TCI shifter cable melt down

[ninjapumkin]

Good day guys
Been through 2 shifter cables from TCI on my Outlaw shifter. Going to a third. I have tied the cable away from headers. I have placed it inside of a thermal heat sleeve. I have wrapped my headers. Will now be going onto my third cable as I can tell the cable is still pushing through sleeve and will not go into park. Am at my wits end. I know the headers push about 850 degrees and with wrapping them I have brought that down to about 600. The heat sleeve has extended life to about 4 weeks. Any suggestions or pictures on a better solution?

 

[Frank Mopar]

Not sure how ran your cable but out the passenger side and under to the driver side works best

 

[ninjapumkin]

Thank you for reply. How long is your cable? I ran mine through fire wall above transmission top and looped back towards linkage bracket on bottom of transmission. Cable runs along side close to starter

 

[Alan Fiandaca]

Just a thought, have you checked your negative ground cable for resistance? Remember mustang gt guys eating multiple clutch cables because of moving the battery to the trunk and the clutch cable was the best connection back to the battery. Easy enough to check.

 

[coloradodave]

Put a heat gun on your headers. No way is 850* a normal temperature for headers that far from the ports. If you're seeing over 500-550* near the heads, I'd check the timing. If so, advance it some. A light weight aluminum shield between the cable and header, not touching either, will cut most of the radiant heat if you can't reroute the cables farther from the tubes or collector.

 

[Frank Mopar]

Thank you for reply. How long is your cable? I ran mine through fire wall above transmission top and looped back towards linkage bracket on bottom of transmission. Cable runs along side close to starter

5 footer that comes with B&M shifters

 

[andyf]

Good day guys
Been through 2 shifter cables from TCI on my Outlaw shifter. Going to a third. I have tied the cable away from headers. I have placed it inside of a thermal heat sleeve. I have wrapped my headers. Will now be going onto my third cable as I can tell the cable is still pushing through sleeve and will not go into park. Am at my wits end. I know the headers push about 850 degrees and with wrapping them I have brought that down to about 600. The heat sleeve has extended life to about 4 weeks. Any suggestions or pictures on a better solution?

Yeah that is why I finally tossed the cable in the trash and built a solid rod shifter.

 

[ninjapumkin]

Put a heat gun on your headers. No way is 850* a normal temperature for headers that far from the ports. If you're seeing over 500-550* near the heads, I'd check the timing. If so, advance it some. A light weight aluminum shield between the cable and header, not touching either, will cut most of the radiant heat if you can't reroute the cables farther from the tubes or collector.

Right now I am at 38degrees advanced. 400 B with .040 so you maybe right. I will advance a little bit more as I heard I can go as far as 50. Zero decked block with aluminum heads and KB flats.

 

[Frank Mopar]

Yeah that is why I finally tossed the cable in the trash and built a solid rod shifter.
View attachment 996047

I like that idea. Looks like the shifter is right on top of Where the seat goes. Any pics with the seat in?

 

[coloradodave]

Right now I am at 38degrees advanced. 400 B with .040 so you maybe right. I will advance a little bit more as I heard I can go as far as 50. Zero decked block with aluminum heads and KB flats.

Right now I am at 38degrees advanced. 400 B with .040 so you maybe right. I will advance a little bit more as I heard I can go as far as 50. Zero decked block with aluminum heads and KB flats.

Connect a timing light to your engine. Start the car and let it idle. Write down how many degrees the light shows at idle and the RPM. Hopefully, your balancer is marked in degrees. If not, buy a timing tape for your balancer from a local parts house and install it. Then, with the light still connected, slowly raise the RPM and watch the timing mark advance. Note the RPM at which the mark stops moving (some lights show RPM or you might have to enlist someone to watch a tach inside the car and relay the info to you), and the degrees shown on the tape. This number (on the timing tape) is your total timing. If your distributor has a vacuum advance canister, make sure it is disconnected and the hose is plugged while you do the above test. Then reconnect the vacuum hose and take the engine to the same RPM that you registered for total timing. Whatever the difference is is what the vacuum advance canister is adding to your total advance. Some canisters are adjustable, some not. STRICTLY AS A GUIDE, most big blocks will get by fine with 10-16* initial timing at idle and 34-40* total coming in by (+-) 2,500-3,000 RPM. You can add your vacuum advance to this under cruise conditions.
These numbers will differ substantially for heavily modified engines, or engines built with out of the norm combinations.
Be very interested to see what the temperature of the header tubes is at the head...

 

[ninjapumkin]

Mopar Connection did an article with a TCI shifter install and noticed in the picture how the cable did a sharp bend up before the bracket. Is there that much flex in the cable without binding?

 

[33 IMP]

Winters shifter ($220 at summit) cable comes in from the rear , away from header heat. I bet you have spent that much on cables for your shifter. Just thinking along side the box.

 

[theman440]

Loop your shifter cable inside the car, drill a hole in the RT side of the tunnel ( towards the top) just in front of the trans crossmember. Then route the shift lever. I did it this way on my race car - been 15 years.

 

[Splangj]

I couldn’t possibly see cables going forward into the starter, headers and kick down cable. I did some welding and made mine rear entry. Of course you need to reverse the tranny mounting too. The exposed cable is in my kind of rat rod Dart, the other is my RR that I built a console for to hide the cable.