Originally Posted by ef9allday

the only thing about ef's are if you get and auto or manual car the subframe is for that type of tranny...my friend had to jimmy rigg his trans mount and his rear back mount

Originally Posted by Jake Rylance

Sorry to bring this back from the dead. I'm going to be doing this swap soon. The donor car is an 89 dx I believe, my car is a 91 special edition. Will the pedal assembly be different from the 2 cars? The donor has everything else I need (pedals, trans, cable, linkage, ecu, axles, clutch, flywheel, and console.). Is that everything I need? I wish someone would post a picture tutorial on it. Maybe I will when I start.

Thanks in advance everyone.

Originally Posted by DailyDriverCivic

I started my auto to 5-speed swap last night, and wanted to give a heads up to anyone planning this swap! I have searched and ran into many threads covering this swap, but not one mentioning the snafu I ran into while doing mine last night.

My goal last night was to get the pedal cluster in so the car could still be driven until I could put the actual trans in (This sat. if all goes as planned). The car that I am doing this in is a 90 EX sedan. The donor car was a 90 DX hatch. There are many differences in the 2 pedal clusters from the differently equipped vehicles (Aside from the additional pedal obviously). There is added componentry for the cruise control, and the gas pedal pivot point is about 1/4" different in position on the cruise control car compared to the non CC car. I worked with what I had since I already had torn the car apart, and cut/welded as needed (While also filling/smoothing and re-drilling the gas pedal pivot points). It was easy to see where the hole needed to be drilled for the new pivot as the CC piece I cut off of the old pedals, fits in where the pivot is, and actually has a slotted hole so that same weld on piece can be welded onto either pedal cluster. But had I known this ahead of time, I would have looked for an LX or EX 5-speed pedal cluster, and I recommend you do the same to ease your swap. I will post my results at the end of my swap along with all parts I needed to use to make it work successfully. I hope to have it finished saturday.

I will update this original post with a complete list of what all I needed so there can be a complete source for those searching, as I came up with none of this info after reading through about 20 threads on the topic.

UPDATE: Here is a list of everything I used to do the automatic to manual swap in my 1990 Civic EX sedan:

-5 Speed Transmission

-Clutch/Pressure plate/Flywheel/Hardware

-Clutch cable

-Manual pedal assembly with same options as your car (Cruise control for example)

-Front, side, and rear transmission mount brackets from 5 speed car, and the actual mount for the rear (Regardless of what people say, it is not needed to drop the rear x-member to do this rear mount, but if you don't have a decent set of tools, you may have to do this to get to the rear bolt.)

-I used the axles from the 5-speed because mine were toast, and I am assuming that you need them, but am not sure, I will edit this when someone confirms.

-I was able to retain my stock throttle cable, but I had to built a pedal assembly out of the auto and manual one (Lots of cutting/welding), and ended up using the auto throttle pedal, so I am unsure if it is common to re-use the same throttle cable, again, I will edit this when someone confirms.

-I used the stock auto speedo cable with no issues.

-Connect the 2 larger black wires that go to the shift position switch in the automatic. These wires are for the starter. In the auto car, they are only connected when the car is in nuetral or park. Solder these two wires together and heat shrink. Use a butt connector if you want to just ghetto rig it together.

-If you have cruise control, the pink wire going to the shift indicator switch is supposed to be wired through the clutch pedal switch. On the auto car, it indicates that the shifter is in a forward gear, and not in P,R, or N. That switch breaks ground when the clutch is pressed and kills the cruise control. You can just ground this wire under the center console, and cruise will work again, but if you press the clutch while in cruise mode while driving, the motor will rev trying to accelerate! I suggest you hook up the 2 wires on the clutch pedal switch to this pink wire and ground for it to be hooked up and operate properly.

-You will get a code 19 and a "check engine light". This is for the torque converter lock up solenoid on the PS9 auto ECU (For my D16A6 Motor anyway, the 1.5 may have a different auto ECU). The car will still run and drive fine, but getting the manual ECU for you car, and cutting off the auto wiring from the harness will eliminate this issue.

-You will need to ground the Green/White wire from the shift indicator switch, this indicates that the car is in "park", and will allow you to remove the ignition key. The alternative is to swap to the 5 speed ignition switch, but you may not want to end up having separate ignition, and door keys if your car currently uses one key.

-There will be a small hole (about 2x8"'s or so) left over in front og the 5 speed shifter when you are done. This was for the auto shift cable to go through the floor. It is best to just remove the metal piece that was originaly in that hole, and make a new panel out of a flat piece of sheet metal. You should just attatch it to the bottom of the car with self tapper sheet metal screws, pop rivets, or something, making sure to put seam sealer around the perimiter of the plate you just made prior to attatching it. It should be undercoated after the seam sealer has dried. This will make for a permanent fix for that hole.

-I will update as I recall other things. I want this to become a true "go to" source for people doing this swap in the future with all of the needed info.


Modified by DailyDriverCivic at 2:15 PM 3/8/2008


Modified by DailyDriverCivic at 5:13 PM 3/10/2008