New Info on Manual Conversion in 5th GEN - Honda Prelude Forum

sr20cars · 11-10-2008, 09:29 PM

I have a 97 with the tip tranny in it and was going out. I have a horde of trannys and did the swap. I took the info from the likes of CONJUR, MIKE and a few others but never found anything about these few discoveries. NOTE** DONT KNOW IF THIS STUFF APPLIES TO ALL, BUT WORKED FOR ME.

AXLES- mY AUTO AXLES FIT ALL THE WAY AROUND, IN AND OUT.
MOUNTS-ALL MOUNTS LINED UP FINE WITH NO PUSHING OR PULLING.
PEDALS-BRACKET WAS THERE INSTALLED BUT HAD AUTO PEDALS. (???)

I went and bouth these things, but was able to return a bunch of it.

ALSO, I would like to know if the 4th GEN pedals, shift box and cables will work in the 5th GEN???

conjur · 12-08-2008, 09:20 AM

Sorry, I've been out of the loop for a bit, but:

Axles: I kept my auto axles aswell; but the half-shaft (thing that runs behind the oil pan) was different... or atleast the one from my transmission wouldn't fit into the new transmission; so I used the one that came with the manual.

Pedals: I've heard rumors about this from people that didn't do the swap; they say that most of the mounts are in the car already... seems like alot of 97/early 98 preludes came with the brackets... prolly just due to a combined assembly line...

Mounts: The transmission mount is alot different; there is no way that a auto bracket will fit a manual transmission, without alot of drilling and tapping =D However, the chassis side of the trans mount lines up fine between both, and really makes no difference which you use... I personally used the manual one, because it looked cooler.
As for the rear engine mount; the only difference is that the manual transmission mount has an extra hole up top, to bolt the manual transmission in; as the auto transmission just uses a 14mm peg in that hole. You'll prolly be 200k miles down the road before that one missing bolt would ever cause a problem =)

As for the shifter; I've seen quite a few people use 4th gen shifter assemblies in 5th gens; but it does require a little bit of modification to fit properly- the 4th gen one sits a hair lower, and you have to bend a bit of sheet metal under it, so it doesn't rub; but the bolts line up pretty closely. Also, considering that the 5th gen is all ABS plastic, and the 4t gen is all metal; it leaves you more opertunities for "modifications" =) IE custom true short shifter; elevation changes; etc... Plus with all metal, it won't absorb any vibrations, so you can feel problems earlier.

V/r,
Mike