around the entire bolt hole, where the threaded holes are, not just one side of the cornering. So, just make sure you get all around the entire base, and now we can apply our shifter. Now you want to make sure that little cup that we put on the ball and socket here is going inside of the hole where the trans fluid is in the transmission. And with that, we're lining up our bolt holes. Now, there are four new 13-millimeter bolts that you're gonna use instead of the factory ones to hold the shifter to the transmission. Now, what I'm gonna do is put a small dab of blue Loctite on the bolt before putting it on. And, that way, we get a nice hold in the trans. All right. So, I got the blue Loctite. I'm just gonna thread this guy in by hand through the first hole. All right. Now, before I tighten that one down, I'm gonna do the same thing for all the other ones. All right. So now, we can grab our ratchet and our 13 socket and tighten these guys down.At this point, this is a good time to set our stops, these stop bolts. Now, right out of the box, they're in a pretty good position, but once you have this installed on the transmission, you may need to make some small adjustments. When you shift into third and fourth, this shifter handle or base should have a very small gap between the base and the top of the bolt head. You want that little bit of gap for the extra extension, and that'll stop any extra force going past the gear. Now, going up into third, we have a pretty big gap, so that's really where we want to make the adjustment. This guy is pretty good, but we do need to adjust the top bolt. So, what I'm gonna do is just loosen up the back nut, and I'm gonna bring our bolt head forward. You can typically do it by hand, just loosening the bolt here. And put the shifter forward, just a little bit more to go. All right. That's a pretty good stopping point right there. So, once you have that figured out, you're gonna tighten down the nut from the back as much as you can by hand and then grab a wrench and finish that off. All right. Same thing for the bottom. Now, like I said, that bottom one is pretty good. We just want to make sure the nut is fully tightened.All right. So, our next step here is to put our shifter plate and that rubber boot back on. Now, this can be pretty tight, so you want to be careful with the way that you do this. I'm gonna put this in fifth gear just to push it out from the driver side a little bit more. Gonna open this guy up, and you're gonna carefully feed this back down. Now, as far as how deep this is gonna go down, you're basically going to underneath of the two hex screws, the adjustment screws on the side of the shifter, and from there we can get this guy back into position. All right. From there, the plate sits flush up against the trans, the transmission tunnel at least, and you're gonna grab the factory 8-millimeter bolts and put them back through. At this point, you're just gonna shift this into gears, making sure that this rubber isn't prohibiting a smooth shift. If it is, you may need to adjust how this sits at the base. Ours is looking pretty good, so we're gonna move forward.All right. Grab your 8-millimeter socket and tighten all four down. All right. Next is a pretty good idea at this point to make sure that the hex screws are tight on the side of your adjuster base. Of course, you can make adjustments if need be. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna throw this guy in fifth, grab a 6-millimeter Allen key, and I'm just gonna make sure that these guys are tight. There you go. Perfect. Now, we can move on to the boot and the bezel.Now, for this, you want to make sure you're reconnecting the cigarette lighter before applying it. All right. From here, you want to make sure the boot gets fed onto the threaded shifter handle and click that guy back in place. Now, you also want to make sure that you're putting the actual cigarette lighter back in position. And from there, you can take your shift knob and screw it back on. Just wanna make sure the pattern is straight. And at that point, you're finished, and you're good to go.Well, guys, that's gonna wrap up my review and install for the SR Performance Short Throw Shifter, fitting the TR-3650 five-speed transmission in all '01 Cobras, late '01 to '04 GTs and '03 to '04 Mach 1s. Pick up the SR Performance Short Throw Shifter exclusively right here at americanmuscle.com.
Features, Description, Reviews, Q&A, Specs & Installation
Fitment:
DetailsSR Performance 41164
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Installation Info
Installation Time
(approx) 1 Hour
Difficulty Level:
Light to Moderate mechanical skill required.
Installation Guides
What's in the Box
Hardware included:Specifications:
Transmission: | TR-3650 | Adjustable: | Yes |
Year/Model: | Late 01-04 GT, 01 Bullitt, 01 Cobra, 03-04 Mach 1 | Material: | Billet Aluminum |
Manufacturer: | Shift Knob Included: | No |
10 More Questions
Fits 2001 Bullitt, 2001-2004 GT, 2001 Cobra, and 2003-2004 Mach 1 Mustangs with Tremec 3650 manual transmission