not to go against the grain here or anything, before u make up ur mind on doing a tranny swap, try to find someone that actually did it before and ask some question about everything involved, parts (there are always a bunch of little parts that add up), cost, and downtime

not trying to discourage u or anything, just seems like u made up ur mind in a couple hours before really researching all of what actually goes into it, or maybe u did do more research than i know of, just trying to help out

 

^ Agreed.

You're probably going to have someone else do the work, but you should know going into it there is a ton of crap that adds up. New ECU, etc. You'll probably want a new guage cluster to get rid of the PRNDL and to gain the shift light, wiring, etc. Its a LOT of work, I've done it. You don't want to do it yourself.

 

https://my350z.com/forum/southern-california/273406-paddle-shifter-for-automatics.html

thought you might want to check this out, maybe pair it with a nice Sparco wheel ... Might be unique IMO but maybe you still wanna go thru with the MT conversion...

 

You've done tranny swaps before?

 

Having done this before be careful with the dealership, some will really try and suck you dry on your trade in because they know you want the manual. I would first find out exactly how much trade in value is for your car before doing to much talking wit the dealership.

This way you go into it with as much information as possible and keep them from trying to dick you around. I would get resale amount, trade in value, and the KBB of the car you want. Go to them with that and show them you are willing to trade but you don't want to get caught with a lot of the extra costs. If they know you've paidd down your car they will try and get as much of your equity as possible...

I personally would scope out the marketplace s ection on here and see if anyone is looking for an AT, then maybe take a trip to swamp cars half way...iono idea good luck

 

I am looking at the manual swap but at the same time I'm also aiming at trading cars with someone or doing the paddle shift like erick mentioned. The good thing is that I have time to get info. One thing is clear though is that I cannot go the dealership route.

 

Goodluck!!!!!

 

Good deal good to see you got your head on straight about this...I've seen a number of my friends get way in over their heads (finacially) because they flipped their cars so often.

 

One of our mutual friends nearly LOST his head when he LITERALLY flipped his poor car... Anyone wanna guess who I'm talking about?

 

Ezra, Have you seen the mystery flipped car? And where were you last Saturday? Not on the Kingston Ferry. I thought the Peninsula peeps would make a better showing.

 

If you go to a ****ty dealership like the one I worked in, the managers would most likley want to low ball and make excuses as to how working on the car to bring it back to stock affects the price as well as how the after market parts hurt the car. For example we took in a 2004 cobra with roughly 500hp and they low balled the lady who was trading her husbands car in who was In iraq and sold it for about 7k more than they took it in with no work being done. She was so pissed he modded the stang because they convinced her it depreciated the car faster that she traded it in. At least i got to mash on it!

 

How much do you want to spend? You could go with an 07.

 

Now that you mention it... No? But I've got reason to believe it exists .

I'm hella sorry about last weekend, girlfriends work called VERY late and told her she would essentially get fired if she didn't work for a coworker so we couldn't come. Wish we had, she told me shed rather lose her job than miss the next one (she saw pics).

Sorry guys

 

Not sure if you are still looking alvin, but here's a post about the conversion by GTM https://my350z.com/forum/product-announcements/278653-gt-motorsports-5a-t-to-6m-t-conversion-pics.html. ~$9000 total for the conversion

 

Tranny conversion will cost more than the $2k that you speculated probably closer to $5-6k. If I were in your position, I might just try to deal with the auto and do the paddle shift thing.

Trading in your car is an option if you wanna take the time to remove all the mods, put the stock parts back on, lose a couple of bucks at the dealer, get the new car, remove the stock parts, install the upgrade parts.

 

if i was you i would take all the mods off, and buy stock parts u dont have. make car 100% stock. then look for a 6mt db z u want. and just swap parts over. it will be worth the extra money u pay/lose. or u could jsut do private sale on ur car and get a 6mt z after u sell urs. either way sell ur car 100% stock.

 

Have you guys seen the thread that Sam @ GTM posted for their AT -> MT conversion? It's do able but man it just cost way too much. Kostat and TECH got it right. Get a new car.

 

If this is the way it is I'll just stick with my 5At it doens't bother me that much right now, in 2-3 years it's gonna be my daily driver and I'm hoping to get a GT-R or something more exotic then. Thanks for the love guys!