Fudge it, I gave up on the Hurst.
I ordered the CS shifter yesterday. July 4th sale the Fuzzy was talking about started already (%10 off code "SUMMER2021")
In the past couple of days, my shifter started to rattle 3rd and 5th too. 6th where obviously the car spends most of it's time is the only gear thank God which doesn't exhibit said annoying rattle.
I double checked that all bolts are nice and tight, nothing is missing, shifter rubber isolator are in place, shifter rail poly bushings are there.
I also took the opportunity to order their grease-able trailing arm bushings while I was at it, those will probably get installed when I take my car out of service for the winter.

BTW my V has the CS Trans mount + CS Derlin / Bronze linkage bushings + CS Shifter bushings.
Now those got installed when the trans got rebuilt, I did not experience NVH back then but 2 years and 10K miles later I finally am, the shifter has got to be worn out.

My V came with the Hurst already installed, and God knows how long it's been there before my time, it could easily be 5-7 years+ old.
I think the Hurst shifter has seen it's fair share of wear and owners.
I hope the CS shifter will serve as a decent upgrade to the Hurst as the reviews indicate.

When I install it I'll contribute back to the thread with my experience.

 

My best guess is the derilin bushings causing the additional NVH.

My Hurst was exactly the same though, after the brass bushing install it was noisy in every gear except 6th. After installing the derilin bushings it got super loud.

The more you improve the shift feeling, the more you increase the noise level. Eliminate the rubber and you eliminate the noise suppression.

The CS has eliminated the noise, and I love the adjustability factor. I also liked the Hurst quite a bit, but my biggest complaint was not being able to shift lazy with it. You can lazy shift the CS should you choose to.

-Byron

 

That’s good to know.

It’s true, the Hurst you have to shift intentionally.

I don’t really want to spend another $400 cad but I might have to so I can quiet it down.

 

I broke down and bought the cs shifter with their sale. Comes on Friday so I’ll install it and report back.

 

OK, so the CS shifter arrived Saturday. Late Sunday night I went to town with the install.

Once I removed the Hurst, I was not surprised anymore that it was causing me so much grief and NVH.
Also the fix IMHO for the Hurst NVH might be easier than we think!



After perhaps years of service, that black mounting cup now has something like a mm or more of clearance to the silver cylinder containing the shifter ball. That's NVH point #1.

NVH point #2 The linkage portion which is pressed with pin securing it has significant play.

The silver piece needs to be lined with a thin insulator or rubber or anything soft which will make sure that the it does not touch directly the black cup. Alternatively, I would replace it with a flat mounting bracket that will tightly hold the silver portion and allow it to mount to the car. Perhaps one can fix them both centered on a jig and pour polyurethane and let it cure to form a barrier in between them.

Secondly, I would tack weld the bottom portion where the linkage meets the shifter shaft so it does not budge.

I believe that will take care of most of the NVH the shifter is producing / transmitting.

Now for the CS shifter update I promised.

TLDR I installed it, solo, exhaust in place a major PITA.
Spent a couple of days tuning it to my taste and now it shifts like a dream, rattle / NVH is gone for good.
BUT it took a lot of adjustment and fine tuning, especially getting the tension on the bottom linkage bolt right while making sure there was not much slack for vibrations to come through.

The long version of the install...if you are interested in learning from my experience is below.

CS states this is a 2 man job, and you should believe them, I did it on my own late at night with the exhaust in place, that resonator was a major PITA to work with. But a few hours of cursing later, I got it in and hit the bed face down.

Monday evening I had time to play with shifter adjustment, I have not used an adjustable shifter before, I was experimenting with the range of adjustments, you can apparently add so much throw (loosening the black nut) that your shifter linkage will interfere hard with the driveshaft guibo when in 2nd, 4th and 6th gear positions.

On the other extreme, you can shorten the throw so much that 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th and Reverse become unreachable because the bottom of the shifter will hit the bracket hole edge. Impressive.

So I started at that shortest setting, I began to incrementally tighten the bottom black nut until I could access all gears easily and went down to check clearance to the bracket hole and it was good.

Additionally, I replaced the shifter linkage OEM bolt with a longer bolt which has a long shoulder which goes all the way through the metal sleeve and threads start just it exists the car linkage hole, the thickness of the shoulder is almost that of the sleeve inner diameter so that there is no room for rattle or play in the shifting action, slightly thinner than a press fit.

I then tightened that new bolt slightly against the linkage with a nut (barely leaving a mm of gap), then since the bolt is longer than OEM, I was able to use a second nut to tighten against the first one it so I don't have to loctite. (CS recommends this for those who don't just want to rely on loctite)

I installed the shifter with the mounting bracket bolts facing down. I tied it to the chassis so it stays up while I work on the bottom of the car installing the nuts to hold the shifter on the linkage mount.
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I also took the opportunity to swap out these old bushings to the CS poly bushings. Not sure if what is in there was stock or aftermarket, put they were in kind of OK condition. I added some white lithium grease when installing them to make it easier to slide the bracket over them.



The final result was so smooth, that I can almost swear, at certain shifter height settings, this V shifted just as easily and smoothly as my manual 1996 accord coupe I had in college.

But of course, I then shortened the shifter down a bit to get a bit more engagement feedback.

Overall great job CS.

