Sorry to bring this up again, but I think I found a solution to improving the situation a little more..
If there is anyone in Syd (Hills District) area who is available to meet up this W/E and do a comparison please PM me.

I'm a little reluctant to post the fix until I'm abolutely sure the solution works..

Cheers
LJ

EDIT: Thinking about it... I may not get a chance to meet up with anyone, so I've attached pics of what I've done.

If you compare the First and third pics you can see that I've moved the white plastic bit down about 5mm maybe a little more.
And if you compare the second and forth pics you will see that the rubber boot is attached more the the lower part of the white plastic thingy, infact it's only just holding on by a few mm.

In doing this I believe that I've reduced the noise transmitted into the cabin by quite a fair bit.. at least by as much as the the removal of the green insulator thingy.
But this is only my opinion. That's why I would like to hook up with someone who has an AFE SS and do a comparo..

 

Little John, Let me know if this really works, if it does I will redesign the white thing and make it longer. Then send you one of the new ones to test. If that proves positive Then I will offer the new part for free to anyone who thinks they have a problem.
BTW that part is made with a tiny shoulder inside so it does not slip down below the taper. You can force it because it is tiny and soft. It's OK to do so but I thought you might like to know that.

Thanks Little John for the continuing R&D. I'll be sending you a check along with Gomez's.

 

This my friend, is a sterling idea. I shall effect the change to my SnickShifter installation upon my awakening later this very day. In my educated opinion the outcome will be positive, as this slight modification will further reduce the forces working on the shifter. The shaped memory of the upper shift boot will tend to lift the shifter out of the box, and away from the noise transmitting selector shaft.

Bravo, old bean.

Gomez.

 

LittleJohn,

Thanks for the feedback to RAP. Good stuff.

Gomez, I thought I was the one who got ribbed for being on here in the wee hours?

Cheers,
Hymee.

 

OK... I've been driving around for about a day now, and I beleive it is definitely quieter. A friend of mine also concurrs that it is alot quieter.
The noise is confined mainly to second gear whilst slowing down using engine braking, but at about half the volume of the previous mod - removal of the green thingy. In forth gear it can still be heard but only very very slightly
I did find that if I took the rubber boot off the white thingy, the orginial sound was gone altogether, but the boot acted like a resonace box for other noises. I also found that if just gently pressed the boot against the white thingy then the was virtually no noise at all... like when you take the shift **** off.

Thanks for trying Gomez.. let me know if it's just my imagination or not.

 

Little John,

This makes sense, my white thingy came off while i was installing so is in a completely random place, pretty sure it looks like the last photo. I'll have a look when i install my new "Polak" boot.

I only get audible noise when i lean on the shifter.

M

 

Did you get a chance to effect the change??
any thoughts gomez??

 

Yah Gomez, what he said^^^^

I'm trying it in my own car right now using a longer white thing to really get it down.

 

Sorry boys, overslept yesterday!! School holidays....I'm taking the boys out for the afternoon. I'll do the mod when I get back and report in six hours or so....

 

OK, we'll let you slip by this time for the kids sake. Just don't let it happen again. Or your gonna get canned. :p

 

Gents,

Put my new polak boot on yesterday and I can confirm that my white thingy does indeed sit right on the collar as per the one in little Johns photo. I have not suffered from audible noise except when i lean on it..........up until now! I think I'll try Mez'z trick and remove the padding, as the leather boot is a little smaller and whole thing seems more packed. I will say that the noise is minimal, only slightly audible in 2nd and 4th.

The white collar came off while i was fitting my shifter, can't remember why I pulled it off, think i thought I'd pushed it down, ie below the collar, seems that i lucked in.

Mike

 

As I reported years ago, and as per mikeyr's post above, I have only had the transmitted noise in second and forth. Upon initial installation, I only noticed it in fourth....probably because I didn't spend much time driving in second gear listening for the sound.

Removing the wadding weeks ago made a big difference. Doing this mod today, I find the jury is still out. I moved the collar down 3/16" from the start of the taper on the shifter, as seen in the pic below. I experimented a little with the position, but if there was any change in sound level, it wasn't discernible.

I'll have to drive the car for a few days over familiar roads to detect if I have made any change in the level of gear noise entering the cabin. The level with the wadding removed is well within the range of being acceptable, we're shooting for the last wee dram of noise now.......and stealing scotch out of a Scotsman's hand is hard to do :p .

Gomez.

 

Oh yeah...the upper boot which seals against the white band of the shifter was positioned as low on the band as practicable. Any lower and it would have fallen off the shifter.....

 

and stealing scotch out of a Scotsman's hand is hard to do :p .

Gomez.[/QUOTE]


If it were rum or JD Hymee could do it.

I'm going to take a drive in my modified shifter equiped car right now.
Be back at ya. Also I asked Fanman if I could get a ride in his later.
He has a new install and I want to see if there is any noise in his car, or see if he notices any.

 

I took a ride in my car with a white ring that is 10mm longer. I put the boot as low as it will go, which is lower then anyone else can get there's.
I notice no less noise but then I didn't think there was any before. I tried to keep it in second gear for awhile listining for it or to see a difference. Like Gomez says, jury is still out.

