alright enough whoring his thread

KWIKXR, the shiftkit is a great thing.

intially i dispised it as my previous auto died in the a*** about 2 months after fitting a shiftkit, and i only used it on the rare occasion, but it was set to "uni-joint snapper" setting..... use to make a hissing noise beteen gearchanges like BOV, was never sure exactly what made that noise

but recently had an auto fully rebuilt with an adjustable S5 soleniod, and they set it fairly firm, but not too firm, and im loving it. Will get the occasional chirp from 1st to 2nd, but the positives are the whole car just feels tighter, no revving out beteen gear changes which is more apparent on light throttle.

downside is the BTR is still a s**t gearbox, and when it gets confused the shift kit makes it worse, especially when slowing down, you get a nasty noise from the uni joints when it drops to first

Last edited by FordFairmont on Mon Dec 14, 2009 7:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

LOL second time ive read something the wrong way in as many days

I know the type of Coby you're speaking of though, they are quite good indeed. In fact a lot of exhaust joints i spoke to about custom exhausts said they usually put them in along with a muffler or 2 to give it a better note and reduce resonance on the i6 falcons.

Spot on mate, adjustable shiftkit FTW. Did a fair bit of driving today and the car feels so much better to drive when its on, even at a low setting, the shifts are noticeably firmer and it doesnt have that sluggish slipping feel between changes. Even seems to hold the gear for a tad longer before shifting up. Its awesome on the open road man, cruising along in 4th at say 80-100kms give it a bit of gas and it just kicks straight back to second and takes off rather than dropping down to 3rd and then deciding lets go back to second Stupid BTR's.

Good to hear you finally got that auto rebuilt, i remember reading about that troublesome auto you put in when you converted it back to auto.

I am almost certain that my auto is on the verge of letting go lol, it currently has no engine braking and when slowing down to a stop i can feel it jerk each time it shifts down a gear back to first. It seems to slip from 1st to 2nd and 3rd to 4th when manual shifting and has a "dumping the clutch" like feel when your cruising at any speed under say 50km/h and floor it - it basically revs out for a split second and kicks straight back to first . Especially fun when it happens on a wet day, which results in the single spinner kicking you out and sending you skating down the f**k street . I now know this is something the simple new filter and gearbox fluid flush will not cure, i've done it already and it didnt do a damn thing except change the colour of the fluid in the box lol.. I definately need a new trans oil cooler though, so i'll be picking one of those up soon. I've got my eyes set of a big huge mother of a trans cooler that i spotted down at the local speed shop a while back - all mine for the princely sum of $90 bucks including the fitting kit.

So i cannot wait till i finish my study, get a job and start putting some money away so i can get the auto rebuilt, im probably also up for a new set of uni's after all the constant abuse it's had. Not to mention all my other driveline mods i have planned (hi stall, 3.45 diff gears installed with limo centre) - Jeez it all adds up

how much was your shift kit and were you get it from? my dad showed me one but i dont think it was adjustable? not sure, but they sound good from what youve said bout them

did yours not used to do this? coz mine does this to, but i just enjoy the moment lsd tho.
does it still do it with the shiftkit on?

Got mine in a whole heap of bits from Jaycar

Cost me about $50ish cause i went a bit over board with the LED, wiring, heat shrink tubing and spares etc. Its fairly straight forward to assemble and install if you are good with a soldering iron. I had help thanks to the thread 93_eb_fairmont wrote up http://www.fordmods.com/ford-4l-and-6-cylinder-f1/shift-kit-info-compiled-t84386.html?hilit=shift%20kit

IMO the preset single and dual stage shiftkits are a bit too harsh, having an adjustable shiftkit allows you to control the harshness so its ideal.


I've had this problem ever since i've owned the car. I know its not normal though, if it was i'd be going through uni's like no tomorrow

Lucky its only an intermitant kind of fault where it just does it every so often so im not bothered by it. As long as i don't thrash the car around it and abuse the gearbox it should hold up fine for a long time. The moment LSD is kind of fun when you want it to kick out because you can't predict how much of a kick its gonna give, however, it wouldnt be fun if it happened one day and the gearbox dies lol.

