DIY- Add paddle shifters to any Nissan/Infiniti
10-17-2008, 10:15 AM
#81
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opinions are always a good thing, ha, all in good fun 
my goal with these was to have them look & feel like they came there from the factory. I do start with OE paddles which cost almost $200 before I even touch my first tool. there are other materials used in these & hours of fabrication work & assembly, plus many hours into research & development of these, they will not be cheaper than the works bell kit but to many I think they will be superior in every way. I know that I personally would never put something that looked like the bell kit in my car even if it was half the price, everyone has a different view on what is & is not "worth it"
I do know that if I could get these out there for like under $300 or so that many many guys will want to buy them, but, that's just impossible, I'd be loosing a lot of money, time & effort. with everything there is a price, there will always be some who don't want to pay the price but then again, there will always be some that realize that the only way to get certain things is to pay the price too. I don't expect to sell hundreds of these nor is that my goal, these are hand made high end retrofits that are just not available anywhere, at any price. I'm sure some will realize this & be willing to pay to have something that can be had no other way, especially if it's a quality product.
my price will be fair for the amount of time money & effort that these have cost me to develop. I'm also very confident in my design & will offer a warranty on these too, in the end you get what you pay for, if you went to a high end fabricator who could even do something like this & told them to build you a pair of these one-off from scratch it would cost you a small fortune in labor & development, here, by doing a small volume of these, the development costs are spread out & the cost is actually cheaper to each guy...
trust me, the price I am getting for these from Oleg no were near covers the costs of the time & materials it took to build these, I winded up having to buy several covers, a whole inner column housing for test fitting, 2 pairs of paddles to butcher, several different types of specialized magnets in large quantities to get just the right ones, several different switches & springs, not to mention all of the hours that went into these, several test fits etc... half way through with these I said screw this, I'm not building these for anyone else just out of sheer frustration, but, I also did give my word to Oleg that no matter what, he will have a pair of paddle shifters in his z, so no matter what it took, I was determined to get this to work. if I build no more of these it would wind up being a loss for me no doubt, but again, my main priority or reason to do these was never really about the money, was more of the challenge, I almost gave up several tries ago as others would have, but I don't give up that easily, I knew with enough effort I could get these to work exactly like I want them to work & they do, I'm very happy with my end result
I can't say what the final price would be to you guys yet, have to find out what it's gonna cost to have all of my pieces cut & figure out my time to assemble these & weld them up, plus the switches, magnets, relays, harnesses etc... in the end the more they cost the fewer I'll sell no doubt, so I want them to be as inexpensive as I can, but then again, I Will also want to cover my costs & make enough profit for it to even be worth me screwing with these. I also have to now build a jig to fabricate these all identical to the known fit. I have no interest in trying to build them cheap, I could cast my own paddles & cheap out in a few places, but then I'd rather have OE magnesium paddles & a solid steel design. to do them cheap don't interest me, I'm more interested in doing them as good as I can & building a quality product that I would use in my own car & should last the lifetime of the car itself, if only a few really see the value in these then so be it, at least I know that the few that do wind up buying these will be happy with them which is important to me.
I also have to look into vendor requirements here to do a group buy on these forums, don't want to do any shady behind the scene deals if I'm gonna really do a whole group buy type thing. I'll start a separate thread for a group buy feeler to gage interest once I know what all my final costs will be & what kind of volume I can expect to reasonably produce & in what time frame... who knows, guys might wind up having these on there Christmas list this year if I devote enough time to setting these up for manufacturing
my goal with these was to have them look & feel like they came there from the factory. I do start with OE paddles which cost almost $200 before I even touch my first tool. there are other materials used in these & hours of fabrication work & assembly, plus many hours into research & development of these, they will not be cheaper than the works bell kit but to many I think they will be superior in every way. I know that I personally would never put something that looked like the bell kit in my car even if it was half the price, everyone has a different view on what is & is not "worth it" I do know that if I could get these out there for like under $300 or so that many many guys will want to buy them, but, that's just impossible, I'd be loosing a lot of money, time & effort. with everything there is a price, there will always be some who don't want to pay the price but then again, there will always be some that realize that the only way to get certain things is to pay the price too. I don't expect to sell hundreds of these nor is that my goal, these are hand made high end retrofits that are just not available anywhere, at any price. I'm sure some will realize this & be willing to pay to have something that can be had no other way, especially if it's a quality product.
my price will be fair for the amount of time money & effort that these have cost me to develop. I'm also very confident in my design & will offer a warranty on these too, in the end you get what you pay for, if you went to a high end fabricator who could even do something like this & told them to build you a pair of these one-off from scratch it would cost you a small fortune in labor & development, here, by doing a small volume of these, the development costs are spread out & the cost is actually cheaper to each guy...
