Auto to manual

Did you see the Mauritius blue one on autotrader for £10k

It had sh*t loads of work done to it. IMHO worth every penny.....

Reminds me of my days on the Supra forum where this kind of thread appeared a few times a week! I can't really help I'm afraid but the Supra boys certainly weren't adverse to taking this on so as long as you throw enough money at it it'll be fine.

I agree completely, if it were a choice between twin turbo (or supercharger in the case of the V8 ) or a manual box, I'd choose the latter every time. Power is nothing without control ;). Luckily I already have the 6-speeder in my 840. Of course if you could have both.....

I think it will be a reasonably straightforward job, subject to two conditions:

1. You can find a suitable donor car, as there will be a lot of little unexpected parts you need that will crop up during the job. This could be a challenge, as I think the 850 is the only V12 that came with a manual. Certainly for the V8 you have the E34 540i/6 as a donor, that occasionally crops up as a breaker.

2. There are no electronic issues afterwards, like the ECUs crapping out because they're no longer getting to speak to the EGS or whatever the acronym is. This can sometimes be overridden by shorting out or grounding some wires to make it think the car is always in gear, but it may need to be recoded to configure it as a manual using Modic or similar.

Good luck, I think it would be a great mod to your 850. I think a few guys in the US have successfully done such a mod on the 840, but there's more demand for it on the V8 as they're quite hard to find in manual form (indeed no official US imports were manual) and as mentioned finding a donor car is easier. I haven't heard of it being done on the V12 yet though.

Having done this on a e24 635 once, I agree 100% get a whole car to start with. you will run into a million little diferences and it wil be alot easier when moving from a complete car. This job might even pay for itself if you can find a cheap, (sub £3k), manual to start with. you should be able to part out the carcass when your done for more than you paid. That is, of course, you can find a realy cheap, and probably neglected, 850 manual.

- D

Working in the transmission industry this a question we get asked from time to time and the answer is always the same.
Sell the car you have and buy the car you want.
Unless, you're prepared to take on the kind of job you wish you'd never started in the first place and have been sensible enough to work out a budget, and them double it.
Or you have enough money to pay someone else to do it for you.
Or you love spending days pulling your hair out because something just isn't going the way it should.
Even on a pretty basic car it's a killer of a job (and you WILL need a complete donor car to be able to do it) and you'll need to be prepared for more work and money than you'd initialy bargained for (new clutch, controls etc, while you're there you may as well replace or recondition any `service items` that may need to come out again otherwise, oh, and pay for replacement items that have been found wanting when you've removed them or have got broken on removal).
The problem with doing the job on an E31 is the level of complexity in the car itself added to the cost of the donor, lets be honest, who's going to sell a manual E31 for peanuts?
By the time the money is spent and the job is done you'd have been able to sell your automatic, buy a tidy manual car and have any mods done to bring the manual car up to or above the spec' of your current automatic, and without all the hassle.
I'm not trying to put you off the idea completely, but if you're going to do it you really need go into this kind of job with your eyes wide open, because if you don't sooner or later they will be

Zitat von nathan8

Hi guys

The thing that I cannot stand, is when you are on the motorway, you are basically limited to using very tiny throttle changes in order to avoid 3rd gear kickdown. I wonder if there is a way to manually engage fourth gear (f clutch) to lock it in fourth? That would be a good deal better! HMM I think there is a sensor to detect when your foot passes 8 degrees or something perhaps if I remove that little critter (or put it on a switch) - what do you think guys?

Hi Nathan - I'm guessing you have an M70 as you mention "lock in 4th gear". Now I'm in no way an expert but it seems to me that the auto box shift sequence is controlled by the EGS module - that means it's following a predetermined programme - programme being the operative word here - "that which man has created, man can modify". Aren't there people out there that can or have reprogrammed the EGS for M70 auto's? I know this has been done for the M73 steptronic set-up.
It seems to me that you've spent a lot of cash on your car todate and if the auto box is the only niggle you have then I'd think about modifications to the shift pattern before selling and buying a manual (let's face it, it would have to be a CSi)

Cheers,
Jason

I'm one of the guys doing a conversion albeit on an 840ci. Stuart's points are well taken but apply much more to y'all in the UK rather than here, I need to build it to get what I want. I've worked out a somewhat loose budget which I'm sure will be blown to hades because as has been said the "while I'm there" stuff will certainly come up. I'm gathering all the conceivable major parts before disabling the car and will still have extra down time waiting for items to be fabricated, I.E. a custom driveshaft. Even if I found an OEM one from a breaker (1418mm) in your area the cost of shipping and the weak US dollar make it more cost effective to have it built here. I was originally quoted $11,000 from Brett at Koala Motorsport here with all new parts and that was turnkey. I believe I can do the project for 2/3rds of that and have upgraded performance pieces rather than factory stock. I mean why use a heavy dual mass flywheel and small pressure plate when I can go lighter billet aluminum and the big CSI sized clutch. The S6S 420G 6spds are fairly common here and I'm already having an LSD built with 3.45 gears and variable lock, (unless you guys know of a good price there for a used Quaife unit). Yes, I'll have problems but nothing I can see that is insurmountable and I expect it to overall be fun. It's been quite awhile since my days of hotrodding big V8's into 55-57 Chevys

Nice, it'll be interesting to hear the results. I'm lucky enough to have a factory 6sp 840Ci which is pretty rare here, but they must be uber-rare over there seeing as BMW never imported them. I'd have thought the E34 540i/6 would make a good donor for most parts though.

Zitat von nathan8

yo Jason

There is a guy on the road flying board who reprograms these.

When he dynos his 5 speed he disables the kickdown switch to lock 4th - I'm going to do some experimenting!

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Hi Nathan - yes, that's the guy I was referring to - Olaf (Firebird).

Cheers,
Jason

nathan theres a guy selling a 1992 850 manual plus something of a 750
for 5500 euor on the board, the ad is at the top of the home screen (,vend 850ia 1992 5500euros)
it's
in french thought i could translate for you, he's saying that the fittment of the gear can be fitted as well..............