a4 to m5 conversion

[Meatyshells]

ok well i just finished my conversion and i decided that ill atempt a write up on it. I did not plan on doing a write up so i dont have as many pictures as i would like but i will try my best at making this write up better than any of the others out there. overall it wasnt very hard, but it wasnt very easy either. Just plan ahead, what could go wrong, probably will.

parts needed:
tranny /w bellhousing
clutch flywheel pressure plate
clutch master cylinder /w clutch reservoir gm# 12565144
slave cylinder /w throw out bearing
pilot bearing
shifter
shift knob
center console insert
leather shift boot
lower shift boot
vss if tranny doesnt come with one gm#12523306 (96-02)
t-5 torque arm bracket/mount gm# 10252374 and 10252375 ( need both) 94-02
t5 cross member gm# 10269725 (98-02)
clutch pedal assm gm# 10298616 (99-02)
new pcm or a pcm reflash
lots of new bolts
reverse lights switch leads gm# 12085485 (94-02)
clutch safety switch gm# 14094368 (96-02) /w pigtail leads gm#12102690 (96-02)
rec new tranny mount (Im using the 1le mount)
wire connectors
small amount of extra wire

more pictures to come when i get my camera back from my stupid sister.

1. First of course you will need to get the car up on jacks, the higher the better. Also disconnect the battery just in case.


2. Once the car is jacked up you will need to take off the torque arm, followed by the drive shaft.
To remove the torque arm there are 2 long bolts with nuts on each end located on the rear end. after removing these, remove the torque arm bracket attached to the trans. Just follow the torque arm to where it connects to the tans and you will see it, Should remove with 2-3 bolts. Next there are 4 bolts attaching the drive shaft to the rear end. Remove these and the drive shaft should pull out from the trans.

3. Next you will need to remove the actual trans from the engine, this is the fun part. Start inside the car and remove the center console. Put the car in first, there is a staple holding the shift knob on. Take a small flat head screw driver and take it out and remove the knob. Next there are 2 7mm bolts under the coin holder in the arm rest. Take those off and the shifter plate will come off. Then there are about 8 10mm bolts holding the center console in place. 2 are in the bottom of the armrest, 2 are on either side of the console (one by the cupholder and oppisite side of it), and the rest are located next to or on the shifter assm. Once the center console is off unbolt the shifter and you can either cut the shifter cable and brake release cable or find where they are connected and disconnect them. I choose to cut them and then i removed the shifter assm.

Remove all the bolts you can from the underside of the bellhousing. They are 18mm i belive. When you get to the the bolts that are too hard to reach you will need to unbolt the cross member from the car. It is located in the back and bottom of the trans. Place a jack under this so when you unbolt it the trans will not fall. There are 4 bolts each are 15mm i believe.
When you unbolt the cross member onto the jack, you will need to slightly lower the jack. When you do this the trans will tilt back allowing you to get to the higher up bolts. The best way to get these bolts off is by using a 4 foot long extension and getting the bolts out from behind the trans.
There should also be 2 trans mounts on either side of the trans connecting the trans to the engine. For some reason my car did not have these.
When all the bolts are removed it is time to pry the tranns away from the engine. The easist way to do this i found is get a type of crowbar and stick it between the engine and the trans and push very hard. But be very carful once the trans is pushed far enough away, the trans will fall out and you DONT want it to fall on you (ITS HEAVY!!!) Also make sure all the connectors are off of the trans before letting it fall.

[Meatyshells]

Re: a4 to m5 conversion sticky mayb?

4. Once the trans is removed you are left with the torque converter.


there are 3 bolts holding this on if i remember correctly. But to get to the bolts you need to remove the inspection plate first. There should be at least 1very small bolt holding it in place, and then it should pull out (with some forcefull hands :)) dont worry about bending it or even cutting it, you wont be using it again.
Once the inspection plate is out you can reach the bolts holding the torque converter to the flex plate. you will need to stick a screwdriver or something into the flex plate so it will not rotate when taking the bolts off. Every time you take a bolt off, you will need to rotate the torque converter to get to the next bolt. Once the verter is off, then you can unbolt the flex plate, there should be 8 bolts.

5. Once the flexplate is off you can put in your pilot bearing. Get it in there as far as you can, it should be very close to flush. After that, on goes your flywheel. Make sure it lines up right and you get all the bolts very tight. You cant use the same bolts you took out, so find new flywheel to crank bolts.
Put on the clutch disk and use the alinment tool to make sure it stays alined.
Then put on the preasure plate and try and torque the bolts in a star pattern.


6.Once all the clutch stuff is in, it's time for the clutch hydrolics (yay!)
start by removing the panel under the steering wheel

Then you can remove the brake pedal. Now this might sound easy but think again. I HIGHLY reccomend removing the drivers seat for more room. To remove the pedals there are a total of 5 bolts. 2 on either side of the steering colum and one above pedal right behind all the wire connectors that attach to the brake pedal. There are 2 push type connectors attached to the pedal, brake light switch and cruise control disengage switch. Disconnect these and unscrew them. Then the brake pedal should come out.
put the brake sensor switches back onto the new pedal assem and put the new pedals in. Make sure the sensors are screwed in the right amount, or the brake lights wont come on.

[Meatyshells]

Re: a4 to m5 conversion sticky mayb?

7. next you need to mount the clutch master cylinder it goes right here...

you will need to drill 2 holes and a bigger hole in the middle, i reccomend using a hole saw to do this.
it may take some some forcefull thinking to get the master cylinder in there.

and this is where the clutch reservior mounts


lead the steal braided line down to the back of the engine where the trans will be later.

8. next you will need to cut a hole for the shifter, mine is a little long but it doesnt really matter if you are off by too much. dont start as far back as i did. some trimming might need to be done later so dont worry about getting it perfect.

