I recall someone on this board put a 6 spd manual transmission into their SRT6. Do you know who this person is. I'd like to find out more information on how the installation went. Thanks.

 

I know that HDDP did it.... but his was a stripped down RACE car....I think he had to change the fly wheel too...

 

Mike R is spot-on.

Technically, however, he transplanted the engine into the car that already had the transmission, instead of mating the transmission to a factory SRT-6.

As recall, updates fell short as he neared the end of the project.

Generally speaking, you won't gain much from the swap. While it's true that rowing the gears is more fun (I subscribe to that school of thought), it's also not nearly as fast and safe as the way the AMG auto can shift. If you are an EXCELLENT driver, you'll only match the shift-speed of the auto. I hazard to say you won't beat it though. You CAN completely manipulate when, where, and why you shift, which is always fun. And the six-speed is also roughly 1/3 the weight and no maintenance required.

Also, the auto trans is much tougher. The manual is good to roughly 400 horsepower, but the auto is good for almost 700.

 

I might argue that with you...I heard Jeff (MDSRT6) tell me multiple times he could feel his transmission beginning to give out on his nitrous runs which put him at about 500whp.

 

Hmm... Interesting.

Of course, I'm just quoting something I read on MB-world. Take it for what it's worth.

At any rate, the point I was making was that the manual has a bit lower power capacity...

 

The weakest link is the clutch and flywheel setup, with something more substantial, I think the manual would hold up to at least 400WHP, which is quite a large improvement over stock, roughly 2.5 times actually

 

400 WHP < 500 WHP

So, my statement of "a bit lower" capacity is accurate.

JUST BUSTIN YER BALLLLLZZZZZ

 

I've been working closely with Competition Clutch, met up with their engineer Monday. As soon as I get him a clutch and flywheel he is going to make a new single mass steel flywheel (and yes, it will have a trigger wheel for the stock crank position sensor) as well as a new clutch.

Clutches are rated by torque capacity, not horsepower. He says with a single disc 500ft lbs is very doable so thats the good news.

As far as swapping transmissions with the SRT motor... The SRT uses a different bolt pattern on the rear of the crank compared to the NA cars. This is due to the different flexplate/torque converter.

There are 2 ways to do the swap.

1) Machine a spacer/adapter for the NA flywheel. As a result of this you would need a spacer between motor and bellhousing, as well as a shorter driveshaft and revised shift linkages.

2) The way HDDP did it. He swapped cranks between his NA and SRT motor. The cranks are identical between motors. This requires a lot of work (not for your basic mechanic) as you basically have to pull the bottom end of the motor apart, you need new rod and main bearings. But before you can order new bearings you need to MIC the crank journals on both the rods and mains, in addition to the rods and crank main caps then do some math to figure out what bearing size to run.

You also need the clutch pedal from a M/T car as well as the driveshaft. This requires drilling out the pre-stamped indentations of the firewall and running a clutch line and lines for the master cylinder. You also need the shift linkages and such as well as the interior trim pieces.

The one thing no one knows is how the SRT PCM would like the manual, as the PCM on the SRT's also controls the automatic transmission. Without some clever fooling of the ecu it will probably throw codes. HDDP had an NA car that he swapped the SRT motor into. The difficulty here is you can't just run the NA ecu with reprogramming.

The SRT motors do not use MAF sensors, simply MAP. HDDP ran a standalone so he got around all of the above issues on the electrical side of the car. It took a lot of work to integrate the standalone with the CAN system. This also means the car can no longer be emissioned, as the OBD system is no longer there... and no one makes a standalone with OBD capacity as the programming has yet to be unlocked, nor intergrated into a non-oem ecu.

The cost alone is prohibitive, also unless you are very mechanically inclined and are a decent fabricator theres no way you would ever accomplish this project.

