After reading a post which had quite biased comments against the leading shifter, i thought i should share my personal experience with the two so people can make a decision based on facts, not fiction.

Car: BA Falcon Ute
Gearbox: Tremec TR3650 5-speed
Shifters: Ripshift, Billet Quickshift

Build Qaulity...
Now some people have been saying, quote, 'The Billet Quick Shifter much better build qaulity and made more solid than the Ripshifter'. Sure enough it looks like a nice shifter but to claim it's of better build qaulity is a big call.



Picking up the two you can clearly see there is a big difference bewteen them. The Ripshift is by far a more solid unit and has more weight to it. The Quickshift feels a lil cheap in this department.



The Ripshift has a more robust design to it which is clearly evident in the above pic. The construction of the Ripshift is much more solid than the Quickshift in all aspects.



Now there has been some talk about the Ripshifts positive stops, quote, 'the Ripshifter,s stop mechanisim is some what lacking as the shifter handle can slip past the bolt used to adjust the stop and allowing over shifting which damages the syncros in the box'. This is not the case at all. I spent about 5 minutes trying to work out how someone could do this and it just didnt happen. The shifter stick makes a fair amount of contact to the positive stops so there is no chance of it slipping past.



Some more on the stops, quote, 'the build of them their stops is the main reason i wont recomend them its just a bolt that the gear leaver over time wears down and slips past'. Now if anyone could tell me how a bolt like that can wear down please let me know.

Also, the way the gear sticks mount are quite different to. The Quickshift just bolts the stock one back on and you are left with a spongy feel from the vibration reduction rubbers, the Ripshift on the other hand has a different approach and gets rid of this problem without the need of buying a new gear stick.

There will be more to come in the following days on drivablilty and shift feels, but i can say this in confidence already, my Ripshift isnt run in yet and it already has a MUCH better shift than the Quickshift i had in for about 6 months

What about the shift stroke length? Is one shorter than the other? You haven't mentioned that, I'd be interested in that.
I have the Billet unit, and have found it better than the original unit, but the sponginess is from the gearstick insulator. The XR's have a different compound for their insulator, but are expensive.
I found the Billet shifter a shorter shift than the OE unit.

I like the o-ring set up on the ripshift saves using sealant.

Where are you taking the quotes from.
Did I miss something.
Why do I feel like I'm reading an advertisement.
Who are you employed by?


What is this approach.
If its aluminum spacers it's been done before, and it has a pretty marked trade off in NVH.
Horses for courses.


Now a completely unbiased shifter review.

I just took my Steeda Shortshifter out for the Billet Quickshifter.
Billet one has much stronger centreing spring, for the 2nd to 3rd shift.
Shift is noticably shorter, at the cost of more shift effort it seems.
A bit annoyingly hard actually.
This may change with more use, I did find the Steeda shifter loosened up after a while.

I think the Billet positive stop method is a better idea.
It is easier to adjust in the car (with an E-Series transmission tunnel anyway) then the bolt method, which both the Steeda and Ripshifter share.

In both cases I have a shortened EL Shifter, solid mounted using aluminium spacers that came with my Steeda shifter..

Steeda is much better then stock, but I think the Billet is a step up again, for a performance shifter, simply for the shorter shift and stronger springing for 2nd to 3rd.
If your a girly man, it's your mums car, or you don't care about shifting quick, the Steeda probably rates higher.

and even then why would you be buying a short shifter lol

Well i found the shift strokes fairly similar on both of the units. The Quickshift may be better than the standard for some but i found my one worse Once the quickshift got a bit of heat in it it was nasty. Gears would get stuck, miss 2nd-3rd etc. I don't know if its just a problem on my type of gearbox or if otherpeople get that aswell. And while the Ripshift is still breaking in it feels a hell of a lot better so far.

Steady ED, i'm employed by road runner electrics (don't know what that has to do with it ) and the quotes come first hand from me

Just seems like you have gone to a fair amount of effort to defend the ripshift thats all, seemed weird.

I would have to agree with Steady on that. It did come across as you were flogging the Rip Shifters, and s**t caning the Billet ones.
I do agree with you, that the Rip Shifters look a bit meatier, and tougher.

read
http://fordmods.com/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 7&start=20

for why hes defending it so much

Fair enough then...
I haven't yet driven Jared's Sprint with a Quickshift in it, and i don't know anyone else with a ripshift, so I can't compare.
Was just agreeing with Steady that it didn't come across as being a neutral opinion. It did read like it was coming from someone with a vested interest in the product.

Ye i realise it comes across like that, but really all i'm sharing is my experiance with the two so there's no neutral opinion here. The main reason that got me to write this up is the claim that the Quickshift is better quality and more solid etc, which i find quite misleading!

I've pretty much had problems with the Quickshift since i had it installed, I went down to billet one day and they were good enough to help me out and try sort it, but were pretty much saying its not the shifter its something else. As soon as i put the Ripshift in i could tell there was a major difference and it was a much better product suited to my gearbox.

With the Quickshift, the only time it worked as it should was really cold nights (and that was only 3 nights in the last week or 2 out of the 6 months i've had it) when you first start driving the car with only a slight catching feeling as you change gears, pretty much how the Ripshift feels now after 2 days. As soon as the shifter gets some heat in it, it's like trying to push a sqaure in a round hole. All shifts have to be forced in, 4-5 was the easiest to get in. 1-2 was quite hard to change and i had to use a bit of force to get it in, 2-3 wasn't as bad but quite easy to miss the gear, which i thought was meant to go straight in 3-4 was either good or bad, it got a lil tempremental. The worst one was reverse though, the longest it took me to get it into gear was around a minute, and that was forcing, putting it into gear then straight into reverse and driving up a lil and trying to go into reverse. Now that was all a daily occurance, not just everynow and then

The Ripshift now with 2 days driving is still a lil tight in shifts but after 2 weeks will be pretty good. It changes quite nicely in comparison and i don't have to force it in anymore. I havn't had much of a chance to really play around with it but i can at least drive my car without yelling at the gearbox and feel like smashing it.

Now just incase people are thinking i got a crap shifter off Billet, i have heard other stories just like mine, both with the Tremec TR3650 gearbox, so it might be just an isolated problem with that model.