'99 Firebird
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Also bought a shift boot adapter piece that might help the aftermarket shift boot look okay when attached. It goes between the shift boot and the knob. Hopefully it fits over the threaded shifter stick.
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Yup, don't want any unintentional slippage. Shoulda gone stage 3.
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Shift & ebrake boot arrived from eBay seller TopGaiters. It's actually a pattern set made for an Opel Astra MK5... The stitch and material quality is great. My only gripe is that the alcantara color is a shade darker than the seats, but I don't see it being an issue. Now to see if it fits... Next small purchase is a Delrin shift knob, and that should complete the missing pieces of the T56 swap. Next bigger purchase is an LS2 water pump & Strano swaybars.
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Should look good with my seats (old pic):
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Should look good with my seats (old pic):
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A bit. $26 for the shifter and ebrake boots (combined) and another $20 for the little adapter/spacer that goes between the shift knob and the shift boot, which I'm not even sure if it will fit on the stick yet. So, $46 total, which is less than the cost of a RedlineGoods shift boot. I priced out a similar shift boot at RedlineGoods and the total for the shift boot alone was at $67 or so. The difference (aside from price) being the fitment and the stitch quality. The RedlineGoods products are designed to fit correctly and have excellent stitch quality. These eBay ones from TopGaiters, in this particular color pattern, are designed to fit a different car, with good stitch quality (for stitch quality, on a scale of 1-10, these TopGaiters ones are about 8/10 and the RedlineGoods ones are a 10/10 - it is close but there is a noticeable difference if you are picky). TopGaiters has F-body fitments available but they would not make me a black leather+gray alcantara combo or a black alcantara+gray alcantara combo with the 93-02 F-body patterns, only solid black leather or solid black alcantara.
I felt like I had to buy the adapter because the top of the boot has a larger diameter than the stock M16x1.5 threaded stick, so if I didn't have the adapter, the boot would be extremely scrunched up and pushed against the knob and look a bit uglier than it has to be.
If the adapter doesn't fit right, I'll see what needs to be done to make it fit correctly, even if it means cutting it down or boring it out to a larger inner diameter. Hoping it allows the boot to sit correctly and look/work nicely.
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You can easily use a washer/nut to hold the boot in place. Heck if you wanted to get real cheap/ghetto (I know secretly you do) a bunch of rubber bands wrapped around the inside of the shifter will hold the boot in place.
Well, this is all assuming the boot is already sewn/finished at the top. Got pics?
Or just get a knob like the GTOs have/had... but I'm biased. :rock:
Another option, (depending on the shift stick you're using) is to roll the end closest to the knob and zip tie (on the inside obviously) or rubberband/whatever) the end tightly around the stick. It's on the inside so it's unseen and depending on your boot, when lodged up against the bottom of the knob, noone will know the difference.
Reason the stick matters, is because it's easier to do this with it unbolted to shifter. But I think most if not all T56 have removable shift sticks.
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Not this exact one, but here is what it looks like before the zip tie ends are inverted. Pretty decent amount of slack.
I'm not so much worried about holding the boot in place (I think i'll be using zip ties and/or rubber bands to hold the shift boot adapter "up" at the correct stick height). What I'm worried about is having the shift boot look like a hookers prolapsed anus with a big black metal rod and a shift knob coming out of it, which is what it would look like if I just affix it to the stick (inverted).
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I'm going with the LS2 water pump because it is pretty much required to run an Aster bracket or SDCE bracket. Both of those brackets are spring-tensioner Procharger brackets which are superior to the standard Procharger J bracket. I don't want a Meziere even if I could make it work with an Aster/SDCE bracket due to the fact that they are expensive and more likely to fail. A friend of mine was running a Meziere with the stock J-bracket with his D1SC/370/T56 setup but he was having horrible belt slip/break issues until he upgraded to a better bracket like Aster/SDCE. I haven't asked if he kept the Meziere or replaced it, but I know the last time I looked at it (on the stock J-bracket), it was leaking.
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How superior is the ls2 pump to the ls1 pump?
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It's pretty much the same in terms of function. The reason to use the LS2 pump over the LS1 pump is the LS1 pump is physically the wrong size/shape. The LS2 pump is smaller in the correct places which allows for the use of the spring tensioner supercharger brackets. Also, the LS2 pump pulley needs to be pressed inward for proper belt alignment and that cannot be done on some LS1 pumps that have bolted-on pulleys.
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Don't waste your money...
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Ok thanks. How much boost are you wanting to push?
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All of it.
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This is the most correct answer in the entire thread
Zex is right, I'd gladly do an electric water pump in an LT1, but wouldn't bother on an LS1.
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Nice lol.
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Bought a 3k mile LS2 water pump from the same friend that sold me his Kooks/Magnaflow exhaust and fuel lines/regulator. Also need to pick up a starter and high output alternator from him.
Installed the new shift boot onto a new metal shift boot retainer clip from 6LiterEater Designs (worked great), and bored out the shift knob finishing piece a couple of millimeters to make it slide over the threaded shifter arm.
Here's a pic of the shift boot installed:
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Matches perfectly with the seats (and soon, the doors).
Installed the new shift boot onto a new metal shift boot retainer clip from 6LiterEater Designs (worked great), and bored out the shift knob finishing piece a couple of millimeters to make it slide over the threaded shifter arm.
Here's a pic of the shift boot installed:
Matches perfectly with the seats (and soon, the doors).
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