Thanks to Infiniti they made the fold-down armrest removable, and also provided a new plastic cover to hide the old mount points. I find having this removed makes shifting much easier and also lets my arm rest in a lower more comfortable position. The only problem is, now there's no pad, it's just a hole with a cupholder, and pretty ugly at that.

Well I thought it might be cool to replace the huge stock armrest with a low profile rest, allowing for both easy shifting clearance as well as being a functional armrest. I just worked through a simple design with a local upholstering guy and he is going to produce a prototype for me by Friday. I should have some pics up that afternoon...

 

pictures?....

 

If your interior was Willow....I'd send you my 03 console to get it out of the garage...
It has much more storage...and no armrest.

 

Look on Ebay, they have the centerconsole lid replacement kit for the 04-05 coupes. I don't understand you people - I had to spend $300 to get my 03 coupe retrofitted with the 04 center console. We could have just swapped

 

Okay, just picked up the new armrest, and I have to say I think it's one of the best mods I have done so far, except for maybe the V1

I now have plenty of room for shifting, and the new rest is at just the right height for it to be functional. Fit and quality is top notch, and color match is absolutely perfect with my graphite interior. He ended up using a 3/8" plywood base, then a couple layers of hard foam, covered with real leather with french stitching to match seat stitching.

If you want to be able to easily swap back and forth between the images, try this thumbnail link (sorry my server is not the fastest)

http://salimon.cjb.net/cgi-bin/thumbs.pl?FRAME=armrest


Here are a several of those pics. First is that monster stock rest:




Here is the low profile rest:



Closeup of the new rest:



One showing the bottom of the new rest:




As you can see it sits right on top of the cupholder, which makes for a nice solid base. I had it fit pretty snug, and at first I asked to have a small tab put in the back to make removal easier but there is enough of the pad sticking up to simply lift it right out.

If there is any interest in these, my upholstering guy said he could easily knock out as many as needed for any interior color in real leather, and he could probably do a nice GB price.

 

To finish it off I'll find some plastic filler pieces for the magnet holes. Might even be able to cut up the other hinge cover if there is enough material.

 

LOL. Have you tried shifting without that beastly armrest in the way? It was like night and day for me

 

thats pretty tite

 

if you feel like driving hard, why not just open up the thing and shift hard? I find it's height good enough when cruising, I just open it up when I want to shift hard.

 

Then it would just always be open

 

LOL, sometimes you cant. Like me, yesturday trying to race my roomate, he took another rout and I had more lights but roads with higher speed limits. Fuking 5pm full of cars no way to move!

 

Looks great.

 

See...I'm baffled also....different strokes...
I also paid to retro-fit my 03 to the armrest model you don't like.
It fits my arm perfectly and is never in my way.
What do you have...Gorilla arms???
Glad you are happy.

 

The optimal shifting position is when your arm is completely horizontal, and with the pad in the way I don't think that's really possible unless you got some midget arms or something

Why else would Infiniti go to the trouble of including a replacement plastic cover and instructions for removal of the huge stock rest, which specifically says "for easier shifting, follow these procedures to remove the arm rest...blah blah"

 

Hey agreed......but,
It only matters.....if it bothers you.

I'm just pissed that I paid to add for the huge armress.....and now you tell me I won't be able to shift fast.....
LOL