Question about auto to manual conversion.

[99BlackSandv6]

^That sounds like a good deal Gabe. Good Luck Nick!!!

[ASG14]

there's nothing wrong with getting a donor car for a tranny swap..,but it's like doubling the amount of work if you think you can switch the transmissions and sell the donor car. when you start pulling stuff apart, u'll realize there's so much you will have to put back in, it'll become a pain in the ass and the labour hours will just pile up. before you know it, the project will be much longer than you expect. so don't even think about switching the auto back to the donor car and sell it. it'll be a mess.

I bought a donor car before to do my V6 5-Spd swap,
the donor car is in its shells and sitting outside collecting snow. it just wasn't worth the effort, but it was only 950 bucks and we got all the goodies out of it so it was worth every penny.

now, before people saying i don't know crap, i am driving a 5 speed swapped car myself and got plenty of help and knowledge from Eye8Pussies, Tony the Tiger, ASG14 who get plenty of experience.
if people gonna say i'm wrong, then at least point out where i'm wrong.

i don't see why you can't use a E153 transmission from, cuz Eye8Pussies is using a solara transmission and they are all E153s i don't see why it can't go the other way around. all cars have differences, but you just gotta work those electrical issues out. The chances of find a Solara as a cheap donor car in Canada is like next to zero, but camry on the other hand is easy.

I say the simplest thing you can do is get an E153 or E53 transmission, get your pedals, get your clutch cylinder, lines, linkage cables, axles, interior trims, and manual ECU of course. i know the main problem is that it has to do with different sensor pin outs on the ECU and actual differences in sensors. ideally you'd want to swap the harness but with knowledge u can work around those problems and Tony the Tiger is the right guy for that kind of thing. He's done custom wiring and fixes for various cars, setups so getting the ECU to work wouldn't be a problem. it sure beats having to spend 5~6Ks to get a donor car for a tranny swap and having to tear through half of the car.

anyway i have no idea what i'm talking about, don't read any of this

I dont disagree with what your saying bud, but you just contradicted yourself. Your saying not to get a donor...but you bought a donor yourself and your exact words were, "it was worth every penny."

Maybe what you mean is to buy a donor car if at all possible, but if you cannot find one then gather up the individual parts??

Im curious if when you did your swap, did you swap out the harnesses from your donor car?

Cody along with a few of us had a fun week doing an I4 Auto to V6 Manual swap. Thats why he "personally" got a complete car. Needed the engine as well.

IF all that will be done is the tranny, a donar car is overkill.

I hope that clears it up.

[Mr_Krispy1183]

All I know is, I love that Greg(trd) has had several donor cars for doing the swaps he's done. It allows me to pilfer other parts from the cars! Got a new cupholder/armrest assembly from one of the cars ( Dat's old Gen 1)

[TLMNICK]

Greg I wish you lived in Toronto man. I probably would've picked up one of those doner cars from you.

To me, the doner car might cost me around $3000, but this is a project that I'll be undertaking in my driveway at home. Wiring is not an issue for me as I've been playing around with wires since I was a kid. I've been doing all sorts of automotive electrical work since I was 13.

My thing is that I like to have everything that I know I'm gonna need right there in front of me, and having a doner car will give me that edge. If I was able to source all the parts that I needed, then I wouldn't bother with the parts car, but coming across a source for everything all at once nearly impossible in Toronto.

Does anyone know if you'd lose the traction control, and auto climat control functionality by going 5spd?

[TxBmbleBee]

^Nick, no you will not lose those options. However, you will have a CEL because you wont be able to swap out the auto harness if you want the auto climate to work. The 5 speed aspect of it would still work just fine. Greg correct me if im wrong on this.

[Solarizona]

So far I've been able to keep the auto climate control but lost the traction control. Still have a CEL and might be changing the harness which might cost me the auto climate control.

[Eye8Pussies]

hmm...let's see if I can try and clear up this conversation a bit....

