one of my friends has a shop now and i asked if i should put a shift kit or a 5 speed in it he said im better off doing 5 speed. so i'm kinda thinking about finding a 2000 2.2 at a junkyard and taking the tranny if i can find one. i know i need the tranny, the clutch and slave, the pedal, center console and shifter. is there anything else i would need to do this?
i want to but right now i don't have the money for both lol.
would i need the ecu from the 5-speed too because somebody said i do?
You also need the mounts, tranny side and car side and they will need to be welded to the car after the auto mount is cut off. You also need a hole saw to drill a hole in the firewall for the clutch slave cylinder.
Swaping the computer is a good idea. It will run fine with the auto ecu but there are some diffrences between the two.
i didn't even know the mounts were welded i thought they were bolt on.
oh i can buy the one from TTR and get it welded on. would that work?
If you want to do both i would just save up and buy the entire powertrain and drop that all in at once
but for the amount of time and money that would take i might as well buy an 03+ LS sport and swap out suspensions and then sell my car to the girl across the street that wants it.
a 5-speed swap from a junked car would be fine for me. the thing i like about the ecotec over the ohv is the power difference and the acceleration. but i could squeeze 160hp out of the ohv with a few mods and the ported and polished head for it is only like $600 vs. almost $2g's for the eco.
i dont need my car to be too fast i just want it to be 5-speed and get more acceleration out of it.
The tranny mounts are bolted to the trans, but they bolt into brackets on the car, these brackets are non-existent on an auto car and need to be cut from a donar car and welded to your frame rails. you could also fab some up if you didnt have a donar car, there isn't much to them.
Below is a pic of when i converted the race car from auto to 5 speed when i was building it. This was after i primed the mounts but it gives you an idea what needs to be done. Between the two you can see I still have a bit of the auto mount left that hasnt been removed. I cut the rest of it out later, it has to be removed to make room for the 5 speed.
And here is where the clutch slave bolts to. These holes aren't there on an auto car (the large one with two smaller ones on either side), I cut this piece out of the firewall and welded in a piece from my old 5 speed car. Since your car wont be a gutted shell I'd sugest just drilling the holes. Also note my car is missing a lot of stuff such as the entire shelf at the base of the windshield so its kind of a bad pic for reference but you get the idea.
and i'm guessing the best idea would be to use a engine lift to take that out and then unbolt the tranny? or just take everything out and do it as a whole?
Thats up to you, I just had the engine out cause i was swaping it from a 2.4 to a 2.2 and was gutting and painting the shell. Just go with whatever you think is easier or less work for you. Personally I'd just drop the tranny out the bottom then weld the new mounts, drill slave cylinder holes and reassemble with the 5 speed.
You'll obviously have to support the engine with a jack and a block of wood or something. You could support it with an engine lift but I find the legs on the lift get in the way when working under the car.
would i even need to hold the engine up then? with the trans not bolted in? the engine mounts would hold it no?
Doug DeBonet wrote:oh i can buy the one from TTR and get it welded on. would that work?
Yes that is why we designed that part. Also we only have a few left in stock and once they are gone, they are gone... Order soon...
-Aaron
www.TurboTechRacing.com
Performance Parts For Cavalier, Sunfire, Cobalts and More!!!
Doug DeBonet wrote:would i even need to hold the engine up then? with the trans not bolted in? the engine mounts would hold it no?
There is only engine mounts on the passenger side on the timing cover area of the engine once the tranny is out. There is nothing supporting the other side of the engine. You may think then then pulling the engine is as easy as pulling 2 more mounts but its not, there is still fuel lines, power steering, A/C if thats there, exhaust, all the electrical plugs. A lot of extra unnessisary work on your part.
