DIY: CAE shifter install

Pistonheed wrote

Hi, great write up, I'll be sure to use this when I install my CAE. Quick question though, which DSSR did you install?

Cheers

CIFUM3 I think you might have missed my question amongst all the posts.

Which DSSR did you install?

Thanks

i realize this is an old post, but can you mount the shift assembly in reverse? that way you dont have to cut into the ashtray part? think ive seen photos of this. or is that a different shift assembly?

Someone did it on a Z4.

slowcar wrote

i realize this is an old post, but can you mount the shift assembly in reverse? that way you dont have to cut into the ashtray part? think ive seen photos of this. or is that a different shift assembly?

I'm sure there's a way. Just gotta figure out the reverse

Bumping this thread as I just installed one in mine. Have a couple comments. Use my suggestions at your own risk.

Bought a 2021 version directly from CAE. The holes pattern in my shifter is different than in the OP; there are now five bolts and the shifter now installs without any drilling, though you do have to trim the console. It uses previously unused holes which I'm guessing are in place for a DCT or other variant. It now has screws which are driven from below and which thread into the upper base of the shifter.

Mine came with a trick looking 2 piece DSSR from CAE, this rod includes a replacement for the gear selector rod.

For my car, the OEM gear selector rod dowel pin exits only toward the ground, the part is such that you can not press it up toward the firewall. It took a decent amount of force to get it out, so it also took a while to determine the correct direction to push. Hammering wasn't necessary; I used a 5mm allen wrench and good hand position in order to get sufficient force on it.

I need to check with CAE, but the only way I could get mine to not interfere with its mounting plate when selecting reverse was to have the shifter shaft leaning a few degrees to the right when in the zero position (3-4). Otherwise, the DSSR would interfere with bottom plate when selecting reverse. For a left hand drive car, this moves the shifter a >2 inches away from the steering wheel compared with a vertical zero, something I didn't want. Would be great for those who drive on the wrong side of the road. Unless I found I made a stupid mistake, I will grind some material out of the bottom plate to enable me to move the shaft to a vertical 3-4 position.

First thoughts after installation:

- Throws are extremely precise, it will be difficult to miss a gear with this one. Feel is excellent.
- The shifter is a very good antenna for transmission noises. It's very loud in certain RPM, gear selected, and load conditions, in others it's pretty quiet. Several resonances and modes. This is good and bad depending on your taste and objectives.
- Be sure to cut the cross brace in the lower console trim before installing the shifter. Not much room to work if you try to do it after installing. Leaving this piece complicates setting the zero point for the centering spring.
- Aligning the zero point for the centering spring is very annoying. The spring screw and its plate bind and have to be finessed, and it's helpful to mark the DSSR shaft with a fine pencil so you can see what adjustments have been made.
- As currently adjusted, the right tilt of the shift pattern means the shifter isn't necessarily much closer to the steering wheel than OEM, the pattern is now just higher up. As indicated above, I will likely grind material out of the bottom plate to allow more desirable placement.
- Looks bad ass.

I will report back if readjusting things changes any of the above.

Whether or not this is for you very much depends on your goals with this mod.

My goals are very precise shifts with a positive feel and good placement, and I'm fine with racecar type NVH. So except for the position, I'm really liking it so far.

^ So this is a newer style / or changed CAE for our cars?

pics would help

Lockout mechanism is slightly changed (cable terminates in different location), frame is different and now welded to a thicker top plate, bottom plate is different and e9x specific. 5 screws instead of four, and they drive from the bottom. Shaft, fulcrum, centering spring, and lockout adjustments look unchanged. I'll post pics after I get the car vacuumed and the console trimmed. Accurate pic on the cover of (but not inside) their downloadable installation manual.

Ah hell, here are a few pics from the install. The 'Power' button is currently vacationing somewhere in the cabin.

Shifter:



Half of the included DSSR:



Bottom plate in place before fitting the shifter + selector rod half the DSSR in place. Two of the bolts go through the oval for the OEM shifter. The other three go through unused holes which are already in the tunnel sheet metal, but plugged with a tar like substance.



Installed shifter, first gear selected.

endur0 wrote

Ah hell, here are a few pics from the install. The 'Power' button is currently vacationing somewhere in the cabin.

