While the thread is very informative, its rather lengthy. I decided I wanted to do the swap again and document all my moves with photos for others.
First thing was to get a decent donor. I wanted to find something stock, running, a/c, all hubcaps, one color and minimal damage/ rust. I know there are better ones out there but for the money ($450 running) and minimal damage/ rust I couldn’t complain. I actually started really digging the interior color which I think was the deciding factor in picking up the car. The car came off a local facebook Honda page. The car is a 1990 LS with 185K miles. There were some mechanical issues to address but I figured while the car is under the knife I could fix these items as well. Driver side front caliper was frozen and wouldn’t move. Someone cut out the catalytic converter so it was open pipe under the car. Original owner thought the temp guage wasn’t working as it constantly read way too hot. (He bought the car to daily but as soon as he took ownership he brought it to his house and left it in the yard until he could fix the issues). Plans are to lower it on whatever I find, short throw shifter and overall all stock, decent commuter with a little shot of N2O.
The transmission shifted fine and with the exception of the bouncing idle and the temp pegging hot the car ran fine. I showed up with a used caliper I had in my garage, threw it on and drove the car to my storage. This is where it sat while I gathered all the parts I would need for the swap.
After picking up the following items for the swap:
*Manual tranny – This was the original one out of my project car $Free but needed a rebuild $70 (http://forums.g2ic.com/showthread.php?201601-ls-vtecstitch-build-take-2)
*Shift linkage – from the junkyard (came with shifter, knob and boot) $15
*manual tranny mount and bracket – bought from a friend $10
*pedal assembly – traded from a local guy for something insignificant $Free
*Clutch cable – had a few spares lying around $Free
*Instrument cluster - **This is optional however I like the clean look of the right cluster. I had one lying around $Free
*Clutch/Pressure plate – Bought used off craigslist with a flywheel. Spec 1 flywheel and exedy stage 1 clutch $50 (don’t forget auto flywheel bolts are shorter than manual ones. You will need manual ones)
*x3 extended tranny bolts (about an inch longer than stock) and x6 nuts (half inch thick) larger in inner diameter than the tranny bolts $6.00
*OBD 0 Manual ECU- Bought off craigslist $30 I have read if your car is OBD 0 you need to buy your cars’ year specific ECU. This is due to the PA sensor – Atmospheric Pressure sensor- being internally incorporated within one year ECU and external in the other. Ive now done this swap twice and didn’t know what year my ECU I bought each time was however I have never had a CEL for this sensor so I just keep going.
*Intermediate shaft- bought from a friend. (after comparing the auto to manual I think the geometry isn’t enough to worry about and you can use the auto one with some light grinding on the back of the block). $20
*manual starter bolts – the auto starter works fine, the bolts just are not long enough for the manual tranny. $5 from junkyard
Once I felt I had everything I loaded all the parts in the trunk and drove the car home, temp going up and down the entire way. I did a compression check once I pulled in my driveway and got 180-170-175-180. Good enough for me. Time to get to work.
Good shot of how dirty the motor and tranny were:
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Once it was jacked up and everything disconnected, I set up the lift and dropped the motor. To do just the tranny conversion its not necessary to remove the entire motor, I just chose to. I will be freshening up the motor and cleaning up the bay a bit so this just makes it easier.
Next the car gets lifted over the motor so I can slide it out from underneath
I took the motor to the car wash to hose it off:
And pushed the car outside to clean out the bay:
I decided to strip out the entire interior as well to make the conversion easier. I also figured the carpet could stand a good cleaning and the driver seat was tore up bad so I threw it out. The interior was filthy:
This is the auto tranny ECU (separate from the cars’ actual ecu). You will remove this and let the plugs hang or zip tie them up. Whatever you prefer. These will just stay unplugged.
There are three plugs within the harness to the right of the gear selector. You will be doing most of your splicing here.
I removed the dash as well (ive heard you don’t have to do this for the tranny swap but I always have. It makes things easier).
Found this in the car:
I unbolted the steering column to get the pedal assembly out and the manual one back in.
Right here behind this big engine harness plug is a blank space on the firewall which is where the clutch cable will come out at.
Pedals are out. In this shot you can see that the firewall insulation has a perforated tab that pulls out to gain access to where you want to drill the hole for your clutch cable. You can see it to the left of the upper left nut for the brake booster. (red arrows)
A 1 ¾ inch hole saw is needed here
New pedal assembly back in:
A lot of people say you have to plug the second hold that the auto shifter cables came through. I don’t feel this is necessary however if you don’t, more heat than you are used to will come in from the floor through this hole. In my last auto to manual conversion car I had a friend weld this hole up. I decided against that this time. I honestly have no idea why. Instead I picked up some insulation tape from the hardware store and used that.
I ran Gorilla tape over the whole thing just for a little extra security
I used the insulation tape to fix the seals on the heater box as well. I cut this into strips and lined the top of the box with this
New oil pan gasket, rear main seal, thermostat, timing belt, timing belt tensioner and oil pump along with coolant passage gaskets and all other gaskets on the way back up through assembly new. I also scrubbed the block a bit more and gave it a light coat of engine paint
You can source out a manual intake manifold or just re use the auto one. I chose to clean up and reuse the auto one. I didn’t paint this, just scrubbed it.
