Kirkham Motorsports Assembly Manual

[David Kirkham]

Notice the position of the shifter box has the shift handle towards the rear of the car. On the Tremec, there are 4 different positions you can place the shifter in. On our cars, we only concern ourselves with the rear most two positions.

The rear position, (the position the shifter currently is in in the above photo), is very close to the position of the shifter in an original 427 Cobra. The front position is very close to the position of the shifter in an original 289 Cobra. On our past 427 KMS/SC cars we have always used the rear most position. Now we are rethinking that--for a number of reasons.

The shifter in an original Cobra has a reverse lock out mechanism that prevented you (hopefully) from putting the car into reverse if you didn't want to put the car in reverse. Today, with almost everyone using the Tremec TKO 600 5 speed transmission, there is no need for a reverse lock out as reverse is on the far side of the shift pattern.

The reverse lock out on the original car is quite awkward to use. It is not what we would today call "ergonomically correct."

The little fangs you pull on to activate the reverse lock out mechanism stick right into your hand if you accidentally grab the handle wrong--much like sticking your hand into the Senor Jaws' mouth in the above picture. There is a very good reason why the shift handle was discontinued in the very next model year--1967--it has teeth and it bites!

As the engine in an original 427 Cobra is pushed very far back, they had to take a shift lever and literally turn it around and bend it down and forward to work in an original Cobra. This makes very quick shifting quite difficult as you actually have to lift up and down on the shift lever to shift gears instead of the normal front to back motion that we are all so familiar with.

The reverse lock out has another problem: in an accident, you can catch your fingers in the lock out fangs and hurt them which is VERY, VERY, BAD if you ever intend to finish Chopin's 1st Ballade in G minor--which may take me another year if they keep this stupid Shark Week stuff up.

So I threw the original shifter out the window today and asked Sandwich (can you BELIEVE he actually came back to work today--after a LONGGGGGGGG lunch) to rescue me. He whipped a new baby out on the CNC lathe for me 5 minutes ago! Time for an install of new, cool, billet parts! Pictures soon!