Like some others...I've always felt the Barton shifter lever is a bit tall. For quarter mile use, I'd consider it perfect but for street/road race type driving it's a little high in my opinion.
So...I made up a new, shorter lever lever. It's about 7/8" shorter and I tipped it back about 3/4" as well. This was an estimation I made....if I did it again I'd probably go even shorter by another 3/8" or so.
Of course I had no easy way to add letters to the side of the side of the stick...but that's fine because I like the smoothness of it. I did get it coated by Polydyn with their Teflon silver that is super thin and can't be easily scratched.
I also changed to what I consider the perfect ball.... a 1-7/8" diameter white ball with no numbers or logos.
The result? I like it a lot. The shifter ball falls much closer to where I think it should go (at least for me).
Yep, I agree the Barton stick is too tall for my taste as well. That's why I installed the Mopar handle with my Barton.
Looks great. Great job.
I think it'd wise for Barton to take note here and give us an option with a shorter version.
Good execution there! I went from the Mopar short lever to the Barton, I got used to the longer stick pretty quickly. It still has shorter throws than the Mopar. I would suspect the Mopar on the Barton base would make for a heavy shift. I guess if I ever decide to go back to the track I would try the Mopar on it, but for the street I really love the Barton plastic ball vs the aluminum Mopar one. Yours seems about mid way, likely still feels pretty good!
The shift effort is not at all hard. Before I made the lever, I 'tried it out' by just shifting with my hand lower on the Barton stick to approximate the effort. Anytime a lever is shorter, it will shorten the throw and increase the effort, for sure, but the difference in effort is not bad at all. I'd say the increase in effort is balanced out by the shorter throw and the better knob placement.
I also tried a black ball just for kicks...it looks OK, too, though white is my favorite. I bought mine from Twisted Shifterz...the guy there is a great guy to deal with and their stuff is high quality. I think it's made in the USA too and they can customize to your desires.
One advantage to using a ball with no numbering is the locknut can be left off. I like this as my fingers don't feel the hex of the nut. On my Barton stick that had a shift pattern on the knob, I had turned down all the hexes (see pic) so the nut was just round but I could still feel it. I like the transition from shift ball to lever without any locknut. I also polished the underside of the ball where the brass insert is to get rid of the slightly sharp edge, again to create as much of smooth feel as possible.