After completing my tranny swap last night, I went to start the car today and see what changes needed to be made on my Haltech. The car started but it idled at 3k. I'm thinking wtf, the clutch can't be that much of a difference over a torque converter. I took my time making slight adjustments but nothing fixed it. Then it hit me: There's a vacuum leak. I started looking around and sure enough, there was a leak. I had removed the vacuum line going from the UIM to the auto tranny vacuum modulator and I never capped it off.

So let this be the lesson. If you are doing the tranny swap and you go to start the car, you may have to make minor adjustments on the throttle body, but double check that the port for that line is capped off or you may just start compounding your problem and chasing your tail so to speak.

 

Thats a good tip.

 

i know i could search, but i just decided to ask here to be simple.... when doing an auto to manual swap, what do you do about clutch hydraulics/pedal, etc??? I already have a manual, im just being curious

 

I guess I never noticed b/c I had all the manifolds off when I did my swap. Even so I'm still haunted by terrible vac leaks.

 

I had to install the pedal bracket out of a manual car so I could have the clutch pedal. Removed the torque converter and flex plate to install a flywheel and clutch. The clutch master cylinder bolts to the fire wall. Cars with auto trannys have a cover plate in its spot. Just remove the cover plate and install the master cylinder. The slave cylinder mounts to the tranny, and then the line goes from the master to the slave. Fill with fluid and bleed like you bleed brakes. Installed the tranny and the drive shaft from a 5spd car. Auto drive shaft is too short. I had to make a bracket to get the 5spd tranny mounts to fit the crossmember. Wasn't too hard, just had to get all the parts. S4 and S5 crossmembers and tranny mount bolt patterns are slightly different. Make sure you have matching parts before you are under the car holding the tranny up.

 

how much does a tranny swap usually cost?

 

mine costed about $1500 b/c I did about 5 other mods with it, and had to buy tools every step of the way.

In reality, probably could be done for aroudn $4-600 if you had the parts sourced fair and cheap.

EDIT: or the price of a parts car, which is generaly pretty damn cheap