shifter location

I am mounting my shifter now and have the chance to locate anywhere along the tunnell. Is the Beetle location preferred, or given the chance would you relocate it?
At the same time I am mounting a custom set of floor mounted pedals so the seat, shifter, pedal set, relative locations are all variable at this time in construction.

I am 5'8" and 32" sleeves

I'd think way down the road, in other words, someday, you're going to sell the car. If you set it up for a 5'8" driver then you're limiting yourself to vertically impaired drivers. Why not install the shifter as far forward as possible and adjust your seat as far forward as you can. In the future, if a 6'1" person decides to buy your car, they will also fit and be able to have good control of pedals and shifter.

Robert,
I agree with Larry, but it doesn't meant you can't do some really cool stuff with the shifter selection and pedal assembley, If you search somewhere on here I found a reallllly cool shifter from a guy in Germany (very outlaw-ish) as well as some of the sandrail setups that look super cool in a speedster. If you're looking to do a recreation of the standard looking speedster you can easily mimic the original style shifter. Ultimately I'd prefer good spacing bewtween pedals, a dead pedal and easy reach to the shifter so you can just essentially drop you right hand off the wheel on to the shifter knob. Seat rails can always be moved for a taller driver by just drilling new holes.

You might be ok as is? Get a seat in there and check it out. Steering wheel in hand, check out your feet, and if needed, you probably have 3-4 inches you can pull the shifter back if you use an aftermarket e-brake handle. For some reason, they seem to have shrunk in the aftermarket world and are not as long as the stock versions.

Be careful, too much time doing this with all of the vroom, vroom noises will land you on youtube for sure.

Boston Bob E

I live in Thailand and the resale market is mostly vertically challenged. In any case it is a simple matter to remount the seat if there is not sufficient adjustment.

The obvious method is to put the body on and place the shifter, however I would rather build the car on the chassis as much as possible to make the job easier, then mount the body. At this point in time the centre tunnell is a triagulated tube structure and I would like to mount the 911 shifter and rod guide brace, before welding the 3mm tunnell cover in place.

Is the collective wisdom to mount the shifter in the standard Beetle position, or x inches further forward?

My uneducated opinion is that you'd want it pretty much in line with the steering wheel so that the reach is shorter. Mine is a couple of inches ahead of the wheel and the reach, even with a reduced throw shifter, can be a bit long to third. I've heard a lot of comments on how perfect the relationship of the controls is in a Miata. If you can find one in your area, maybe that could be a model.

Lane - how is this wheel referenced location in relation to the Beetle location?
My body is not mounted so no way to tell at this point

Ok, well that would be a problem. You would need to have some fixed point from which to start. I'd suggest setting the body on the chassis and doing some trial fitting. It might be a bit of trouble, but it would ensure that you wound up with a driving position.

On my car the steering wheel is about 6 inches out from the dash, 4 inches out from the visor, so that would be a reasonable benchmark. You could then adjust from there. As you can see in the pictures, the wheel rim is roughly concentric to the visor. The real builders here (speak up Alan, Joe, et al.) can give you some tips.

Standard location is fine. Whatever situation you might have with reach can be corrected with the shifter. You can bend a stock shifter. Aftermarket shifters vary from straight to different degrees of bend and angle. A short shifter will give you a shorter throw; long = longer.
I have a slight problem with my Berg 5 speed as 5th gear is waaaay northeast. But, since that's my overdrive, it doesn't get used as much.

What is the "standard" location? My speedster is currently on a 1970 pan and is being swapped out to a 1959 pan. The shifter is further back on the 70' than on the 59' I'm trying to figure where I want the shifter myself. I would like it as close to a real speedster.
Jeff