FearlessFife

I wish you could create a happy medium between my two cars.

My Si is smooth and buttery shifting, but the gears are slightly too far apart.

My S2000 is stiffer and stubborn to shift (especially when cold), but the gears being close together is great.

skurge

nothing has compared to the s2000, but a couple have came close


my 04 STI, had a great shifting feel, which almost feels exactly like my FR-S

Also my 81 rx-7 had a brand new trans in it, that was nice to shift also


but the S is always in the lead there

Saki GT

91 MR2 turbo, 86 944T, both great in their own ways.

FurY

I've been pretty fortunate with the shifting feel in the manual cars I've owned (see sig for list of them). Out of the ones I've owned the S2000 hands down feels the best... from there I would say my STi felt the next best and then my K-series cars were all a tie since it was essentially the same transmission throughout, just in different cars.

Saki GT

I had an autocross instructor, who drove an F body, in my car back in the day who couldn't find second in the S. He thought he never left first.

jimboslice

Really? That's one of the reasons why I got rid of mine for the S. It only had 40k on it, but the shifter felt sloppy and I had to be super careful with 2nd gear, otherwise it'd grind.

92gli

Do the shifter re-grease procedure. Use red bearing grease instead of the honda stuff. You may need new shifter bushings (the hard white plastic pieces) while you're at it. Top it off with a really heavy shift knob. It will be amazing.

imarcr2

I prefer the Miata 5 speed to the S2000 but it is more because I don't like 6 speeds in general.

Worst for me was a Taurus SHO I had......like stirring a pot of gravel soup

berny2435

If you are mostly linking shifting feel then here are my thoughts
Porsche Cayman S is a really close competitor. I haven't spent enough time in them to determine if it's really better but it's really frickin nice.

I've owned a K20a2 and a K20z3. Before the S2000 I had a 2008 Civic Si.
K20/K24 do have nice 6speeds but the feel of the shift is vastly effected 20,000 miles in. The motor mounts in the RSX and Si are absolute garbage.

Upgraded motor mounts and shifter bushings really make the gearbox gear selection a thing of beauty in a reasonably priced car though. I imagine you'd have to double or triple that of the S2000 and Civic Si to find better gearbox shifter feel.

The RX8 practically has the same gearbox guts as the S2000. It is good but the sum of the S2000 parts is a little better.

I do wonder how the 2dr AMG Mercs feel?

I bet the Aston Martins are good as well.

rockville

I'm going to give an honorable mention to my mom's 1997 Accord. The shifter felt good and the throws were short enough that you could completely operate the lever with your fingertips while keeping your elbow planted on the arm rest. I really liked that a 3-4 shift was a two finger tip affair. That was probably the best shifting FWD (or remote transmission RWD (Boxster, Corvette)) I've ever driven.