 

Those were the older CS bushings. You're not going to solve the Hurst NVH problem with a damper layer underneath the cup--already been there done that with Damplifier Pro. First and foremost, whatever you put on the shifter plate is going to get shorted (flattened and unable to dampen vibrations) after you bolt the shifter to the plate and the plate to the underbody of the car. Second, the path through the center linkage arm is most transparent acoustic path to transmission gear rollover noise. The outer arms go into the case which experiences some loss, whereas the center path is direct to the shifter forks inside the case. Even if you completely disconnected the outer arms you'd be left with the majority of the noise coming through the center arm.

The second-to-last step is to replace that foam insert with a series of stacked MLV (e.g. Luxury Liner Pro) sheets and a closed-cell foam core to further reduce the noise into the cabin. You'll find that MLV won't "give" at all and hinders shifting, so you'll have to cut a big rectangular opening in your insert and drop in a very compressible closed-cell foam core that won't resist your shifting efforts. The final step is to get a V2 **** and add tungsten weights or an ATS-V **** (which I think is ugly, but is already weighted). The weight results in a nicer feel (less "crunchiness") as you cross through the gates.

 

I think you are misunderstanding the problem I was facing. I wasn't experiencing annoying noise coming from the transmission through the shifter.
The vibrations of the transmissions were inducing a rattle in the actual shifter. It was a loud rattle coming from the shifter clunking inside the mount cup. When I removed the Hurst shifter and assembled back on my bench, it was as clear as daylight how loose that mount was around the shifter ball housing and how easy it was to wiggle the bottom mount.

I don't know what your shifter's problem was, but in my case, dampening the noise was nearly impossible, the rattle was highly local to the shifter. Transmission gear noise is a different problem completely.

I'm already there, when I bought my V, it came with the Hurst shifter and a Tremec ****. I wanted to use a V2 ****, but since obviously a V2 **** doesn't just work on a Hurst shifter, I emptied it on the inside, filled it with metal reinforced epoxy with a long 3/8" - 16 coupling nut inserted dead center, then let it cure.
It's much heavier than the way it came that's for sure. It nearly feels like it's made out of aluminum or steel.

Again, the rattle was the problem I had, all bolts tight, but the shifter was clunking loudly against the cup. Once it was gone so was the noise and I'm willing to bet if the mounting flange was changed to the same style the CS shifter uses, and the shifter shaft was welded to the linkage connector there would be no way there will still be a source for rattles.

 

Copy. One of the problems with Brian's design is that it relies on an interference fit between itself and the GM OEM cup. In your case the cup was a little bigger than the design could handle. Brian tried to ensure that the press-fit sleeve is a bigger than the ID of the OEM cup, but he didn't have a big sample size of V1 OEM cups to design against. That design flaw was partially mitigated in a later design that added an O-ring to try and take up the slop. Beyond that, we had a very late-stage prototype that got rid of the O-ring and replaced the press-fit sleeve with a laser-cut adapter plate, which brought down the cost to $10, but once we realized how limited the Hurst design was in terms of adjustability, fitment, and NVH reduction, it became clear that a totally new design was needed. That's where the CS design came from.

 

Bingo. It all makes sense now. Thank you for the history lesson. Had no idea there already efforts made to improve it.

And yes I did reach the same conclusion, though I did figure out how to fix my Hurst, I opted for the adjustability the CS shifter added. Also I like the fact that they offered both OEM and hurst mounting options for the ****. A nice and modular approach I would say.

So I would say if someone just has a problem with the rattle on the Hurst, bandaid the gap issue and the loose bottom connection if the adjustability of the CS is not important to you.

 

Electric tape, just wrap it till it is a press fit then put it together. the base clamps the little bit of the ears that remain to hold the shifter portion down (when I modified my Hurst shifter i left the full "camaro" ears in place.)

 

So I spent the afternoon replacing the starter solenoid connector and taking out the hurst and installing the cs shifter. First impression are good. It feels solid. I like having the stock **** back and I like that I can adjust the throw. It did quiet down some of the gear noise but under harder acceleration it’s loud as before, not really gear noise more like pulsing exhaust. Prior to the ls7 clutch there was very little engine noise and the exhaust was much more pronounced with the deleted mufflers. Now it’s almost all engine noise and I can barely hear the exhaust. There are no leaks that I can find and nothing is binding. I’m wondering if the noise from the downpipes is just making its way into the cabin through the rubber boot around the shifter. While I was driving I pulled up the shift boot and everything got louder so it is muffling the noise but not a lot. Driving around normally it’s dead quiet. I would love to find a way to quiet it down some so I can hear my exhaust again.

 

Can you give us a recording?

 

I’ll get a recording ASAP. The more I’m driving it the more it’s calming down so I’m curious about that

 

Your description makes me question whether your header to exhaust clamps are tightened sufficiently.

 

Brian's account is no longer active on LS1Tech since he's no longer a vendor but he asked me to post this:

If so, can you reply to comment #25 telling him that... It does not have my Delrin bushings in the base. Someone replaced them with bronze CS ones that do not work with the Hurst for 3 reasons. 1. They have an incorrect flange width to fit the linkage properly. 2. The bronze bushings do not fit thw bore properly and contribute to side to side play. 3. The bronze transmits every last bit of noise from the transmission through the shifter.

 

Thank Brian for the clarification. The previous owner probably did it then and I'm sure it transmitted unwanted vibrations for sure as he is saying.

But still the silver cup in my car at least could have used something to take up the slight gap with the black mount. And that shaft at the bottom could have benefited from a tack weld or two for sure as there was a slight back and forth wiggle in it.