hchan

I have a DTS, I have a snub mount, god damn it, I even have a short shifter. It's still not smooth. I know it will never be like a honda transmission, but I just want it a little smoothier. The neuspeed shortshifter just made it worse, it's a little notchier than stock. I'm gonna take that out and w/ my trusty mobil 1 syn grease, grease my stock back up and put it back on. I've heard and seen these ball bearing cartridges for other shifters. How are they?

wishbone

Mine's the same way.. notchy... I have the tanoga. The transmissions in these cars are just ****.. (man I say that a lot)

System_S4k

Audi REALLY needs a revised 6 speed in the next S4.

Monster1pt8TQ

Its Walker, Texas Ranger. He wants his $85
;-)

System_S4k

Uh oh, I hope he doesn't bust out his big bad bazooka and kung fu me. :P

Monster1pt8TQ

I will kung fu-ing him :-P

donistook

The transmission itself is not the culprit for the vague, rubbery shift feel on the S4. If you looked at the entire linkage package, you will find rubber bushings on several key areas. The entire housing is plastic with rubber bushings and the auxillary support rod has a front rubber bushing. The cross link piece has one rubber and one plastic bushing. One reason for all the rubber is because of the excessive motion/movement that the drive train experiences upon accel/decell. The engine/subframe carrier has very large rubber mounts, the engine mounts and the transmiision mounts are rubber (as they are in most cars.

If you solidly mount more of the shifter parts and leave the engine and transmssion mounts alone, the movement of the engine/transmission in normal driving is enough to pop the transmission out of gear.

We have extremely precise shifting on our Grand-Am S4...shift with the flick of your wrist...but we have reworked everything. Solid subframe mounts, solid engine/transmission mounts, eliminated the auxillary shift rod, used heim joints for the cross rod, and made a heim jointed shift housing out of aluminum and a spherical bearing....none of this is real practical for a street S4.

What it takes beyond the UUC short shifter and the DTS would be stiffer (not solid, but stiffer) engine and transmission mounts, a harder rubber bushing on the auxillary shift rod and harder or solid bushings on the cross link. The shift housing could then be due a major overhaul and eliminate the soft rubber slide bushings.

Believe me, when you get rid of the rubber, the transmission shifts are pretty slick.

I'll also tell you a little secret...We also take the detents and machine .050" off of the face of them where they screw into the transmission. This increases the spring tension...makes the selectors less prone to "pop" out of gear...especially when the transmission gets hot.

Don Istook

wishbone

All good info! thanks man! Make us a street kit! =)

donistook

Make that "smoother", not smotther...(gremlins...)

M3KILR

get the tanoga with ball bearings, very smooth probably your best bet. Someone is trying to do a groupbuy right now