All of these symptoms sound like what I was having and I've only owned the car for 3 weeks. The notchiness, hard to get into gear, strange vibrations, felt like hitting a metal stop.
so I bought a kartboy short shifter(was put in last night), and trans mount/shifter mount, and I plan on putting those on tomorrow. upon getting the factory shifter out, the cotter pin thing, thats suppose to keep the shaft firmly in the shifter...well, wasn't even there. SOOO swapped in the kartboy, and grabbed a cotter pin from pep boys, and the car now feels well, awesome, very similar to the s2k's I drove.
may be worth a try to check and see, maybe my car isn't the only one missing this? Heres some pics from F1point4s thread for reference.
when i removed the lower dust boot, it pretty much looked like this, and it would slide around in the shifter whenever moving the shifter around. (no sexual puns intended haha)
