A couple of days ago, I installed a Kartboy short throw shifter in my new 2008 WRX. It really wasn't all that hard. I used the instructions that I found online here. Next up are the new bushings that I bought with the shifter, but my garage is in a little disarray with all the home improvement stuff going on, so I don't really have room to put it up on the ramps right now to get underneath. I also have a Defi Red Racer boost gauge that I need to install, so keep an eye out for more pics coming soon.
Below is the original shifter (and the new one doesn't look much different).
The first step was to remove the boot and plastic housing for the emergency brake. This was easily popped off, and you don't have to remove it completely from the brake - just enough to get to the rest of the console pieces.
Next, remove most of the console pieces surrounding the shifter. This is pretty self explanatory. Most of the pieces just pop right out with a decent pull. The picture below shows the inner rubber boot around the shift, which is removed after you pull up on the two white snap down covers. Be careful not to drop them into the console when removing - they are small and a pain to fish out with pliers - I speak from experience.
After that, just pull the inner boot off to expose the shifter mechanism. The bolt holding the shift lever to the rest of the mechanism is easy to remove with a couple of 10mm wrenches.
After that bolt is removed, you can pull out the old shift lever. This was the confusing part for me. I don't think the directions that I used from the forum above noted the circlip around the ball joint. I pulled and pulled hard on the shifter but couldn't get it out, and at some point thought I was going to break something, so I stopped and did a little more research and figured out the setup. This evidently is a new feature in the WRX (not sure if 2008 is the first year they did it), but it has been in the Forester for a few years, so luckily I found some instructions on line. Don't try to just pull this out without removing the clip - you'll break something. After the circlip is removed, it's a piece of cake to pull out.
You need to clean some of the grease away from the bottom of the shift lever to expose the white socket. On top of this socket is a circlip that you can see removed in the picture below. I didn't have a specialized tool to get it out, so I used a pair of small sharp tipped scissors to squeeze the two holes together and lift out of the socket. This took a long time, a lot of tries, and there was a lot of swearing. But once the clip was removed, the shifter came right out with almost no effort.
Below is the socket with everything removed.
At this point, it's just a matter of greasing up your new shift lever and reinstalling everything. You do have to reuse the plastic inserts from the old lever, as well as the white ball socket and circlip (which is a little bit of a pain to reinstall, but scissors worked here too).
Pictured below is the stock lever on the left and the new Kartboy on the right. As you can see it's slightly shorter, but moves the shift angle up an inch or two from the ball socket, making the throws much shorter. All in all I'm very happy with it.
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