Did they make the 2nd gen TL (99-00ish model) in 5spd? The type S looks pretty sweet with the kit and everything, but I haven't seen one in 5spd. If they didn't come in 5spd, what would be the best swap for conversion? The CL tranny?

 

The 99TL was available with 4AT w/ sportshift. The 00-03TL and TL Type-s was available with a 5AT w/ sportshift.

A benefit with the 4AT is that you can use sportshift to control the 1->2 upshift.
With the 5AT, you can only upshift with sportshift from gear 2 and above. But the benefit is slightly better acceleration and highway fuel mpg. Downside is slightly more tranny problems than the 4AT.

A 6MT as well at a 5AT is offered on the 3rd gen TL.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">A benefit with the 4AT is that you can use sportshift to control the 1-&gt;2 upshift.
With the 5AT, you can only upshift with sportshift from gear 2 and above. But the benefit is slightly better acceleration and highway fuel mpg. Downside is slightly more tranny problems than the 4AT.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I was under the impression that the CL and TL Type-S shared the same tranny...i know when i owned my CL Type-S...you could most certainly use the sport shifter to shift from 1st to 2nd...in fact, one of the first times my tranny got stuck and would not upshift was going from 1st to 2nd...and i bounced it off the rev limiter several times (right before the tranny was replaced one of the four times it was when i owned the car)...

 

I suspect your tranny holding 1st gear while in SS was related to the failure as any nomally-functioning 5AT's automatically upshift from 1 to 2 in SS. I didn't think it was a big deal to be honest but a lot of the 4AT (1999) owners (whose trannies did NOT auto upshift from 1 to 2 in SS) used that as a point of contention.

 

lol...very well could have been...but all 4 trannies let me do it, it DID however do it for you if you were just driving normally, you had to either accelerate hard from a start to run 1st up to redline and shift or you had to drop rpm's in 2nd low enough to where it would downshift into 1st again (which was REALLY low in 2nd) but possible.

Ah well...doesnt matter, CL-S is long gone anyways.

 

on the 00-03 models you can bypass the whole tiptronic by using independent 1st and second gears. so instead of being in "sportshift" you take the shifter all the way to the bottom left in 1st then when you want to shift to 2nd move it to the right. and when you want to go into 3rd you can either move it up or while your in second move the shifter into "SS" and shift up.

 

My 02 TL-S always shifted faster in D5 than it did in SS or using the gate to manually shift. It also shifted just past redline (~7000 RPM) so I rarely used SS except to force a downshift a littler later than the logic in D5 would otherwise allow. My '00, however, benefitted to the tune of .3 seconds in the 1/4 by using SS to force upshifts at 6600'ish RPM (just before fuel cut) rather than the 6300 RPM redline.

 

I thought the TL's and CL's came with either the tiptronic w/5 spd sport shift, or a 6 spd manual.

 

'99 TL --&gt; 4-speed automatic with Sportshift
'00-'03 TL Premium and Type-S ('02-'03) --&gt; 5-speed with Sportshift, 1-&gt;2 upshift and downshift controlled by the computer

'01-'03 CL Premium and Type-S --&gt; 5-speed, same as '00-'03 TL.
'03 CL Type-S only --&gt; available with 6-speed manual wth a helical LSD.