Manual to Auto conversion
 

Okay, most of you are saying "Is he nuts?". Before you make some outrageous conclusion, hear me out. :) My fiance can't drive anything but an auto and fears driving my car because it has an aftermarket clutch and is hard to drive. I'll be getting a new job that provides a company truck. So the only car I will need is the RX7. we can ditch her POS of a car. I want her to be able to drive the 7 because I don't want to get rid of it. SOOO.. converting to auto is a choice of mine.

The question: How hard is this, what parts will I need, and does anyone in the Portland/OR (Or Vanc/WA) area have an auto tranny setup I can buy/trade for? Let me know!! (contact info below) No negative posts please!

Thanks in advance people!

-- Micah Morton
1991 NA
AIM: MicahSoft
MSN: Micaheli@hotmail.com <-- Email too!
Yahoo: noredline
ICQ: 640382

you are nuts!...j/k

at least you have a good reason. i wish ya good luck

Just teach her to drive a stick.

If you can't operate a manual tranny and drive at the same time, you shouldn't be on the road at all... Not that you HAVE to drive a stick, but everyone should be able to.

I remember a post just recently talking about sports cars...one of the 3 rules was: If it's an automatic, it's not a sports car
I just don't know what else to say.

you are MAD, totally mad!

tell ur chick to get a manual licence!

but from the s5 i converted from auto to manual, it has a slightly different wiring harness, with a seperate auto-box computer (not the ecu or cpu) in the passenger side kick guard panel.. (ozzy version), a feedback servo that connects to the auto-gear stick to find what gear your selecting, wiring to the cluster and guage panel for gear selection, radiator with atf oil cooling connections and oil pipes that run to the auto gear box along the passenger side of the engine, 1/2 inch (or so) vacuum connection to the gear box from the rear of the engine.. PLUS, you'll need to get rid o ur clutch, flywheel and all that and put in the torque converter and counter-weight! the starter motors are different too from memory.. the cover where the stick comes through is slightly different also, but if u get all the other parts, i assume ud be able to get that too.

good luck! but im tellin ya.. no wayyyyy

dude what year 7 do you have i will trade! Mine is a 91 black that has 81,000.

I think your nuts but I can see your point.
but come now why not take her out in the boonies somewere or a parkinglot and show her how to drive a stick.
she will have more fun with that and also dont the rx7 autos suck really bad.

but either way if you decide to do it good luck man... let us know how it works out

I'd say it'd be worth the effort to teach her how to drive stick, putting in an automatic is faaaaaaaaaar more effort than the week or two it will take her to learn to drive stick. But if you do decide to do it my mechanic has the torque converter, flywheel, and counterweight that came on my JSPEC so if you want those send me a PM I'm sure he'll be glad to sell them to you :)

IMO, any car with a speed regulator (auto tranny) isn't a sports car,,, There are SOME decent auto trannys, but they are expensive and race only.... and like 2 speeds hehe...

You are talking about switching tranny over teaching her to drive stick ? how about letting her keep her POS car...

Dissapointing.
 

First of all, I don't think half of you even read the part of my email that said "No negative posts" geeze. First of all I know my shit. I love my car... Doesn't mean I personally WANT the auto, but its either I convert it to auto or get rid of it. Not a sports car? Fine.. Then I don't want it to be a sports car, because it'll still be fun to drive and even a little easier. So back the FUCK off. Okay.

I asked a question to people who know about auto conversions. If you don't know anything about them or don't have any positive input, stay out of it. DAMN.

NO.
 

sell it, dont ruin this poor car over some stupid crap. Once u make the conversion resale value is dropped to 0.

I don't know much but I do know it will be difficult. Good luck with it. I understand and respect your descision. :) The only concern I would have would be the extra computer needed if necessary. I know Probes/MX-6s have extra computers that control the auto tranny. I don't know if the 7 has one.

Good idea. I would prefer a stick too. Long story why I don't have one. I'd trade an auto for a stick.