Still does it with the shiftkit on too, i was hoping that maybe a change in line pressure when the shiftkit is on may fix the bastard but, no luck

i believe the capacitors work after the car is turned off. in a lot of sound comps the car cant be running so people use deep cycle batterys with a few capacitors but some catigories limit the amount and size of them if they are allowed at all.
i got alpine 6.5" type s splits in the front of my xtrail and they sound awesome, almost made me think twice weather i needed a sub, which i do have now but yeh.

you lads are mental with those adjustable shift kits, if i wasnt going the T5 conv. id be fitting the shift kit and high stall torque converter and see how much of a flogging my single pegger could take ahaha.

any of you running big trans coolers? apparently operating temps of an auto determine the life of the transmission. if your adj shift kit is hotting things up (though slipping etc) it might be worth fitting a cooler if you aint got one.

Hi, with your dash spear is it just a woodgrain sticker you have? Would like to add this to mine, but it needs to match the woodgrain of the door card (ghia).

Hey mate,

No, the dash spear is not one of those stick on ones, t's a factory woodgrain item found on the early model LTD's (the ones which didnt have passenger side airbag). But seeing as though the LTD woodgrain differs in style and colour from the Fairmont Ghia woodgrain, LTD woodgrain wouldnt match the rest of the woodgrain in your Ghia.

I've only seen one dash spear that matched the Fairmont Ghia woodgrain and it's in SLO247's EF Fairmont Ghia
http://www.fordmods.com/the-garage-f53/slo247-s-ef-ghia-t75927-60.html?hilit=slo247

I must say though, i have never come across a woodgrain dash spear in all the Fairmont Ghia's i've seen in person. They may have possibly come out on Fairlane Ghia's with no passenger side airbag perhaps??

Oh ok, thanks for that. Yeah i noticed it was a bit darker than the ghia trims.

I take it you put the fairmont "f" back on the spear?

I guess i'll ask slo 247, does he still visit the forums?

Were the LTD spears hard to find?

Nah i just left the LTD badge on the LTD spear, only because the "F" badge from the fairmont one is a different shape. But the LTD badge on the dash spear doesnt bother me at all, mainly because its too small to actually see that it says "LTD".

I reckon that dash spears are quite hard to come by, you do see them around but not a hell of a lot. Around my way, its not very often you come by any LTD's or Lane's with no passenger side airbag.

As for SLO247, yeah i think he still gets around on these forums. Haven't seen any news on his build thread as of late but but you'll see him online from time to time

Mine didn't match either, but it might match the S2/EL wood. No idea. It wasn't far off though.
Your interior looks great, you got me thinking about doing a shift kit for the fairmont. I haven't really bothered putting stuff in the thread as I never got much interest anyway. It looks a little bit different now, I might have to get some more pics up if anybody wants to see.

The concordes are looking great fitted up too, I'd love a set for mine.

Thanks for the kind words buddy. Yeah the interior is slowly coming along still needs LTD door trims and new/retrimmed seats to match but thats a long way away with my limited funds. I'm running out of things to do now, basically because i have no money to spend on it at the moment. You should do the shiftkit for your EF man, its pretty fun lol i'm constantly mucking around with it when driving around.

Definately get some pics up of yours though, i always take great interest in EF Mont's. I swear you've got one of the cleanest white EF's i've ever seen . Would look mint with a set of champange coloured Concordes IMO

i never noticed your woodgrain looks the goods...hows the shiftkit going?
mine doesnt slip anymore when in the when (even in normal mode) kicks back straight away and slides out.

i asked the dealer today how much for rage kit was over $500. so asked someone that sales them on trademe..was $375, whats with that

Ha, yeah man LTD woodgrain is the shizz The style and colour looks so much better than Ghia stuff i reckon. The shiftkit is still going strong, gets used quite often, i usually switch it off when i driving in traffic and that, but around the quiet streets and long roads i always flick it on and turn it up to around half way. The jolt it gives from 1st to 2nd makes the trans feel alive again . My trans is still got that strange slipping though so i'll probably need to have it pulled apart and rebuilt with new clutches and bands etc.

Dude who's this guy on Trade Me selling Rage systems?? Whats his username if you dont mind me asking? (might come in handy for future purchases lol). He sounds like a f**k top bloke if he can do them at $375. Going through the Rage themselves is always expensive.