[Meatyshells]

Re: a4 to m5 conversion sticky mayb?

9. time to put the manual trany in now. but before you put it in, bolt on the slave cylinder, you will need to remove the bellhousing from the trans in order to get in on. now the trans should bolt back on the same way it came off but, you may need to improvise a little. Make sure you put on your new torque arm bracket before putting the trans in. once the new trans is in put the torque arm back on as well as the driveshaft.

10. you're not done yet, time for the wiring. There are basicly 3 things you need to wire, they are.....



you may need extentions to reach the trans and the clutch safty switch.

Hook up all the connections to the trans and make sure you connect the master cylinder line to the slave cylinder. Then add brake fluid to the clutch reservior and bleed the clutch.

11. now add tranny fluid to the trans, you need 3.4 quarts of atf. You can add it through where the shifter mounts. Then attach the shifter use some silicone rtv to seal it. followed by the lower shift boot i used self tapping screws to keep it in place. You should be able to start the car now. Start it and make sure it works. Put it in first and see if the tires rotate. Then put it in reverse and see if the reverse lights come on. Then i put the center console back togeather

12 before taking it off the stands get under the car and listen for any abnormal sounds, like knocking or scraping. If all sounds good, take the car off the stands and take it for a test drive. MAKE SURE YOU GET A METAL RETAINER SO THAT YOUR MASTER CYLINDER ROD DOES NOT POP OFF YOUR CLUTCH PEDAL.

The car is ok to drive but you will need to get your pcm reflashed soon, so dont plane on going around racing just yet.

Hope this helps everyone, and becareful if you attempt this conversion.
If you have any questions, ask away, i will be happy to answer

[mestupryan]

Re: a4 to m5 conversion sticky mayb?

awesome man! I'll post this up on the sticky temporary, until the mods do anything(if their going to.)

[mestupryan]

Re: a4 to m5 conversion sticky mayb?

actually, im gunna work on getting it converted to a .pdf and hosted online, but thats gunna take a while. so if mods wanna make this a sticky before then, go ahead. if need be, deleted the sticky that i created and replace it with this one.

[Larrymhemenez]

Re: a4 to m5 conversion sticky mayb?

damn that sucks you guys have to reflash your PCm when you go from a A4 to a M5 **** i didnt have to reflash when i went form a M5 to a A4 well good write up
and I am selign my t-5

[Meatyshells]

Re: a4 to m5 conversion sticky mayb?

how did you not have to reflash your pcm? So your computer just magicly knew when to shift, what preasure to shift at, and you didnt throw any codes?
also an m5 to a4 conversion is harder cause i think you need to get a new radiator or tap your current one for the trans lines

[Meatyshells]

Re: a4 to m5 conversion sticky mayb?

Updated with part numbers
just type the numbers into www.gmpartsdirect.com and you can get the parts for pretty cheap

[DHiser27]

Re: a4 to m5 conversion sticky mayb?

What does the "vss" mean in the "vss if tranny doesnt come with one gm#12523306 (96-02)" part explained. I just bought a beautiful V6 Firebird...but shes sadly an automatic. This car was so good that I could sacrifice having to do this swap for her. I think I'll have some fun doing this swap though, so its all good. I may need some help though haha, kind of like now. Thanks.

[Meatyshells]

Re: a4 to m5 conversion sticky mayb?

vss= vehical speed sensor, basicly it's the thing that plugs into your tranny and tells your speedo how fast you are going
someone told me that you can use the one off your auto, but i bought a new one, was only like 30 bucks

[azadian2b]

Balancing?

I am in the middle of doing this swap, and the Chilton's manual mentions marking the orientation of the output shaft of the old transmission relative to the universal joint of the driveshaft for balancing purposes. How do i determine the proper orientation of the driveshaft to the new transmission's output shaft (no mark) or does it not matter?
Thanks

[Meatyshells]

Re: Balancing?

does not matter, driveshaft is plug and play

[Larrymhemenez]

Re: a4 to m5 conversion sticky mayb?

you dont gotta reflash your Pcm IF IF IF IF IF you Put the M5 reluctor gear on the tail shaft vice verso put the Automatic Reluctor gear on the tail shaft of the M5 and also I have a 700r4 in my 2001 So i rigged up a Pull cable to shift its dope **** man I wanted to write a write up about ti so it can help other peopel but i never took pics

[azadian2b]

Re: a4 to m5 conversion sticky mayb?

Being new the forum i dont know whether this is appropriate question to ask on this thread but you guys seem really helpful and responsive so here goes.

My car is on jack stands, shifter and brake pedal assembly are removed. When the shifter was removed i put the car was in neutral so the driveshaft would spin. I removed the 2 long torque arm bolts at the back and undid 3 bolts mounting the torque arm bracket to the transmission. However, to remove these bolts i ended up having to undo the crossmember and lower the transmission so the bolts would clear my fuel lines. Now the torque arm is off, the crossmember is unbolted and supported by a jack and the rear bolts/brackets have been removed from my driveshaft. The problem is it wont budge (not even a little) towards the tranny so i cant lower the back end and pull it off the tranny's output shaft. Compounding this is that I dont think i have the stock driveshaft (got car used) because there is what looks like a 1 piece steel driveshaft.
Does anyone have any ideas on the following:
1)how to get the driveshaft off or transmission off with driveshaft still attached.
2)why it wont budge up the input shaft
I really do not want to touch my rear differential, and while any solution to problem 1 that requires a new driveshaft for installation (ie. cut it in half...)would be nice, its not optimal.

Thank you for your help, and i hope you're all havent died of boredom reading this whole post.

P.S. Meatyshells, if there is any way i could get in touch with you personally i might not have to spam the message board like this. Do you have a sn or another way i could contact you?