If you are going to design this yourselves (which is pretty involved), you never know, but apparently the
Technokats never had trouble with their dog mechanism. If you're skeptical, don't throw in a shifter at all; we did it last year and performed well. Of course, that's not to say you can't or shouldn't. Shifting is sexy. But, if you decide to make your own or fashion it after another team's design, just to be sure to machine its dog components out of steel and make sure the track for the dog rides smoothly (and keep tolerances to a couple thousandths of an inch). If you do that, the dog shouldn't deform at all, no matter how much normal wear it gets. It might be loud (all the better
), but as long as it doesn't deform, it should lock beautifully every time as a little throttle is applied to get everything turning and lined up. I think.