Closed Loop Air Shifter

Found that with the turbo engine, the original MNR push pull cable gearshift was a little slow and was difficult to use accurately at speed.

I always had a gear shift system in mind since I upgraded my ecu to the MBE 9A9, the ecu has the full capability to control the gearbox with great accuracy and speed. It uses electronic paddles and an actuator to change gear. 

After quite a lot of research I chose a closed loop air system from Meteor Motorsport with shiftec paddles, Radical air accumulator, Radical gear shift actuator, Radical gear position sensor, SBD solenoids and SBD throttle blipper.  I did look at air bottles and various electronic systems, but each had a level of compromise.

The radical set up is identical to those fitted to the hayabusa engined Radical SR3's with closed loop shifting.  The radical bracket and actuator are extremely will made and are far better quality than the other actuators I have seen on the market. The compressor runs to 9.8 Bar with no problem at all and is regulated to 6 Bar to provide consistent actuation. The whole system is wired to the MBE ecu and runs full clutchless changes up and down the box after the initial start in 1st with the clutch. 

The system has a clutch switch wired in which senses in the clutch is pressed and allows you to select a gear. There is also a button on the steering wheel that will change to neutral from 1st or 2nd when at standstill. The up and down shifts are via the shiftec electronic paddles. These are high quality with a good feel, these are used in many professional rally and race cars.

To allow the ECU to know exactly where the shifter barrel is during the changes, I needed to fit a fully analogue gear sensor that is fitted to the Radical cars, this meant that I needed to remove the engine to install as it goes behind the clutch basket and replaces the standard resistor switch. The sensor now gives a reading to tell the ECU exactly where it is in the gear change, the ECU then knows exactly how much to move the actuator on the shift. 

I mounted the accumulator in the boot area on an aluminium plate and fixed to the frame. I then wired it back to a fused relay switched from the ECU, I also wired the pressure sensor yo the dash and ECU to monitor and control the mini compressor.

Steve Broughton at SBD set up the gearbox control maps for me with the latest setting he is running on the race and hill climb cars.