I'm all for getting weight out of the car, so yes getting rid of the gearstick adapter would help. But I've yet to drive a 5 speeder (!) and my thinking was to see how I find the ergonomics first (I'm not tall). There is plenty of information out there for budding race car builders on the ideal positional relationship between gearstick and steering wheel and the answer seems to be to have the stick pivot position about 35mm ahead of the centre line of the wheel and vertical.
On the early 5 Speeder the pivot point of the stick is about 60mm behind the wheel and thus some distance away from the ideal 'just ahead' of the wheel position. So getting rid of the adapter would move it forwards and ahead of the wheel and improve ergonomics, as you guys have found. But when I recently looked at Phil Bleazey's later 5 speeder (without adapter) my initial thoughts were that the stick pivot point had moved too far forward, which might be why Morgan also added a substantial rearward crank in the stick in an attempt to bring the gear knob position back a little. The adapter casing on the early cars brings the stick pivot backwards from the standard MX5 position by a quite a lot at 180mm and doing some quick sums on the above figures says to me that the ideal solution would be a shorter adapter casing at say half of its length allied with a straight stick. But no doubt such a thing doesn't exist, as perhaps Morgan found out! So I'm thinking of modifying mine by cutting the mid section out and asking my friendly welder whether the aluminium alloy used in the casing is a weldable grade. The internal actuating rod is easily modifiable.
Planenut.....yes it is a yellow Lotus Elite restoration project, which was progressing well until the 5 Speeder barged in. Not a pretty car from some angles, but I think they are so very 70's and the engineering is the usual clever Lotus.
Bitsobrits....I'd be interested to know more about that transmission tunnel. As the original is unnecessarily large in all dimensions
