Here are a few pictures that might help with understanding what the 9x7 short shifter looks like. To compare to a 986 shifter, lift up your leather shift boot and look inside. I took these pictures before I installed it a while ago, and it has the alignment tool snapped on. The OEM 9x7 short shifter comes in the shifter housing and also comes with a handy little alignment tool that helps you get the shift cables adjusted if you have messed them up or they have stretched. As far as I know, nobody has ever come up with a cable adjustment tool for the B&M short shifter, the Porsche 986 short shifter, Schnell or any of the other knockoffs
I hope these pictures help clear up any confusion as to what the 9x7 short shifter looks like. I haven't seen one of the regular (i.e., not short) 9x7 shifters, so I can't compare the two
Here is the assembly viewed from the left side. You can see the construction is like the stock 986 short shifter except the plastic is blue instead of white and there is a metal reinforcing or stiffening plate
And here is a view of the right side. You may or may not be able to tell that the bolt that the shifter pivots on is higher than the original 986 shifter
and just to help visualize how this fits on, here is a picture of the alignment tool that comes with the setup
