I'd like to start a discussion on manual transmission conversion. What have you all heard?
I know theres one or two guys on the other forum who've done it, along with the RWD conversion.
I have some thoughts... more later... need sleep

ive seen it done once, and let me tell you its bad ass, i would love to do a manual conversion, but does kind of seem like a waste of money, plus i already have one of the fastest automatic FWD cars (in my opinion) out there.

lol.

Umm... lemme go Google some info...

Ok, I was reading something about a guy on ClubGP with a Buick and a manual tranny but the whole topic was about him getting a $500 fine and/or 90 days in jail for some cop seeing him "smoke the rear tires" and aparently drifting.

Yeah...

First off if you stay FWD their is only one tranny that will bolt up. Problem is it's too weak. It'll barely hold upto a stock L36.

Lol that guy doesn't have a manual transmission. He was doing a burnout and the cop saw him and pulled him over but in his report the cop wrote that he saw the rear tires spinning and the back of the car moving side to side; two things that a FWD car cannot do. The whole post was people offering advice on how to get out of the ticket due to the false police report. The RWD and manual transmission swaps in his sig are jokes, he didn't actually do them. He does have a Regal with a Whipple though.

it was dean h on clubgp. the cop furbished some info. Not sure what the deal is now.

Ive heard that the manual tranny swap is pretty hard. I heard somewhere that you can run the early 90's? tranny with the L36/L67, but they cant handle the power that we make, so they would break. Maybe if you build a racing tranny from those years you could swap it in. I also heard something about the new G6? or something like that can be bolted up, but it cant take the power

Another hard part is getting all of the custom stuff. You would have to do a center console, a clutch pedal, and some sort of e-brake setup.

The CTS-V has a regular parking brake and its manual, so i guess the guys at GM got lazy to make a handbrake on it

Is it possible yes. Is the nonreliability worth the effort? No otherwise you'd see many many manual conversions.

The tranny in most favor is the one from the Fiero. But like said it's not beefy enough. The Fiero guys that drop in an L67 get away with it cause the car is 1000 pounds lighter.

That tranny is the Getrag. Even the Fieros, lacking our weight, can grenade them with L67 swaps.

If you want manual, it's probably going to include a RWD swap.

There was talk years ago about a custom manual being built but I don't think it materialized. Would've been awesome though as everyone else has said, you will grenade the getrag if you put it in.

If it had come out, I think they were talking about 5-6k for the conversion and the guys that had tested the getrag conversions weren't far off of that cost even without a special tranny.

Personally, if I were to convert my poor car to RWD, I would put a nice 6sp manual in there.

Agree on the possible waste of money.

Agree on the getrag being able to work but being too weak. It is my thought why not beef up this tranny? So many people spend thousands in their standard 4t65e builds.

Also heard about the G6 tranny being a possibility.

I was thinking on how to get the tranny and engine to work together. Since our PCM would be royally pissed without its tranny, I think the electrical could be switched to that of the Firebird's 3800 manual setup. That way the engine would be able to work fine (I think the Firebird's manual requires little if any electronic interfacing).

Definetly not something I'm doing anytime soon, but maybe as a project for somebody else's GP.

You would have to have all the hard parts custom made. Now your talking about a One off custom tranny that will run you the equivalant of a RWD conversion.

As for the PCM you can get a programmed PCM just for engine management. There is a PCM tuned for use in sandrails, boats etc. It's a $40 option at ZZP.