I am ERKed (long)

[John Fulford-Brown <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have been well and truly ERKed and boy am I enjoying it.  Yesterday I
had my mechanic, David, do the winter prep thing on my 1995 325I.  Just
a few days ago my ERK arrived in the mail, which took about two weeks
from the time I ordered it (I'm in Canada, so that's no bad).

A bit of background here for those of you considering a S/S
modification.  A friend of mine told me about the M Roadster shifter
conversion for the E36 that he had read about in the digest (this was BD
or Before Digest for me). He organized a bit of a 'Shifterfest' here in
Toronto where a few of us got together at his mechanic's garage one
Saturday afternoon this past summer.  After the conversions we all went
for Burgers and Beer (sorry, no RR at this bar).  The others were
driving late model 328 E36's.  The difference was most dramatic in my
'95 325i, with something like a 55% shortening in the throw.  I liked it
a lot and was looking forward to the next driver's school so I could try
it out on the track.  The shifts were noticeably 'notchy' requiring a
thoughtful and deliberate action to engage gears, but I figured that
this went with the territory and soon got used to it.

Well.  Then I started on the Digest and found out about BL/SS and the
ERK.  I already had a shifter but I was curious to see what kind of
difference the ERK would make. For a hundred bucks I figured it was
worth a try.  Well I'm here to tell you it makes one hell of a
difference.  The shifts are still a little more notchy than stock, but
waaayyyy smoother than before. The real test for me is a swift 3rd to
2nd heel & toe downshift.  This is now a snap.  The shifting is so quick
and smooth that I have to 're-train' myself to use less throttle
blipping as I don't need to give it as much gas between shifts.  Real
fun.  I also noticed a big difference this morning (it's getting pretty
cold in Toronto) on start up.  On cold mornings I needed to use quite a
bit of force to get the shifter into gear.  Now it's a lot easier.

I think that I can provide a pretty good perspective as to the E36
shifting experience.  I had the stock shifter for 3 years (and 3 driving
schools), then I had the M Roadster mod S/S without ERK for 6 months
(and 1 driving school) and now I have the S/S with ERK.  My advice would
be to buy the whole S/S kit from UCC:
http://www.shortshifter.com/erk.htm. The problem with the Roadster
shifter is that it does not have the 'bend' that the E36 shifter has.
This puts the shifter further away from the driver. I got used to it,
but it's not the way to go. The BL/SS comes with the bend in the right
place. I asked my mechanic if he would add the bend for me while he was
installing the ERK.  He said he would try, but he didn't do it. He said
he didn't want to fool around with the shifter for fear of weakening
it.  Putting bends in your shifter is tricky business.  And he knows
what he's doing.  If you want to see a BMW with some pretty wild mods go
to his web site http://www.aracnet.net/~fluffy .  Incidentally, he was
quite impressed with the ERK himself and wanted to find out if he could
put one in his highly customized E23.  Of course, I gave him the UCC
website.

The only downside is that my shifter now sits a little higher (maybe an
inch) than before because of the ERK.  I wonder if the upper portion of
the BL/SS shifter is shorter than the Roadster shifter.  If it is, this
would be another good reason to use their shifter with the ERK instead
of the Roadster shifter.  Come to think about it, I might just go ahead
and order another shifter from UUC anyway and have David put in next
spring.  So, anybody want to buy a slightly used M Roadster shifter --
going cheap?

John F. (#4)

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