[shapiros]

I just picked up my knob/boot/ring from the upholstery shop this morning. If you're in the Raleigh/Durham area, I'd highly recommend Auto Interiors and Tops in Raleigh. They charged me $50 to affix the boot to the ring and turned it around in two days.

For me, the ZHP knob has always been the platonic ideal of a shift knob; I had a buddy with an E46 330ci ZHP and always loved the way that the knob looked in the BMW interior. When I picked up my M3 two weeks ago, I knew that this was the first (and pretty much only) mod I would do.

So far, the 1-2 shift feels smoother and the shifter feels better in hand. As others have mentioned, the M5 boot leather is thicker, so I am having some difficulty getting the ring to seat all the way down properly in the front, but the back flips snapped in fine and it doesn't feel like it's moving anywhere. Hopefully with time it will wear in a bit and eventually I can press it down and snap it in, otherwise I imagine a combination of trimming some of the leather on the edge of the ring + some light taps with a rubber mallet could solve the problem.