This is a review of the Spoon Direct Shift Lever Part No. 54111-AP1-000. Also applies to 54111-AP1-A00 which I assume is the part number for left hand drive (seen here http://www.gotuning.com/product_info...oducts_id=1279)

So I had been after a short shifter for a while, and been thinking about the axial flow on and off over the years. One day I came across the Spoon while browsing auctions.yahoo.co.jp for S2000 parts. I think this is where things started to go wrong, as that site is entirely in Japanese, I saw it, I liked it and put my order in with a parts buyer in Japan. The shifter arrived a few weeks later, I had a quick look and put it in my closet for later install. Fast forward 6 months or so and I finally get around to installing it, pull it out of the closet and notice the label says "Direct Shift Lever", when I was expecting something more like "Short Shift Kit"!

Hmmm, so had I made a rather stupid error? A short time googling later, I was convinced I had not bought any kind of short shift, merely a factory shift lever with a brass bit on the bottom instead of the factory plastic one. Oooops. I think what happened was after seeing the pictures + Spoon, I made the assumption than any kind of shift lever product for an S2000 that was made by Spoon would have a shortened throw. Wrong. Ah well.

So, I installed it anyway (what else was there to do), measured the throw, which was exactly as per factory as expected and lost all hope of this lever doing anything really. Time to call it a night.

Got up the next day and it was time to drive. Was I blown away? No. Was I pleasantly surprised? Yes. The Spoon lever shifts more smoothly and does seem to find the gears better. It slots into each gate with more reassuring bite than before and is overall a better shifting experience. Now, part of me wonders how much of that is due to the fact that it is a brand new lever (my old one has 90000km or 56000 miles), and how much is due to the magic metal ball on the end. I will never know.

The good:
Solid shift feel
Metal end resists wear
No vibration, same as factory but better

The bad:
Does not shorten shift throw
Same benefits could possibly be gained by replacing with new Honda lever

 

Damn that is one expensive little metal piece lol. So it's just an oem Honda shifter with a metal tip instead of plastic I guess. Why don't they just sell the metal tip to replace yourself? That's nuts!

 

I was going to buy this but decided to rebuild my stock shifter with new boots and plastic ball seat and it made a noticeable improvement with shifting, smoother overall

 

^ should have just gotten the Moddiction short shifter...some Spoon parts are cool but often times you realize that some of em just are not any better than what some sponsors make here in the states...sometimes they are actually inferior

 

the fact that you put in a freshly lubed shifter also helps with part of the improvement, doing the shifter lube on my oem shifter helped immensely with the feel and shifting.

 

So in conclusion, it's a waste of money. Nice write-up nonetheless.

 

The Moddiction appears to be a great product, but I don't think it was available 6 months ago when I purchased the Spoon and also is currently only available for left hand drive (it is angled to the left). I have a right hand drive car and the Moddiction would angle away from me if I installed it.

 

It will be more durable in the long term, the nylon oem seat tends to wear and crack with long term use, your part will last much longer than that. Being a harder piece it likely transmits shift feel a bit more than the nylon equipped oem version, so you could be feeling the shifts a bit more giving a precise sensation. Not all is lost.

 

smooth shifting is definitely improved by just regrasing the shifter.
i gueess it's impossble to distinkt effect of regrasing from Spoon's shifter possible improvements.

 

This sounds like every other spoon product. Barely marginally better than OEM at 10x the cost.