Manual Swap in Northern California (Sacramento/Roseville)

[simonnim]

Thanks everyone. I should have known better with a gut feeling this may end up bad. Haha. But, it just happen as I was buying parts the guy brought it up. So I said why not? He said he was good.

I'm having HMB look at it soon. I would, but I just don't have the time for at least 1-2 years to do anything extensive. Will update once I drop it off any they give me the list haha.

Life lesson but at the same time, I don't take anything too serious anymore, made a bad choice, will just move on.

[9kracing]

VT Motorworks did my swap.

Wing is a pretty good dude.

I haven't had any issues, but I also don't drive it much.

[kaiv]

FWIW I have people from Norcal come down to me on a regularly basis. Enjoy a weekend in SD and drive home in your manual. Or ship it and fly in.
In any case, hope your car turns out ok OP.

[simonnim]

What do you mean?

I'll have a video up eventually. Not entirely sure, but he butchered the carrier install.

[sapote]

there is some play in my 5th and 6th. Not sure if it's my parts that I brought him.

What do you mean?

[simonnim]

Thanks everyone. Everything else was like normal, or easily reversible. The one part which really upset me is how he drilled out the hole for the shifter. Once everything is fixed I'll update it. It's a financial set back however, sometimes I'm willing to take a risk to find a gem.

[Conedrac]

After looking through his work. I can't recommend this guy. Sorry for getting anyone's hopes up.

Hopefully it all works out, without too much additional time and money on your end.

[WestBankM4]

After looking through his work. I can't recommend this guy. Sorry for getting anyone's hopes up.

Sorry to hear that man, I hope it's all fixable.

[simonnim]

After looking through his work. I can't recommend this guy. Sorry for getting anyone's hopes up.

[thegenius46m]

Picked up the car, I have to return for coding tomorrow since he asked if I wanted to take the car home tonight to try it out and bring it back for a couple hours for coding the following day.
Currently I have the yellow cog of course and check engine light (car hasn't been coded). First impression is that it drives like normal, no hesitation or stalling, reverse light and pdc works. The side mirror doesn't drop, which I believe needs some wire to the cluster for signal? He forgot to drain the smg reservoir, maybe felt rushed since he said he'd be done today and that went all over my under trays. Second thing is there is some play in my 5th and 6th. Not sure if it's my parts that I brought him. Will investigate tonight and tomorrow.

Oh man. Did he wire and install a clutch switch and gear position sensor? The car will do some random things without the programming. I wouldn’t call it complete without that being done.

Play in 5th and 6th sounds like the 5th gear detent machining is either too loose or something else got messed up. Could even be the linkage.

Mirror dip if the car is 03.5+ requires a pin to be run from the back of the cluster to the k bus behind the fuse box.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[simonnim]

Picked up the car, I have to return for coding tomorrow since he asked if I wanted to take the car home tonight to try it out and bring it back for a couple hours for coding the following day.
Currently I have the yellow cog of course and check engine light (car hasn't been coded). First impression is that it drives like normal, no hesitation or stalling, reverse light and pdc works. The side mirror doesn't drop, which I believe needs some wire to the cluster for signal? He forgot to drain the smg reservoir, maybe felt rushed since he said he'd be done today and that went all over my under trays. Second thing is there is some play in my 5th and 6th. Not sure if it's my parts that I brought him. Will investigate tonight and tomorrow.

[thegenius46m]

With all the hacks out there these days, big concern with anyone is the following:

• Wiring done correctly (90% of diyer's fuck this up)
• Programming done properly for the configuration your swap is using (i.e. with/without gps/clutch switch and removing smg from vo and reprogramming the modules)
• No leaks from the transmission, input shaft seal, or hydraulics.

Not trying to rain on your thread or anything but more of a FYI for people in general because I have now fixed a handful of "SMG to Manual swaps" for people over the years and there's always something that the guy doing the swap fails to do correctly leading to a ton of issues.

This goes for everyone who has or is about to have a swap done...Your car should not have ANY hesitation or stalling issues, and nothing should be leaking that wasn't there before.

I'm in the bay area if you run into issues but hopefully the guy delivers what he promised.

[MTiz]

Following this thread. I live in Downtown Sac and have been looking for a good/reasonable mechanic to service my M's.

[simonnim]

Hey everyone, wanted to make a post to help others if this turns out a happy ending.

I bought a manual swap a few years back when I picked the car up in hopes to do it myself in my garage. At this time I had one child, so the nice 2:1 ratio was in my favor. I did the rod bearings, subframe on my back in the garage on the nights my wife would put the kiddo to bed. This was nice, and while I had a good working SMG and everything was fine, I decided to keep using it until it blew up or gave any issues. Tracking the SMG was fun and got good times because I just focused mainly on the line and not so much what gear I was in and modulating the clutch pedal and such (don't worry, I've owned plenty of manual cars that I've taken on track).

Along came child number 2 who is now 7 months old. I just don't have it in me anymore to do this stuff at least for another year + and I've been itching to just drive a manual car these days and really don't want to swap for another car since I've put in so much work on this one. I've talked to a few shops and met a few people and was recommended to some guy with a small shop (personal shop probably) who offered fair pricing. I dropped the car yesterday with much hesitancy as I know it's hard to let others do the work for you and trust they did a good job especially if they don't operate from a larger shop. He said it'll be done today by 6pm. So a little bit over 24 hours turnaround he claims to have a fully functioning manual swap (who knows how long this would have taken me with the 1 hour max a night a couple times a week I'd have if I wasn't tired).

I know the 24 hour turn around doesn't include tapping the bellhousing since mines was completed already, but even then it's relatively quick turnaround from what I'm used to.

Now, this isn't a full recommendation yet, since I've yet to receive the car and give it a full run through. He said he'll have pictures of his work and etc so I can help push his services to people who may need it.

I'll have an update later tonight or tomorrow morning after driving it around and doing some inspections of my own.

This may turn up a useless plug, but if it doesn't then I'll place his information in the thread.

I've also asked him about group pricing deals, and he's open to it.