drivetrain swap/conversion - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

itlnx · 07-21-2008, 06:54 PM

so i sat here seaching and searching and searching. alas i found nothing useful

i'm def going to swap my auto trans to a manual 5 speed. now i found some ok stuff about that, i'll have to google for a parts since, since the really good write up is for the V6, i have my 4i. now that for sure i'm doing, since i only need the parts, labor will be done myself and some knowledgeable friends. this ran across my mind, on a scale of 1-10 how difficult is a rear wheel drive conversion. The MR2 non turbos have the 5sfe like my cam does, so i was thinking of jacking their trans (maybe, going to research) and maybe looking into their drive train to see if it will mate with the cam. any ideas on pricing, if i do the work myself, and or any of the parts i will need. if there IS a helpful thread that i missed somehow, point it my way.
thanks guys.
**also if anyone knows a good parts list off hand for the 4i auto to the manual 5 speed, let me know.

::edit::
i think its going to be really really really hard to do the drive train conversion, cause i couldnt find anything on google. but if you guys have heard anything or any experiences, let me know.

RichieRichJP · 07-21-2008, 07:36 PM

You must mean driveshaft. Personally, even thought the costs are going to be low since you and your knowledgeable friends are going to go through with a RWD swap, it's going to take way too much time. Plus you're going to have to completely rework the back to accommodate the engine, being RWD. People have mentioned that you will basically have to strip the car completely and do lots of work to make the driveshaft fit. The motor swap alone has ran people up to $8000 to complete. My advice, swap in the 3sgte w/ the tranny and leave it at that. There is a lot of information with the auto to manual swap on the site using the e153 transmission, which is the turbo MR2, V6 Solara, and V6 Camry transmission. And if you're ballsy, you can turbo the 5sfe, but the 3SGTE has more potential in the end.

bigbird · 07-21-2008, 07:46 PM

the problem is whether this is really worth it on a camry. the logical anwser is absolutly not. even a RWD camry is still a horrible preformance platform. so, IMO, it would be a waste of time, money and talent to perform such a feat. if you were really serious however id forget about the MR2 setup. the turbo tranny(e153) and engine would work but the later camrys (gen4) share their platforms with the RX300 and the Highlander which are both AWD. which would be even better then RWD. but no one has done it to my knoledge so ud be shottin in the dark and there would be alot of trial and error.

itlnx · 07-21-2008, 09:40 PM

yeah thats what i figured. i'm not going to do the RWD conversion basically because of those reasons. the manual swap however, is a pretty done deal. thanks, you settled my idiotic ideas haha.