It's ironic, because I bought this automatic LT1 to be my "fun" daily-driver while my manual LS1 is my "fun" nice weather only car...But after driving this A4 for nearly 3 months, I am just bored out of my mind with it...I never realized I would miss driving a manual in one of these cars so much after I put away my '02 for the winter...I guess it's really true when they say once you drive a manual you'll never want to go back!

Now, I already have a couple good people in mind who could do the swap for me, but how did yours turn out (any problems, big or small)? Were there a lot of unexpected surprises? And do you have any regrets about doing it?

I've really got to make up my mind because my auto tranny (still works good BTW) is the original with 110,000 miles on it and I was originally planning an a performance rebuild for it come spring, but this T-56 conversion just sounds like a lot more fun...

Mike

 

Yeah i know how you feel i was driving my friends 2005 corvette which is a 6spd and i miss it soo much so im looking to do the t56 conversion too. heres what i found http://www.afrashteh.com/tranny_pics/T56.htm

 

is there a manual valve body set up for the 4l60e? A friend of mine did a turbo 400 swap. He said it not that bad being a manual shift trans.

 

im going to put a th350 in cause this is the third time my 4l60 has died on me. i have a few buddies that have done the th400 swap and they really like it.

 

I just did a Auto to T5 on my Formula and we did a T56 to Auto and Vice Versa on my brothers 96 T/A M6 and a friends 82 T/A with LT1/Auto (they swapped tranny's.
It was pretty straightforward on the 3rd gens going to a manual.
We drilled the Clutch M/C holes from the engine bay side of the firewall, but I think that would be difficult on a 4th gen and I was reading one swap where they put the pedals in with a couple of bolts and marked and drilled the holes from the inside under the dash. This is what I would do on a 4th gen.
It takes less than a weekend to do the swap one one car.

We did an Auto to T5 on my 88 Formula and at teh same time did a T5 to Auto on an 88 GTA Trans Am, we just swapped tranny's, took us 3 days since it rained on one of the days so we only got 1/2 days work before it rained.
This was also done on the driveway with 1 jack and 10 jackstands.

 

Well, having a manual is fun, but the whole swapping over thing isn't very much fun. It took me a week working by myself w/ hand tools & limited jacking equipment. If you have a friend willing to help you could probably do it fairly leisurly in 3 days- one to take everything out, 2 to cut the holes and put everything in.

So far my only problem has been my torque arm coming loose just a couple of weeks ago. And I have a little bit of clutch chatter, but that's from leaving the inspection cover off. 95% of the screwups will be from installation error.

It does make the LT1 a lot more fun to drive though. Plus it revs up a lot quicker now and for some reason even the exhaust even sounds throatier (when it's not ticking from my collector leak, that is )

 

when my buddy with a ks1 went from M6 to th 400 he noticed and exhuast diff too. He said if it wasnt manual it wouldnt be fun to drive.

 

I've 2 of them. One for a LT1 and the second for a LS1.

The LS1 in my opinion is better. Make sure you put in a new and the newer version slave cylinder. You also need LS1 edit or someone that has the unlimited version to program your computer.

It's not cheap by the time you put in a nice clutch but neither is a good auto