Forester transmission swap questions

SHMBO's 2010 Forester has 6 payments left and it is paid off. I have several old trucks now so we're thinking about keeping her car as my DD and trading in my newer truck on her new ride and then we'll only have the one payment.

The problem is that I just don't like or trust the automatic transmission in her car and I wouldn't be able to drive it every day without taking a shotgun to the car. It shifts all wrong for the way I drive and drives me nuts.

How much is involved in swapping in a 5-speed? The actual installation looks straight forward enough, and a decent mileage transmission on car-part.com is $600-800, so even buying new clutch parts I think the hardware should be less than two payments. Will the computer freak out and is it as simple as swapping in a manual transmission one? No emissions checks here so the VIN the computer reports doesn't have to match as long as it works. Are there better clutch parts to look for too? Any more maintenance I should plan on?

I don't know if such a thing is possible but couldn't you just remap the ECU to change the shift points of the current trans. Seems like you would be opening a can of worms to replace the whole thing. I have engineer friends who work for the big 3 and they change shift points with a lap top.

In reply to oldopelguy:

I don't know what's involved for a newer Subaru, but I did this on one of my RS Imprezas recently. It was possible on that car, but difficult. The wiring for the transmission had to be just right or the ECU would go into limp mode after driving for a few minutes (once it realized the auto wasn't hooked up still).

I basically had to rewire the whole engine harness as a manual trans car rather than an auto.

Based on that, I would say for a much newer car like yours, it's probably a really big project and likely not worth it.

One nice thing about the Subarus (at least older ones like mine), is that the ECUs were all the same, and could be changed from manual to auto by grounding a single pin. You still had to change all the wiring in the harness, but at least a new ECU wasn't necessary.

Never worked on a Forester but have helped do it on several Ford Focuses and it required an ECU and wiring harness swap on those. I expect that would apply to the Forester also.

Check nasioc. If i remember correctly, some scoobys have different front and rear axle gear ratios, that are compensated for be different output ratios in the tranny. If that was a dream I had, somebody correct me, it's been a long time since I played with scoobidoos.

In reply to carbon:

Yeah, this is a good point and true for some Subarus.

Either way, the Subaru transmissions contain the front ring and pinion as well as the center differential. The auto probably has a different ratio than the manual for the front ring and pinion, so you would have to swap the rear diff with the transmission if you did an auto to manual conversion. By itself, it's not terribly difficult, but another thing to add to the list if you were to decide to tackle this.

Turbo or NA?

The 2010 Forester XT was never available with a manual trans, so if it's an XT then ECU programming may be an issue. Parts shouldn't be a problem since the NA Foresters were available with manual transmissions.

Mine is NA, and they were available with manual transmissions so finding the hardware shouldn't be a huge deal.

Good point about the rear differential, I completely forgot about that. Still, just another part to swap, so not insurmountable.

carbon wrote: Check nasioc. If i remember correctly, some scoobys have different front and rear axle gear ratios, that are compensated for be different output ratios in the tranny. If that was a dream I had, somebody correct me, it's been a long time since I played with scoobidoos.

I am pretty sure this is WRX and maybe STi only. N/A Subaru's are normally 1:1 AWD.

Swapping in a manual is really no different from any other car. Subarus are NOT sophisticated. Pedals, clutch, and a few wiring changes. The park/neutral switch and inhibitor switch need to be grounded. The tcu can be unplugged from the ECM so the car doesn't expect it.

As a matter of fact the rom I have flashed on my car right now is from an automatic car.

If I could make a suggestion though, another option that I have really liked, and is very reasonably priced, is a "shift kit" for the 4eat. That make a huge difference in my experience.