Budget Paddle Shifter idea

How the paddles will install. Kinda far away but just a mockup

Attachment 26745

Took the keyless entry remote, pulled the cover n buttons off for bare circuit board, soldered a wire to each side of the buttons, and then soldered the wires into the paddle buttons. The steering side of the paddle shifters are almost complete, just need to mount them to the wheel and bolt the wheel back on. More to come soon.

http://youtu.be/zFwXp3L7-TM

Paddles mounted and all finished. Ready to install. Gonna be soldering and wiring the receiver/ shift box combo tonite after work so I can have the setup done and ready to install for my birthday. I'll have the wiring for that afterwards for anyone interested

Attachment 26790

Looks good, man! This is pretty cool, I hope it all comes together like you've planned, this would make an auto car at a road course much more fun.

Thanks! So far only issue I can see is the steering wheel will need to be aligned at all times lol. Other than that it's goin smoothly and for my entire setup it's still under $160 total and keeps the stock computer unlike some other kits that use an aftermarket one. So that's a big plus for anyone on a budget and wanting to have some fun. Plus it's universal for just about any car lol

Im in awe that you are making this happen. Alot of reading, but very interesting...

Still following!

Thanks Popo. I thought maybe when it was done someone could do a shorter write up of it or something so anyone interested wouldn't have to read thru all the little updates lol.

So hit a small roadblock on it today that I kind of regret not noticing earlier.
I wires everything up to a battery to check that it would all work and wired two license plate lights up to substitute the solenoids. Everything works as far as the shift box and the paddles were working until I realized I could only get 3rd and 4th with them. That's when I realized that the keyless entry would only activate a full cycle meaning once it was unlocked it wouldn't unlock again until it was locked. So I messed with it a bit and got it to go thru all four gears but it did it simultaneously because it was trying to complete the circuit. So I kept trying to figure out a solution and then the receiver sparked and started smoking and stopped working lol. So I decided to go to bed and think about it in the morning and when I woke up I had another idea.
Rather than a keyless entry which has to complete a cycle my next attempt is going to be a remote for a winch. Since it only has an IN and OUT button it will be a bit simpler to work with and I know that this remote should be able to activate the buttons more than once in a row unlike the keyless entry. Down side is its $22 over $15 so the cost goes up another $7. Coulda bought from China for $10 but didn't wanna wait forever for it. At least this time I'll be smart enough to wire it up and test it before I solder everything up. This one doesn't include a spare remote either but that's not a deal breaker. More updates once the new winch controller arrives.

Ok so the paddle shifter officially works! I purchased the winch remote and it arrived today. The remote was so tiny it was almost impossible to solder everything lol. That and I had some issues.
Ok so the winch remote allows me to shift thru all the gears and works very quickly HOWEVER it uses a + signal and the shift box requires a - signal. So to solve this issue there has to be a relay inline of each wire for the paddles ,one for upshift and one for downshift. Not a huge issue but makes the system a bit more complex than I was hoping. The only issue I currently have now with the system is during shifting the lights I used to act as the solenoids flash when shifting which wouldn't be an issue except that that means there is a chance the transmission could shift into first for a split second. I'm hoping the issue goes away once everything is hard wired and soldered. It's all currently just taped together and so some wires are a bit loose. Now that the setup is pretty much done I guess I'll get to work on a step by step write up to simplify everything for anyone wanting to do this.

http://youtu.be/NjNstTh2SVY

Props for spending the time on this! Ill be reading into it, only thing I wonder is the shift time between the solenoids that their might be a flare between shifts?

Whats ur background that allows u to know all this stuff man. Im lost and amazed with so much of it.

LTXtech.com is my drug.