Tiptronic to Manual

[MyCarIsRed]

The tiptronic is actually excellent but im a manual man at heart. 

 

The car has very few miles and the value is high so the swap could be worth it. 

 

(Theres no way I’d sell it and buy a manual as I’m only the second owner and I knew the first owner very well). 

 

Does anyone have real experience or steps I’d need to go though and costs?

[JFP in PA]

12 hours ago, MyCarIsRed said:

The tiptronic is actually excellent but im a manual man at heart. 

 

The car has very few miles and the value is high so the swap could be worth it. 

 

(Theres no way I’d sell it and buy a manual as I’m only the second owner and I knew the first owner very well). 

 

Does anyone have real experience or steps I’d need to go though and costs?

 

 

Yes, and the short answer is : Don't do it.

 

You are going to need to practiaclly dismantel the entire car to do this (pull out the entire interior to run the shifter cables, install the clutch pedal, etc.).  You need a new master cylinder, and are going to have to run hydrualic lines from the front to the back of the car for the clutch system, along with acquiring a working gearbox, axles, gearbox mounts, reprogram the DME, etc, etc.  We did this for one die hard customer, and all in parts and labor it ran well north of $10K, which you are nover going to get back when selling the car, and which was priced out at "steal" labor prices because we felt sorry for the owner.  Having done one, we won't be doing another.

 

Sell the car and find one configured as you want, or drive it as it is.  I know that this is not what you want to hear, but it is the reality of this project;  the view simply is not worth the climb.....................

[MyCarIsRed]

How’s the result after doing the work. Does it compare to an original manual?

[JFP in PA]

1 hour ago, MyCarIsRed said:

How’s the result after doing the work. Does it compare to an original manual?

 

Yes, but it was a God awful amount of work and expense, money you will never get out of the car, and actually ends up reducing the final value of the vehicle (any shop worth its salt will spot the swaps in a future PPI and warn potential buyers away as cars like this tend to be very problematical )  The only project we have ever seen that was worse than this was when a customer wanted to put a Mezger turbo engine in a Boxster; by the time it was done, he could have bought a brand new turbo car with the amount of money spent, and he had a Frankenstein car that nobody wanted to buy.  In the end, the owner ended up pulling the Mezger back out and selling it, and then selling the Boxster as a rolling chassis.  The amount of money lost on this project was absolutely staggering. 

 

Sometimes you need to step back and take a realistic look at these projects and make a rational decision.  While interesting, both were completely impractical, and ultimately a huge waste of money, time, and resources.  We won’t be doing anymore of either.

[MyCarIsRed]

On the manual gear box: Porsche or something better? Whats the US gear box maker that people love to put in Restomods?

[JFP in PA]

4 minutes ago, MyCarIsRed said:

On the manual gear box: Porsche or something better? Whats the US gear box maker that people love to put in Restomods?

 

I don't see how you could do this with something other than a Porsche/VW/Audi type trans axle as the transmission and differential is a single and very compact unit.  Aftermarket transmission's are just that, a transmission without a differential.

[MyCarIsRed]

Good point. What are some of the potential problems ? And what if Porsche does the work?

[JFP in PA]

1 hour ago, MyCarIsRed said:

Good point. What are some of the potential problems ? And what if Porsche does the work?

 

Aftermarket transmissions are probably twice the length of the Porsche unit, and simply will not even fit in the space, and again, they have no differential, which would make the combined package way too large to fit period.

 

If a Porsche dealer was to undertake this project, which I seriously doubt they would do, your prices would literally skyrocket, probably doubling or even trebling what an independent shop would charge.  They would use new or factory remain parts, so your flywheel would be $1500, the gear box around $9500, etc.  Add in the dealer's exorbitant labor rates, which are typically twice (or more) those charged by an independent shop. and the project would exceed the cost of buying a complete second manual transmission equipped car; probably well in excess of $20K, which is just plain nuts.