Oh, and I want to express my sorrow for you. It's a shame what we have to do for women. At least you can keep your 7, no matter what you have to do to it. I hope she rewards you properly. :boink:

dump all you want on the auto tranny, but when you're stuck in bumper to bumper rush hour traffic have fun playing with your stick.

micah,

i would assume that converting a manual to an auto would be the reverse of an auto to manual swap. there are some of websites out there detailing what was involved. here's the only one i have booked marked, http://home.rmci.net/panther/trans.htm. oh yeah, ncsublime has done the auto to manual swap. you might want to contact him for some info.

unfortunately i'm on the other side of the border, but then you probably don't want the 15 year old auto from my car. oh, you will lose a lot of lowend torque. not that our cars had much to begin with but off the line the auto is a dog. no more burn outs, unless you're on a hill and it's raining :)

- brandon

I know you'll be sick of hearing this, but you should try to get her to learn on a stick. Hopefully you could borrow someones car since you've got the clutch. Explain nicely that it isn't hard and you'll help her along the way. People are usually pretty worried about damage they'll cause. If you can explain that it's okay to grind and stall the car (the theoretical "other" car) because doing it a few times won't do any real damage to the car. My sister just started learning to drive and got it very quickly. Stalled it a few times, hopped a bit and was pretty well find from then on. (we're talking 20 minuites)

Personally I think driving a standard is ATLEAST 2x more fun than driving an auto. Even in traffic.

What little information I have read on the auto for the rex is that it is really a huge POS. As far as logistics are concerned,you would probably be better off finding a rex with an original equipment auto. A bonus here is most of them were 'verts.

I do not have a problem with an automatic rex, but I do have a problem with a weak tranny, and the auto fits that bill. The fact that less than 10 percent of the second gens sold in America were auto should speak for itself.

I do sympathize with your problem. My 18 Y/O daughter was unwilling to learn the stick, untill her boyfreind talked her into it. Now she loves my '86 NA. Big problem for me though, as keeping her out of it is a PITA. I can't seem to locate my car about half the time now.

Obviously, you've never sat in 3.5 hours of traffic to go 27 miles, with a stiff clutch pedal and bad knees. Its times like that I've thought about swapping to an auto as well; I wish there was an aftermarket tiptronic that you could bolt up.

it's almost as bad as my buddy who tore up his right arm mountain biking and tried driving himself to the hospital in his gti. hold steering wheel with right leg, engage clutch, shift with left hand :D

i don't know if this is an option, but what about puttin the stock clutch back in, so it will be easier to drive, and still be an manual

good luck

hey man, u wanna switch cars? im lookin to do an auto to manual swap lol j/k im keepin my car foreva, esp. my first. Maybe we could exchange trannys tho.... just a thought

Dude, fuck that, just let her keep driving the POS and keep the seven for the weekends.

Trans swap would be a lot of work. You will need more than just the trans. Some parts I think you will need are Trans cooler or new radiator, Different counter weight on flywheel, trans mount cross member, ECU for Auto trans and wiring and dont forget the shifter. I would recommend finding an Auto car and stripping the things you need.

I know you have heard teach her to drive a stick. I taught my wife to drive one when we were dating and now she will not drive anything else!! Does have its down side though. Ever try to find a family sedan with a 5 speed. Thank you Nissan for the maxima.

One thing I showed my wife to help her feel more confident starting out was if she is in a place where she is going to roll back on the start and was worried (like a hill with a car right behind) just floor the gas and side step the clutch. I know for a fact she has used it atleast once. Spun the tires farther than I ever had but the BMW behind her didn't get touched =)

By the way there pretty much no minivans out there with a manual. Least that's one car I won't have to buy.

I have an auto(soon to be selling)Rx7. I put a new motor in it at 93,000 miles. I bought it off of an older gentleman that just putted around in it. For this reason, the motor didn't last. Rotarys need to be redlined every now and again. If you just put around, like the auto transmission almost forces you to do, carbon builds up and tic...tic....tic....boom! I would urge you to teach your fiance.......But if she refuses and you have to do it, I wish you luck. It will not be easy or cheap, work wise,replacing the motor would be easier. You would be ahead to buy an automatic RX7. Hell, buy mine ...ha ha

good luck and keep on rotaring

i know i am not much help on this topic...but i would like to say that my best friend has an auto 88 rx-7 while i see its downsides...i can still say its not THAT bad. its still a fast and competant car. just my two cents

87 Turbo II
Stock for now :o(

ever think of putting it in neutral and revving it a few times once a week?