Shifts with Benefits
MGW Shifters details the features and benefits of its new Shelby upgrade
By Steve Turner
Photos by SID297 and courtesy of MGW Shifters
A highly tuned machine like the modern Shelby GT350 attracts a certain type of driver. If you are willing to pay the tariff to get behind that Alcantara-wrapped wheel, you are demanding a higher level of performance and precision than a standard Mustang has to offer. That likely means you want a more precise shifting experience, and that is where the experts at MGW Shifters come to the rescue.
Over the years, Ford engineers have improved the performance of their remote shifters, but this shifter design is meant to reduce NVH and that often means giving up precision. MGW completely revamped the engineering of the shifter mechanism to create its latest unit ($475) for the Tremec TR-3160 in the tunnel of the 2015+ Shelby GT350 to deliver a far more precise and satisfying shifting experience.
George Ciamillo created this new billet beauty, which replaces the factory’s pendulum-style design with a single-axis engineer that delivers shifting that he describes as “rifle-bolt action.” He would definitely know, as his company MGW Limited is in the gun business. He also converted the shifter to a more traditional push-down actuation for reverse.
We previewed this unit back in May and as you can see from our initial review, the resulting shifter delivers a level of precision that the GT350 deserves. However, George is quick to point out that it also doesn’t take away from all that NVH work that Ford Performance engineers put into taming that Voodoo flat-plane crank.
“As you can see, our shifter completely stays away from anything that interferes with the engineering that Ford has come up with for this car,” George explained. “This is a very special car, but it also has some very special characteristics that need to stay that way.”
For a complete look at the features of the new MGW GT350 shifter, we stopped by the company headquarters to have George take us on a tour of his latest creation’s benefits…
[video=youtube;LFYUloTA4gY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFYUloTA4gY[/video]
“We did some pretty clever engineering here. We actually have a reversing pivot mechanism built into our shifter. It enables us to get sync shifting—push over to the driver side, it moves to first gear. However, it doesn’t have any kind of pendulum design that’s going to give you play in here,” George said. “The result is rifle-bolt action that MGW Shifters are known for and very little play when it’s in gear compared to the stock unit.”
Considering that a shifter is one facet of the car that you are constantly interacting with while driving, that sort of performance shifting experience is definitely one worth considering. If you are so inclined, you can call MGW at (706) 793-1770 to order one.
MGW Shifters new Race Spec shifter for the 2015+ Shelby GT350 is a vast improvement over the factory TR-3160 shifter and a our new video details its features and benefits.