I have to think that there are cars out there that have more noise then others. That's why I want to drive in as many as I can. I'm still waiting to hear from Fanman about a ride in his. Because I just can't see anyone objecting to the amount of noise that mine makes. People with Rx8 experiance including Mazda do not notice it if I don't tell them it's in there.

I'm not being defensive here I really haven't heard the noise people talk about. I want to hear it so I will know. As of yet none of the cars that have owners complaining are close enough to me to sample.

Little John, The next time I ship anything to Hymee I'll send you an extended white ring to try. If it can help you then it will be worth it.

 

Are the numbers of compaints different for 2003, 2004 or 2005 cars??

When I was last in the motor industry, there was more than one well known manufacturer with more than one supplier of the same (usually machined) parts.. These were the days of high levels of industrial action and I guess they were planning for ways to mitigate risk.. Anyway the point is that sometimes the tolerances were different - and we used to try other other makers part to solve many problems..

In this case have we taken measurements of the components around the gearshift.. Something is not the same..

 

RAP & Mez,
Don't worry too much if you can't hear any difference, that was why I asked if others could do some testing.

A little history:
The biggest change was the removal of the green wadding. After the Sydney drive day on the 19th, and having spoken to a few owners who have the RAP SS. It was agreed that there was still some residual noise after the removal of the green wadding. Towards the end of last week, I had a friend in the passenger seat comment on the noise eminating from the transmission, so for most of Sat AM I was playing around with the shifter whilst driving I found that if I pulled the shifter back a smidge whilst in 4th, the little bit of noise that was left would go away. So I pulled over and pulled the shift boot off the white thingy altogether. Guess what??? the noise was gone, but was replaced with a slightly different noise. But this time I could get the noise to go away by playing around with the rubber boot. Thus the reason why I tried pushing everything down.
After driving around for a few days now, I've since had the same friend in the car again and she agrees that there has been a reduction in noise.

Having said all this, RAP you can send directly to my place if you like . But in all seriousness, don't spend anymore time on it. I'd hate to see you waste time and money on something that may or may not be a fix to such an insignifcant problem. I'm actually thinking that the noise maybe due to the rubber boot acting as a resonance box. I'm plan on trying to fine a big rubber gromet to replace the white thingy, and if this works I shall let you know.
Until then forget about the noise and the the darn AFE SC working and finished so i can have other problems to think about... like whether I want some twin screwing or a bit of axial flow :D

 

Ok, I've driven it some more and can't coment further. I've prepared a few others with the long white ring to fill some orders that will be shiped today or tomorrow. As to the amount of complaints I think there have only been about four who noticed it enough to speak up. I think all have been happy after removing the green fuzzy. I can safely say that non have ever been returned for a refund. Not for this or any other reason. The bigger problem has been the equal number of cars thar had reverse tab problems. I had to deal with those on a one off basis. That seems to have quited down as I have taken .010" off the tab now in production.

It's all the feed back from forum members that has lead to these very slight adjusments from the first design. Thanks guys.

 

Done 250 clicks since the mod. Been driving down quite backstreets at 4:30am. Flat stick down freeway on-ramps. Gentle cruise around town. Down through the gears, no brakes up to the lights. Held in 2nd, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 2nd etc. Generally run through all facets of city driving with a few 20k runs on the freeway.

Result....4th gear noise is all but gone. Barely hear a thing. Second gear noise 90% gone. Good work Detective LittleJohn .

Will report further......not done just yet.

 

No ****?? Ok, I'll run off some deep white rings for you guys and ship them to where? Who wants to distribute them?

(They are about 10-12mm longer then the old ones.) They are also machined differently. The old ones were made with a little lip at the top so they would not fall down. The new ones are made the other way with a sholder at the bottom so it will not ride up. Plus on the ones I put together I glued them.

 

Hey RAP...
Whoa.. hold on a bit don't do anything just yet. Let me see if there isn't soomething else that can be done or something else that you can use to irradicate this noise thing altogether.

 

I'm getting a fair bit of noise after the installation of the shifter as well.
but the noise seems to have changed gradually into different tunes.
initially it was very mechanical and i could almost hear the actual gears turning when in 1st or 2nd. having changed the gear **** with after market one from the rotary shaped one, the noise seems lower but more annoying harmonic sort of sound...

i have tried removing the green cushion thing but that created more noise for me since there was nothing to absorb the noise coming from the gear...

i put it back and it actually improved lowering the sound for me..
plus i found it acutually holds the shape of the leather in place I found..
it's good that i chucked this in the backseat, i was going to throw it out and mazda probably would have charged me to get one of this :p (j/k)

I also have Polak's gear boot and it's actually thicker leather then the original black one. the improvement was somewhat minimal though.

if this longer white thing can help reduce the noise, I would like to receive it too.

I am somewhat used to the sound now but when i have some guest join me for ride, they always point me that something seems wrong with my gearbox.

 

playa, I'd like to know how your noise is with the original boot. It's my theory that this noise occurs when the shifter is unable to rest free of any exterior forces. Anything that applies pressure to the shifter forces it against the selector rail in the top of the box and transmits noise into the cabin. Your thicker boot may rest snugly against the shifter.

 

the noise was probably worse with the stock boot.. the new one hasn't fixed it much either.

 

Did you try the stock boot without the green fluff?