Getting ready to put the transmission on, I noticed some shavings in the diff so I took this apart.
After opening it up, this is all I pulled out of it
Found where it all came from:
Looks like the final drive/ differential bearing went out and wobbled the final drive.
After grinding everything down smooth I hot tanked and washed the inside of the casing and replaced all bearings.
Ive noticed a lot of people seem to have questions about the spacing of the tranny mount from that other thread. The nuts are simply acting as very thick washers. The bolt is not screwing into them, merely passing through them. These are a few shots of what I did:
Top view -
Side view –
Motor is in
This is what I noticed when comparing the manual intermediate shaft to the auto one.
The one on top is the manual one and on bottom is the auto one –
The manual one is flat where as the auto one has the bearing section come in and tuck under the block.
Auto –
Manual –
I tried bolting the auto one up as it didn’t look too different however after looking at the block a bit more you will need to shave a bit to accommodate the auto shaft. I have this in the white circle below. For those afraid of things like this, let me say I see no issue with doing this. If you ever go H2B in a car you have to shave the h22 block to accommodate the b series intermediate shaft. I did that and ran my car for years before selling the car. Nothing wrong with the motor at all.
This is where I seemed to struggle the most even though this was my favorite part. I took the verbage straight from Oldguy post off the auto to manual tranny conversion thread. Only thing I added were my photos.
Park/Neutral Start - At the shift selector switch connector solder the two thick blk/wht, blk wires together (this is a two pin connector). This simulates being in park or neutral so the starter will work.
Shift/Key lock problem - At the shift selector switch connector (12 pin connector at the shiter) solder the grn/wht wire to the blk wire. This simulates being in the park position and energizes the interlock control unit so you can remove the key.
Reverse lights - This is a bit more complicated. I used the two existing wires that run to the lockup solenoid on the auto tranny. One is red and one is grn/blk.
Trace those wires back to the connectors for the tranny computer plugs. The tranny computer was on the driver side and came out to make room for the pedal assembly. Cut those two wires off the connector. They are at B3 (red) and B8 (grn/blk). The large tranny connector is A and the smaller one is B. Looking at the connector from the wire end, they are number A 1-8 across the top row and A 9-18 across the bottom row and B 1-5 and B6-12. Now go to the selector switch again and look for the Grn/blu and Grn/blk wires. They plug into the tranny computer at A4 and A3 respectively.
Connector “A”
Connector “B”
Cut those two wires off the tranny computer connector. Now at the tranny computer connectors solder the red wire to the grn/blu wire and grn/blk wire to the grn/blk wire. Now you have a continous wire from the engine compartment to the shift selector switch connector.
At that shift selector connector the grn/blk wire goes to the backup lights (represented in pic below with the blue arrows). All you need now is power.
The yellow wire at the shift selector switch cable is a power source. Solder it to the grn/blu wire (represented in pic below with the orange arrow).
In the process of putting everything back together I came across some shocks and coilovers that found their way on the car. Build back up.
The carpet came out so much better than I thought it would with just a simple clean
This is how it looks now and where its sitting. (hood was not bolted down or closed in these pics). Car needs to be cleaned on the outside still.
Had to use the car to jumpstart the DA just to get it out of the driveway so I could mow. Lol
I have a few very small things to do to get it where I want it but for the most part, its done. Going in to get inspected this weekend (it should pass. I replaced upper ball joints, tie rod ends, all new exhaust gaskets, complete exhaust swapped out, fixed passenger side windshield leak, tail light leak and a few other misc things)
I have not added the N2O kit yet. I want to get a few miles under my belt first. I hope to be adding this by July though. All in all, so far im have managed to keep the expenses fairly low.
Very nice write up, like you I followed the existing auto to manual write on here as well as one on honda-tech. I have to say yours is the most informative and with pictures too!
I like how you did the wiring for the reverse lights, using existing wires makes it a lot cleaner, where as I just ran wire from the tranny switch directly under the dash to the shift selector plugs.
Another thing to note is that while you can use the Auto intake manifold, in some states (maybe it’s just California) you will need to switch it to a manual, because the smog people over here will question the blocked vac lines and fail you for “tampering”.
How’s the insulation tape holding up? I haven’t covered that hole yet either, I don’t know how to weld so i’ve just been putting it off. But I’ve also been regretting it because I can really feel the heat coming through that hole after driving for a while. But if that tape helps I wouldn’t mind doing that.
Out here in va they don’t care what you do to your car so long as it is safe and passes the state safety inspection.
The car just sits in the driveway until I can get it inspected so I can’t say how the tape is driving as the car hasn’t left the neighborhood yet. I’ll let you know though once I get some mileage under my belt.
I really like the write up/build, reminds me a lot of the shell i bought almost a year ago. Had a lot of unknown gremlins that are being slowly rectified. Just curious on why you dropped the motor out in stead of lifting it right out ???
In my opinion its easier. Doesn’t bang up against the firewall breaking sensors or dent up the firewall. Crankshaft pulley doesn’t get beat up and its much easier to line motor mount bolt holes up with one person this way from experience.
The egr is still there. Once the manifold was clean I threw a new gasket on it and bolted the egr back up. The ecu doesn’t look for it so it’s just there to fill the hole.