trust me, the price I am getting for these from Oleg no were near covers the costs of the time & materials it took to build these, I winded up having to buy several covers, a whole inner column housing for test fitting, 2 pairs of paddles to butcher, several different types of specialized magnets in large quantities to get just the right ones, several different switches & springs, not to mention all of the hours that went into these, several test fits etc... half way through with these I said screw this, I'm not building these for anyone else just out of sheer frustration, but, I also did give my word to Oleg that no matter what, he will have a pair of paddle shifters in his z, so no matter what it took, I was determined to get this to work. if I build no more of these it would wind up being a loss for me no doubt, but again, my main priority or reason to do these was never really about the money, was more of the challenge, I almost gave up several tries ago as others would have, but I don't give up that easily, I knew with enough effort I could get these to work exactly like I want them to work & they do, I'm very happy with my end result
I can't say what the final price would be to you guys yet, have to find out what it's gonna cost to have all of my pieces cut & figure out my time to assemble these & weld them up, plus the switches, magnets, relays, harnesses etc... in the end the more they cost the fewer I'll sell no doubt, so I want them to be as inexpensive as I can, but then again, I Will also want to cover my costs & make enough profit for it to even be worth me screwing with these. I also have to now build a jig to fabricate these all identical to the known fit. I have no interest in trying to build them cheap, I could cast my own paddles & cheap out in a few places, but then I'd rather have OE magnesium paddles & a solid steel design. to do them cheap don't interest me, I'm more interested in doing them as good as I can & building a quality product that I would use in my own car & should last the lifetime of the car itself, if only a few really see the value in these then so be it, at least I know that the few that do wind up buying these will be happy with them which is important to me.
I also have to look into vendor requirements here to do a group buy on these forums, don't want to do any shady behind the scene deals if I'm gonna really do a whole group buy type thing. I'll start a separate thread for a group buy feeler to gage interest once I know what all my final costs will be & what kind of volume I can expect to reasonably produce & in what time frame... who knows, guys might wind up having these on there Christmas list this year if I devote enough time to setting these up for manufacturing
10-17-2008, 11:34 AM
#82
Word - like I said man - from *my* perspective, it would have to be cheaper then the works bell kit, as I have no issues with it and it would be about the price point.
Can't expect you to lose money after all that R&D.
there will be many others who are interested in a higher tier product that looks flush with their interior, functions better mechanically etc. It's just not for me - paddle shifting would be nice, but to me its worth about 300 bucks tops. Maybe someone will sell a used unit at some point.
Can't expect you to lose money after all that R&D.
there will be many others who are interested in a higher tier product that looks flush with their interior, functions better mechanically etc. It's just not for me - paddle shifting would be nice, but to me its worth about 300 bucks tops. Maybe someone will sell a used unit at some point.
10-17-2008, 02:05 PM
#83
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totally reasonable, every day I see things that sell for way more than I'd be willing to pay for them even though others gladly do, so I just don't buy them either. trust me, even if these were $300 there'd be some that would say that's too much too
10-20-2008, 02:44 PM
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I'm in bay ridge brooklyn...
been fine tuning these paddles & I gotta say, they winded up feeling even better than the OE nissan paddles! the OE nissan paddles are mounted to a plastic base & use plastic mechanisim for the click action while mine are chrome plated magnets with a steel mount & a steel positive stop. side by side, the OE's have a plastic feel to them, with a thunk-thunk for each shift. these however have a real quality feel to them, more like a click-clack, they have a metal feel to them instead of plastic, kinda like cocking the trigger on a gun or something, they feel great & of course look 100% OEM
I've also been playing & tweaking with these & now, I have them set up in a way that these will actually fit ALL nissan/infiniti's, from the Z's to the G's to the maxima's & altima's & probably others, including the FX even, with just this one single design. the only difference with any fitments will be just the column covers which of course are still specific to each model. with this I will definatley gear up to produce these, with such a large potential user base I definatley think it's worth the effort to produce these.
I also am able to use a double throw, double pole micro switches for these paddle shifters, so no relays are necissary, direct wire, these switches are exactly what nissan uses at the floor shifter. these things are really sweet, should have them installed in oleg's Z by the end of the week hopefully...
been fine tuning these paddles & I gotta say, they winded up feeling even better than the OE nissan paddles! the OE nissan paddles are mounted to a plastic base & use plastic mechanisim for the click action while mine are chrome plated magnets with a steel mount & a steel positive stop. side by side, the OE's have a plastic feel to them, with a thunk-thunk for each shift. these however have a real quality feel to them, more like a click-clack, they have a metal feel to them instead of plastic, kinda like cocking the trigger on a gun or something, they feel great & of course look 100% OEM
I've also been playing & tweaking with these & now, I have them set up in a way that these will actually fit ALL nissan/infiniti's, from the Z's to the G's to the maxima's & altima's & probably others, including the FX even, with just this one single design. the only difference with any fitments will be just the column covers which of course are still specific to each model. with this I will definatley gear up to produce these, with such a large potential user base I definatley think it's worth the effort to produce these.
