third gear grinding

I had the same problem in my 98 cobra, I couldn't get it into third gear very well and it would grind. Eventually it wouldn't even go in. Turns out there was a crack that had propagaited through the top of the shifter fork where it hooks into the rail. I replaced the whole transmission with a racing one, it was about 2 grand. I'm not positive that the 01s have the same tranny, but the situation sounds very similar. The shifter fork was just a lightweight piece of aluminum and isnt really heavy duty enough for racing. Oddly enough, about 2 months after I replaced mine, a friend of mine with a 98 had the exact same problem.

I blew a shift once (the floor mat held my accelerator pedal down) and fried the 3rd gear synchro--sounds like the same symptoms I had--it ground trying to go into gear, once in, it was OK. It got worse quickly and I could not get into 3rd at all due to fear of causing more damage.