Basically what EEngineer was saying was that since he was able to come across a gen3 5-speed for $900CND, and he needed both a tranny and a motor, it was worth the money. As ASG14 put it, if he had just needed the tranny, it would not really have been worth it.

During the swap, the entire engine harness was swapped. But it is not a must if you have somebody who can go through wiring diagrams and re-wire parts of the harness. The automatic harness, with modifications, can fit the 5-speed ecu (in the case of the gen3 3vzfe).

On a Solara, in Toronto, it is not really worth it to get a donor car, as the chances of picking up a low mileage donor car in Toronto for cheap is almost NIL. As TLMNICK said, the cheapest he would be able to pick up would be for 3K, and that would be a car with 200K + km on it.

In terms of wiring, if you have an SLE, to use the SE ECU, you can swap the harness, or modify the harness. But either way, if you want to use the SE ECU, chances are you will lose your auto climate, I believe. Regardless though, once you do the swap, you will lose traction control, as it is a feature built into the tranny ecu to control the tranny solenoids along with the abs computer.

If you have an SE auto and you want to do the swap, you should be able to swap the SE 5-speed ecu with slight to no modification to the harness.

In regards to the neutral safety switch- if you run the 5-speed ecu, by going through the wiring diagram, it can be easily figured out, (If i remember correctly) as it is a simple ground button- if it's not a ground, then it was a wire looking for continuity. If you choose to run the auto ecu, then the wiring can be dealt with at the harness in the engine bay.

As for the codes that you get when you do the swap, they are transmission codes and although annoying, they do not put the car into limp mode.

At this time, I only have one tranny code that I'm still dealing with, and my resistors have dealt with the rest of them. I think one of my resistors may not have been the right impedance, but I've never really looked into it, as the code pops up intermittently and I usually don't have any codes at all.


And as for the idea of putting the auto back into the donor car and trying to sell it....good luck.....that means more than twice the work, swapping of full harnesses, presuming nothing breaks, and if anything happens to the car after it was sold to somebody else, they will sue your ass if you didn't tell them that you used it for a 5-speed swap prior to their purchase.


I hope that can throw some light on parts of this discussion.

[jetbtkng]

all you have to do is put as-is on the bill of sale, problem solved..........

[Eye8Pussies]

it's not that simple....

"as-is" still extends liability to the seller if they can prove that you knew that there was a risk involved with the operation of the car, or there were pre-existing conditions that you were AWARE of and purposely did not reveal to the buyer.

i.e. rust on a fuel line- you can say that you didn't know about it, but suspected it, and therefore sold it as-is. Or told the buyer, and he agreed to buy it as-is with full knowledge of the problem.

swapped transmission done on a drive-way- good luck holding it up in court saying that you never knew the tranny was (swapped by yourself)prior to sale. To prevent legal liability on the sale, you'd tell the buyer that it was swapped at home and that the car is sold as-is....but then the question that begs to be asked is...how much would somebody be willing to pay for a car that was used as a parts car on a project that was done on a driveway?

I can literally take a car apart and put it back together, body-wise, mechanically, electrically- but I wouldn't touch a car like that which was taken apart at one point by somebody else.

[jetbtkng]

as-is is as-is, theres no legal rites if the person bought it in that condition, Caveat emptor, let the buyer beware, theres no implied warranty on an as-is sale, its the buyer's responsibility ti inspect said vehicle, unless the seller gives said buyer a warranty in writing..................

[Eye8Pussies]

if you say so, but it doesn't work that way here in canada, a lawyer will tell you that even "as-is" condition comes with certain liabilities

[jetbtkng]

in cali it does.............

[Mr_Krispy1183]

^True Frank, that's why I'm so wary of janky sales.

[kingkakyle]

in cali it does.............

but the OP is in canada as well.....

[ASG14]

Canada legal system is quite different then ours. also the reason there are so few lawsuites when compared to the US.