I also am able to use a double throw, double pole micro switches for these paddle shifters, so no relays are necissary, direct wire, these switches are exactly what nissan uses at the floor shifter. these things are really sweet, should have them installed in oleg's Z by the end of the week hopefully...
10-20-2008, 07:12 PM
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there will be many others who are interested in a higher tier product that looks flush with their interior, functions better mechanically etc. It's just not for me - paddle shifting would be nice, but to me its worth about 300 bucks tops. Maybe someone will sell a used unit at some point.
10-21-2008, 09:49 PM
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thanks
pics,
combining what I learned & the jigs I built doing the fx paddles & what I now came up with for this 350z, I winded up with an end design that will really fit all nissan & infiniti's & look like they came there. already confirmed the fitment on the 350z, an fx, a maxima & a g, but these should fit way more, from a sentra se-r to a titan, altimas, whatever.
I'll be building some more of these soon, think they'll be at least some demand for these
...
pics,
combining what I learned & the jigs I built doing the fx paddles & what I now came up with for this 350z, I winded up with an end design that will really fit all nissan & infiniti's & look like they came there. already confirmed the fitment on the 350z, an fx, a maxima & a g, but these should fit way more, from a sentra se-r to a titan, altimas, whatever.
I'll be building some more of these soon, think they'll be at least some demand for these
...
12-01-2008, 08:18 PM
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well, we've had these paddle shifters in Oleg's z for about a month now, & they have been great. I have finished fitting the cover around these & it turns out that the only issue is, the space is so tight inside the column cover that I had to cut a small relief on either side behind each paddle. I should be able to make small separate add on little covers for the openings to make it look perfect, but as it is right now it's really not so bad, you only see the openings if you really go looking for them.
I'll let Oleg chime in with his opinion on these & how they've been in daily use, but from what I've seen I'd say there a success. I will build some of these, probably in a batch of 10 at a time & offer them for sale. I did look into becoming a vendor here but have had a hard time trying to figure it out, it looks like you need to become a vendor on this site along with a bunch of sister sites & I couldn't get much information & it looked to be more hassle than it's worth, seemed to be more for large commercial ventures, where at the limited quantities I'll be building these, it'll just drive the costs up for no practical reason, so I think I'll just put up a group buy on my home site at infiniscene.com. I'll link here to it when I'm ready, probably put up a new thread since this really doesn't have much to do with the original reason I started this thread in the first place... I'd say I should have something available a bit after the holidays
as far as I know, this the only 350Z with factory paddle shifters anywhere so far
I'll let Oleg chime in with his opinion on these & how they've been in daily use, but from what I've seen I'd say there a success. I will build some of these, probably in a batch of 10 at a time & offer them for sale. I did look into becoming a vendor here but have had a hard time trying to figure it out, it looks like you need to become a vendor on this site along with a bunch of sister sites & I couldn't get much information & it looked to be more hassle than it's worth, seemed to be more for large commercial ventures, where at the limited quantities I'll be building these, it'll just drive the costs up for no practical reason, so I think I'll just put up a group buy on my home site at infiniscene.com. I'll link here to it when I'm ready, probably put up a new thread since this really doesn't have much to do with the original reason I started this thread in the first place... I'd say I should have something available a bit after the holidays
as far as I know, this the only 350Z with factory paddle shifters anywhere so far
12-02-2008, 07:51 AM
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the only "parts" involved is I start with a pair of OE paddles which are then chopped up & modified, everything else is fabricated...
final price is not 100% determined as I have to see what my fabrication costs wind up being in the volumes I'll be working with, but I'm doing what I can to try & keep this affordable... expect somewhere in the $500-$600 range, plus installation which will not be very difficult, if you can remove your radio & connect a few wires you can install these...
final price is not 100% determined as I have to see what my fabrication costs wind up being in the volumes I'll be working with, but I'm doing what I can to try & keep this affordable... expect somewhere in the $500-$600 range, plus installation which will not be very difficult, if you can remove your radio & connect a few wires you can install these...
12-12-2008, 07:53 AM
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Sorry I'm a noob to all of this but how does this work with it being an automatic? Slap it into the "manual" mode and shift with the paddles? Is there a clutch or just tap the right side to shift up and left side to shift down?
12-15-2008, 01:43 PM
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yea, just like that, put the shifter in manual, then tap the paddles for up & down, no clutch pedal or anything different, the paddles just take the place of, or more like work in unison with the floor shifter, you can use either & change back & forth... the car see's no difference weather you hit a paddle or hit the shifter itself...
01-16-2009, 01:05 PM
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working on finishing up a CAD design for having this machined, already digitized my main plate but the more I can get digitized & machine fabricated the less hand assembly there'll be & the less the end result will cost. I also want to be able to make many of these efficiently & precisely. they are def coming, just working on a few refinements, by spring time they'll be in cars I think...