 

My SRT6 is my only auto car, I have a few 5 spd 'track oriented' cars. A couple weekends ago, I took the 6 to my favorite track, Auto Club Speedway. The autostick wants for nothing on the Roval course, downshift it manually and ignore the upshift, it will do that without any input from the driver 140 down the front strait, 125 thru corners 1/2. About 4 seconds a lap faster than my track car with 100 more WHP than the SRT. I think there's something to this autostick thing


Mike

 

Thats impressive!!!!

 

once you get used to it, it performs fine....auto's do rob HP, but it is what it is, so you adapt. I have ran auto's in drag racing since the '70's...unfortunetly, not much you can do with these without spending big bucks...silenoids can be replaced, there were some torque convertor mods, but they have dried up...ideally a way to make them shift instantly on command, and a 3500 stall in the convertor would be great for the drag racing crowd...some have done part of this, with some success, but it is costly to have it done. So, practice, and you will do fine...I haven't found many of today's cars, including the vette I once had, shift like the old factory muscle cars of my day...you have to mod the hell out of them to get to the old days standard. Bigger clutch, better stronger shift linkage, etc...so, I will live with the auto and all it's short comings...

 

back then everything was bigger, better, and just simpler

transmission now a days (automatics) are built more for driver comfort and reliability. Soft clutch material, low stall converters.. soft line pressures. All to make the driver of the car feel as if the transmission isnt even there.

It takes a lot of work getting our auto's to perform. The shift solenoid mod is a good start... I'd like to see the PCM side of things and see if theres a way to alter line pressure and shift points.

 

Show me where you read Derick used an N/A crank is his car. He used a flywheel from a 230 and retained the SRT crank. The SRT is all fully forged internals whereas the N/A is not. You gotta stop spreading this misinformation. You can put a manual behind an SRT motor with the right parts and the programming. No need to even crack open the crankcase. He tore his down as he installed cams and he went with the Motec SA because he wanted other options not available with the Bosch ME and because it was a gutted track only car.

 

The na internals are forged as well. The only difference between the two motors are the flywheel/flex plate bolt pattern and the pistons, as compression ratio is different.

You misread his thread. He said an easier option was the new flywheel but he could not fond one affordably. He point blank said he swapped cranks between motors to use the oem 6spd flywheel.

I'll link you in the morning. Going to bed

 

I also know why he went with the motec.

No one has ever attempted the 6spd swap with an srt vehicle. People were raising the questions about what the PCM would do when it didn't see certain inputs from sensors normally associated with the auto trans.

Like I said I will link you to specific posts later. I need sleep.

 

If you are referring to below, I PM'd Derick about this and that is not what he ended up doing. He had another spare SRT6 engine that he was planning on building after this as well. And for the Motec, he went with it as it had drive-by-wire and he could add telemetry to it later if he wanted to pay for the licensing.

If you make it to the next page, you see what he ended up doing.

 

Hmm, I read that thread over and over again. I never saw where he actually found the flywheel.

 

I just checked my garage and the swap can be done. I went the other way and put an srt motor in my manual limited. The flywheel is a problem, but nothing that an hour on the mill didn't fix. The biggest problem is the mb pcu. The stock program can not be adjusted to eliminate the auto trans. This means that without the signal from the auto the pcu will never engage the supercharger clutch and you run a low compression n/a motor. To solve this you need to find someone who not only has the ability to manipulate mb computers but also has a beta program for the 3.2.

 

A flywheel from the 2006/07 c230 should work, it has the same bolt pattern at the AMG crank in the SRT. Talk to Rcompart, he might be able to help with programming, He is the XfireECU God round these parts. He is a good dude

 

Wow.....based on the comments here as to the challenges associated with a transmission swap - this appears to be a pursuit of a solution to a problem that actually doesn't exist. Unless you really want a challenging project. Driving my old 911 around Sebring and shifting perfectly on every shift on every lap was possible, but didn't always happen. The auto stick in our SRT6 is a pretty intelligent trans and I find it to be a better shifter than me on a consistent basis. As another commenter mentioned, I just downshift exactly when needed and let the upshifts occur on their own.