Almost 6k miles now and not an issue to speak of. Drive it like speed racer or like grandma - doesn't matter, shifts perfect every time.

 

Isn't this true of any vehicle though, not just our ponies?

 

Yes. Very noticeable difference in my car between 6-7k

 

Hey guys. I have been reading lots of people with issues with their MT82 and the atrocious stock shifter and bushing that is barely above the durometer of a dish sponge. I have driven (and destroyed) more Mustang transmissions than I can count but this has to be the biggest POS that Ford has ever put in a Mustang. If I had known that these were so light duty I would have opted for an automatic. I recently replaced the flimsy shifter and bushing with a very well engineered SR pieces from AM. Mine has always had an issue with missing 2nd (more so than the 2-3 shift) under hard acceleration but with the SR unit it gives you a very satisfying 'clunk' when it goes into gear. I had even gained the confidence to power shift it for the first time since I got the car. The stock setup felt like a wet noodle but the SR feels more like an industrial piece of machinery. Anyone that drives their car hard at all needs to make this upgrade. It helped a TON and for the first few days I thought that the missed shifts had been taken care of. I was wrong...

Today I was turning onto a two-lane road with a 55MPH+ traffic when I needed to hit second under hard acceleration while still making my turn with a truck bearing down on me. I ran it to around 6500 rpm and went to shift, now I don't know if I was just a little slow to pull it to second but it gnashed pretty severely and refused to go into gear even the second time. Part of this is exacerbated by the 'rev hang' that Ford programmed into the TBW system for emissions reasons. It takes a day and a half for the revs to come down enough to be able to shift it again and I almost got rear ended when it wouldn't shift. I let it go that I just lazy when I shifted but a few minutes later it did it again while making a left hand turn with traffic coming at me again same story. Second was nowhere to be found even when I was paying more attention to my clutch/shifter management. My theory is that with the shifter being hard mounted to the tunnel and the transmission being in a flexible mount there is enough flex that it puts the linkage in a bind where it won't engage due to misalignment. I absolutely despise this transmission and I am looking into the Tremec replacement (proper top-loader!) that will also replace the light duty V6 draiveshaft (112 MPH speed limiter??). So it looks like I will be getting a second job to save the $4K for the tremec. Sad that Ford/Getrag didn't think anymore about its customers than to put these boat anchors in their 'performance cars'. I have owned many Fords and I have loved them all, until this one...

 

You can get stiffer trans mounts...

 

I love that's all you took out of that whole thing!

 

It's all I wanted to comment on, and didn't care to edit the quote to just that part.