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Well, I went to Honda today to get my axle replaced again due to it ticking. The service advisor tells me the bad news. There is a lot of play with both axles and that means NEW TRANSMISSION! The tech said it was a pretty good chance it was the diff in the AUTO transmission.

So what would you guys do? I really like my car and have a lot of mods done to it but I am thinking of parting it out, do a manual transmission swap or stick another reman auto tranny.

Its and '03 4cyl Supercharged AUTO with 100k+ miles.

(http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z80/neoryan7/IMG_2795.jpg)
(http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z80/neoryan7/IMG_0494.jpg)

It all depends on how much money you have to throw at it.

Can you afford a 6spd swap?
How long did the trans last when you SC'd it?
Reman swap is only about $500. How much hp/tq are you running? If it's high odds are if you throw another reman auto in there it's going to break.

I'd do a manual swap. I'm one of those that sticks with a car that I love for a long time. I get attached to vehicles, unlike Jeremy. Personally, I would have never bought an autotragic but you play the cards you've been dealt.

I really don't know if its from the supercharger per se, its been on for about 8k miles. Im only at 225hp/190tq. It could have been me abusing it on the twisties over the 7 years but I also have been having problems with axles in the last two years. Im on my third set while i've seen people slammed on their original ones.

Yeah I wouldn't have purchased an auto either but I didn't really have too many options at the time.

Just been trying to find that right car Z, can't go wrong with an S2000  ;)
Like I said before, I can't really say what I'd do unless we know your limit. Manual swap isnt cheap. 5spd would be cheaper, but still looking at a few grand at the least. Honestly if I had the monies I would do the swap, if you've already gone through the trouble of SCing it, why not take it one step further?

I think you should do a MT swap.  Your car is awesome Ryan.

MT swap ryan. You have all the goodies already. Why not take it up a notch.

Thanks guys. Got the car back from the dealer. Said the previous axle was slightly smaller than the hole that goes in the tranny(damn aftermarket). They gave me a new one under the axle manufacture's warranty. He also said a there is still some play in the axles but it bought me some time.

Is it still the aftermarket axles that you're using?  I've had some pretty bad luck with aftermarket axles.  Some brands are better than others of course, but OEM may be the best fit.  If it were me, I'd go with a MT swap if you're going to invest the money.  You've put a lot into your car to get where you are today.  Sure, the MT swap will be more expensive.  When you compare it to fixing your AT or replacing it with a remanufactured one, there shouldn't a ton of extra work to do with the MT swap.  I think it really comes down to the cost of parts.

The MT swap is the best way... Spend the money and reep the benefits!

Maybe you should take your own advice Mike.  ;)

My car isn't modded that much. My investment into it is minimal.

True.

Well I had same problemo in the summer... ended up spending $3700 to replace auto trans and ecu. It all depends how much longer you wanna keep your ride, which by the way looks awesome. Either replace or do a manual swap is what I would do!

Just some food for thought. I too wanted to do the MT swap, so i asked Skippy for some information. He said that to do a 5AT to 5MT swap, it would be about $5000 - $6000 for parts and labor, not including shipping. He also told me that a lot of custom fabrication needs to be done, and that it's no easy task. From the looks of your car though, you should have no problem doing the swap. In my case, i would be competely clueless on what to do. It's probably not worth it for me anyways when i could take that money and put it into trading for a better car, like a v6 accord.

Yeah they gave me a new after market one i dont know if its the same company though. The first aftermarket one I recieved >100miles ago  started to click after I made a u-turn. That U-turn really messed up the joint. I wasn't even giving it gas. I've made a couple of U-turns on this one and its been okay so far. Next time Im going to go with OEM or some beefier aftermarket ones, driveshaft shop maybe. Tim where did you source your 6MT from?


I Originally planned to keep it as long as I could, I was hoping to eventually turn it to my track car as it gets older. Its my first car and have grown attached to it. Its taught me a lot about how cars work and stuff.


I got a few quotes from some reputable garages in my area and it wasn't too bad. I was quoted about 2k for MT tranny and all install. I would have to get the other components myself but that should not be more than 1200 at least I'm hoping. I also got a quote for about 1200 for used auto and labor. Honda quoted me about 4k for a reman auto with install.

I got my tranny through Cham.  I don't know where he sourced it from though.  You may have some good luck going through car-part.com.  I know Skippy got his through car-part.com.  If you find anything out here on the East Coast or in New England, I'll be glad to help you out and pick it up and ship it for you.  As far as the labor, I'm not sure if there's any fabrication needed because the chassis is the same, so you'd only need to bolt in the MT parts.  I'm pretty sure your firewall already has the mounting holes for a clutch master cylinder.  You will need to replace the brake pedal with a MT brake pedal, but that would only be like 1 bolt and 2 nuts to replace.  The biggest thing will be pulling the motor to do the tranny swap or dropping the sub frame to pull the tranny.

Thanks for the offer Tim I'll keep that in mind. LMK if you happen to come up on some good deals for MT items.

I've got a bunch of broken clutch pedals and clutch master cylinders. :laugh:

how broken? ;)

Broken enough that you would want to just buy a new one from Honda.  I wouldn't sell you broken parts.

haha, do you think I can just cut the brake pedal and fit a MT pad on? Do you have a Comptech SS/Neuspeed SS or a Mugen shifter?

I wouldn't.  Don't be ghetto about it Ryan.  I have the comptech ss and a shortened OEM shifter.  You can have my OEM shifter if you want.

Me too.