Ok, just a thought but i quite like the idea of solenoid gear change (probably never happen but hey bare with me).

Rather than making paddle gear shifters i thought of buttons when i saw this steering wheel:




The buttons are for the horn (oooh er mrs!) but could they be adapted for gear change.

How does solenoid gear change work and is it easy/expensive to do?

The ebay ad for this wheel is: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&a mp;category=40195&item=7986770529&rd=1

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Just the job Dave

Are you trying to find me even more work !!

Jason

Don't see why they couldn't work Donut but I don't know if that wheel will pass SVA so it might be a trick for after the test!

Cheers,
James

Deckman: Yes!!!!

James: I guess it depends on how easy fitting a std shift is going to be. Any steering wheel wil do as all you needto do is drill 2 holes for the buttons. Obviously not a std sierra wheel!!

The Momo wheel on my MX5 has a padded bit for the middle which will be perfect for sva as it makes the whole wheel soft.

The guys who built my MK have fitted a "Klick Shift" (IIRC) to their Stuart Taylor Locoblade.

Seems like a nice piece of kit.

How does that work then?

this is what you want

http://www.kliktronic.co.uk/

wow! thats the stuff

and under £500

I have fitted to mine, whilst changing up with it is fine as long as you either have the ignition interupt fitted or blip the throttle. i just cant get it to change down.
maybe a setup thing i dont know.
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the buttons on that whell will probably fail sva, but i got some buttons off the klicktronic chaps ( very helpful peeps actually really should talk to them about setting up the down shift ) which passed sva no probs.
I have a gear lever and tend to use that more than the klickythingy. If i had the opprtunity again i would go for a finger tip lever system.
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I've tried a few different electronic shifters. I had a Kliktronic on one of my cars, but they're quite heavy and require a fair bit of space for both the actuator and the black box. If you want to use one to it's full potential you really do need to run an ignition interupt too.
There are much slicker units around which are half the weight and size and some even incorporate an ignition cut.
TBH, for the amount of money involved and the hassles with setting them up and maintaining them I gave up on them and returned to paddles for my more recent cars.
The electronic shifters look cool, but they are lifeless and there's nothing quite like the feeling of gears snicking nicely into place using just your fingertips!

So who does flappy paddles then?

You'll have to make them yourself like the rest of us.
I'm not aware of any commercial units or kits, but they're pretty easy to conjure up.

Looks like a good business opp for someone there!!

I have a few designs that I use on my race cars (I posted one on here a while ago), but they're model specific.
I'm sure MK would produce a kit if there were enough interest.

Worth thinking about.

stuart taylor do one, they use them on their works race cars. Dont know how much they are though - and no sign on their website.