Shifter:



Half of the included DSSR:



Bottom plate in place before fitting the shifter + selector rod half the DSSR in place. Two of the bolts go through the oval for the OEM shifter. The other three go through unused holes which are already in the tunnel sheet metal, but plugged with a tar like substance.



Installed shifter, first gear selected.

Thanks for the update.
It's been a while since mine has been on.
Still tight and crisp shifts.
And still in love with this shifter.

CIFUM3 Given the post is ~5 years old, I figured its OP was long gone. Good to hear you're still loving yours. How many miles on it now? I was curious if it'll still be as tight as it is now in 20k miles.

One other update I forgot to put:

My shifter mounts like: shifter - thin metal plate - transmission tunnel - thick bottom plate. The rubber boot mounts to the thin metal plate. I mounted the boot to the plate first, then pulled it over the bottom of the shifter shaft, then put the combination in place. That part went much easier than expected. If I'd done it the other way around (shifter shaft first), I'd probably still be installing it!

endur0 wrote

CIFUM3 Given the post is ~5 years old, I figured its OP was long gone. Good to hear you're still loving yours. How many miles on it now? I was curious if it'll still be as tight as it is now in 20k miles.

One other update I forgot to put:

My shifter mounts like: shifter - thin metal plate - transmission tunnel - thick bottom plate. The rubber boot mounts to the thin metal plate. I mounted the boot to the plate first, then pulled it over the bottom of the shifter shaft, then put the combination in place. That part went much easier than expected. If I'd done it the other way around (shifter shaft first), I'd probably still be installing it!

I have probably driven about 15k miles since and car has had some upgrades since.
Stage 3 clutch and CF driveshaft.
This winter it's going under the knife again.
Solid subframe bushings, upgrading the diff mounts, and doing the whole Do88 cooling package.

CIFUM3 wrote

I have probably driven about 15k miles since and car has had some upgrades since.
Stage 3 clutch and CF driveshaft.
This winter it's going under the knife again.
Solid subframe bushings, upgrading the diff mounts, and doing the whole Do88 cooling package.

Thx for the update, suggests this is going to last quite a while for my application.

I bet the extra cooling will be a welcome improvement given your power adder.

endur0 wrote

Ah hell, here are a few pics from the install. The 'Power' button is currently vacationing somewhere in the cabin.

Shifter:


Half of the included DSSR:


Bottom plate in place before fitting the shifter + selector rod half the DSSR in place. Two of the bolts go through the oval for the OEM shifter. The other three go through unused holes which are already in the tunnel sheet metal, but plugged with a tar like substance.

Nice! Your post helps a bunch now that I have the actual parts in front of me. No need to drop driveshaft right?

Exclusivs wrote

endur0 wrote

Ah hell, here are a few pics from the install. The 'Power' button is currently vacationing somewhere in the cabin.

Shifter:


Half of the included DSSR:


Bottom plate in place before fitting the shifter + selector rod half the DSSR in place. Two of the bolts go through the oval for the OEM shifter. The other three go through unused holes which are already in the tunnel sheet metal, but plugged with a tar like substance.

Nice! Your post helps a bunch now that I have the actual parts in front of me. No need to drop driveshaft right?

It's been a while, don't remember for sure if I dropped the DS <edit: guibo is in place in my pics, maybe I unbolted the other end of the DS?... don't remember, but I want to say I remember removing at least parts of the DS, but I might be confusing it some other work I did on the car around that time>. I for sure did lower the transmission, while keeping the engine mounts in place (loosened them so they could rotate -> have 90A durometer engine mounts), installed 90A durometer transmission mounts when I reassembled.

endur0 wrote

Bumping this thread as I just installed one in mine. Have a couple comments. Use my suggestions at your own risk.

Bought a 2021 version directly from CAE. The holes pattern in my shifter is different than in the OP; there are now five bolts and the shifter now installs without any drilling, though you do have to trim the console. It uses previously unused holes which I'm guessing are in place for a DCT or other variant. It now has screws which are driven from below and which thread into the upper base of the shifter.

Mine came with a trick looking 2 piece DSSR from CAE, this rod includes a replacement for the gear selector rod.

For my car, the OEM gear selector rod dowel pin exits only toward the ground, the part is such that you can not press it up toward the firewall. It took a decent amount of force to get it out, so it also took a while to determine the correct direction to push. Hammering wasn't necessary; I used a 5mm allen wrench and good hand position in order to get sufficient force on it.

