Project FR-S: More Details with Cusco, Kartboy and Turn 14

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The stock shift stabilizer bushing is on the bottom and as you can see it is a very soft rubber part full of voids with a lot of flex. This gives the shifter a vague rubbery feel. The Kartboy part is solid urethane which gives a much more positive feel. We were worried that the lower bushing was made like this for a reason. Would the Kartboy part vibrate?

Kartboy thoughtfully provided this syringe of special grease with the shifter and we lubed all of the shifters pivot points with it.

Here is how the shift stabilizer bushing bolts in place on the car.
The Kartboy shifter in place looks very tidy and OEM like. The shifter is topped by a nice delrin knob with the Kartboy logo. If you are wondering how it all works, we can sum it up, it works awesome! The Kartboy shifter turned us short shifter haters into short shifter fans. The reverse lockout works very smoothly just like stock. The shifter made absolutely no addition to the stock noise or vibration levels.  The shift throws are about 25% shorter, not too short and the feel is very direct and slightly notchy.  It is easier to feel the shift now,  We really like it. The shifting is now comparable to our favorite shifting car: the S2000.  Imagine an S2000 with a slightly higher shift effort and better feel and that’s the Kartboy shifter. We are going to have to beg for one for our Project STI now!
The next thing on the agenda was upgrading our coolant hoses with these Venair Sport hoses distributed by Turn 14 Distribution. The Venair Sport hoses are made of silicone reinforced with 4 plys of polyester.  Silicone does not degrade much over time with heat and oxidation compared to rubber and 4 plys of reinforcement is twice as many as found in typical coolant hoses. This means that our hoses should last for quite a long time.

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