ITRCA

Three days ago I bought a 2000 Type-r (four year dream come true). Anyway, the car is spotless and drives excellent but sometimes when you come to a stop it is very hard to put it in gear (12345 all of them). I have to jam it in with great effort and then it's all good. The effort to put it in gear is so much that my wife doesn't even have the strength !!!

I have been told by the previous owner that the car is completely stock as far as drivetrain internals are concerned. I am really dissapointed with this and am hoping that you all will tell me it's some minor/common problem that can be fixed easily.

Please help.

This occured to me also on a 2001 with only 5000 miles on it. The best thing to do without rebuilding the tranny is to first change the tranny oil and get the best synthetic one you can get ! Also, get used to double-clutch and always wait until a complete stop to drive it into first. The first time I noticed this I changed the oil for conventional OEM Tranny oil and it helped little, then the dealer replaced the internals for the 1-2-3 gears and again new OEM oil. I didn't have problems for about 10 000 miles until it started to do it again, whent to the dealer again and the test-drove the car and adjusted some kind of *clutch piston pedal and also *bleeded the clutch. It helped but I changed the tranny oil for a High grade full synthetic race oil and it seemed to be the best thing to do. I can say that it's 90% cured and I now select second gear, doble-clutch and then first ! No more trouble and it shifts just fine. Good enough for 13 sec passes down the 1/4 mile

Thank you very much for your reply. I hope it's as simple as just getting new synthetic transmission fluid and a clutch fluid change. Could you please recommend the type of synthetic fluid you are using.

Thanks again.

Speaking of which.. I have 2 quarts of BG Synchroshift laying around. Any problems with using that?

BTW, you might want to get some Energy Suspension shifter bushings. Improved my shift feel many times over the stock rubber bushings and I don't often have to try to push so hard to put the car into 1st. Double clutching puts the shaft into a neutral position for engaging a gear again so try to remember to do that more often.