I need to check with CAE, but the only way I could get mine to not interfere with its mounting plate when selecting reverse was to have the shifter shaft leaning a few degrees to the right when in the zero position (3-4). Otherwise, the DSSR would interfere with bottom plate when selecting reverse. For a left hand drive car, this moves the shifter a >2 inches away from the steering wheel compared with a vertical zero, something I didn't want. Would be great for those who drive on the wrong side of the road. Unless I found I made a stupid mistake, I will grind some material out of the bottom plate to enable me to move the shaft to a vertical 3-4 position.

First thoughts after installation:

- Throws are extremely precise, it will be difficult to miss a gear with this one. Feel is excellent.
- The shifter is a very good antenna for transmission noises. It's very loud in certain RPM, gear selected, and load conditions, in others it's pretty quiet. Several resonances and modes. This is good and bad depending on your taste and objectives.
- Be sure to cut the cross brace in the lower console trim before installing the shifter. Not much room to work if you try to do it after installing. Leaving this piece complicates setting the zero point for the centering spring.
- Aligning the zero point for the centering spring is very annoying. The spring screw and its plate bind and have to be finessed, and it's helpful to mark the DSSR shaft with a fine pencil so you can see what adjustments have been made.
- As currently adjusted, the right tilt of the shift pattern means the shifter isn't necessarily much closer to the steering wheel than OEM, the pattern is now just higher up. As indicated above, I will likely grind material out of the bottom plate to allow more desirable placement.
- Looks bad ass.

I will report back if readjusting things changes any of the above.

Whether or not this is for you very much depends on your goals with this mod.

My goals are very precise shifts with a positive feel and good placement, and I'm fine with racecar type NVH. So except for the position, I'm really liking it so far.

Just chiming in for anyone else who happens to get a 2021+ CAE Shifter for our cars.

The installation was straight forward, however, aligning everything was an extreme pain.

* The bottom mounting plate needs to be grinded down or else it'll make direct contact with the shifter rod when going into Reverse.

* As mentioned above - the DSSR forks needs to be PERFECTLY aligned dead center with the transmission or else it'll bind and cause you to have issues engaging Reverse. Took almost 3 hours of going back and forth between realigning and double checking gear engagement. With the limited space down below it's extremely difficult to see that the forks are perfectly aligned so it was a lot of guessing based off "feel".

* Once adjustments are made - the DSSR adjuster screw/bolt needs to be torqued down to the point where it will not twist the shaft. How I knew it was twisting was that my dead center mark/notch I made on the DSSR shaft was getting misaligned after rowing through gears.

Going past all the negatives - the shifter feels fantastic! Having upgraded from an RTD v4 shifter previously - this is a huge improvement in regards to shifting "feel" and build quality.

Sublivion wrote

* The bottom mounting plate needs to be grinded down or else it'll make direct contact with the shifter rod when going into Reverse.

Going past all the negatives - the shifter feels fantastic! Having upgraded from an RTD v4 shifter previously - this is a huge improvement in regards to shifting "feel" and build quality.

I monthballed the car for a couple years; took it out recently and decided to adjust the CAE yesterday, spent the entire day on the project.

Ended up grinding off a decent amount of material from the stiffener plate to allow reverse to not interfere while allowing a slightly left leaning neutral position. Now that it's adjusted, shifting is still very good and the pattern is where it should be. One thing I noticed, because things are so precise, it's noticeable that 1-2 and 3-4 aren't perfectly in line with the front back axis of the shifter while 5-6 is, i.e. getting the stop perfect in first leads to a little gap for second. But it isn't noticeable while driving.

If I didn't say it before, putting 47 Nm on the DSSR shaft feels sketchy, but mine has survived several torquing cycles now.

Once dialed in, probably one of the best feeling shifters for this car, but installation is a bear. I'd 100% do it again, but this isn't for the fair weather guys.

Bumping the thread after driving the M regularly for 6 months. This shifter is one of my favorite mods I've done to this car, transformative to the driving experience. Also, drove a few Ms with a couple other variants of short shifters, including one that's chassis mounted (centering spring, but no left right bounds and no reverse lockout), and the CAE is in a different league.

great writeup had one in my old car, completely changes the driving experience