Feasible to swap automatic B18C into former manual D16Z6?

We may earn a small commission from affiliate links and paid advertisements. Terms

Apocalypto

New Member
Does anyone have any experience swapping an automatic into a former manual trans Civic hatch? I'm thinking of taking out my D16Z6 (head gasket's dead) and replacing it with a B18C with an Auto trans so the wife can use it.
 
Sure, it's very doable. You just go in reverse from swapping a manual into an automatic. :)

Keep in mind that the one of the transmission side mounts is different between the automatic and manual 5th gen chassis. You'll have to weld in a different one.

Swap the pedals, put in the automatic shifter box, play with reverse light wiring, make sure you have the automatic ECU. If you can swap a manual transmission car, this shouldn't be too much harder.
 
I've changed my mind. The shop I want to get the work done at is telling me they've done this kind of swap before and it's probably not worth it, since the labour would be pushing $2,000 and once you add that to the cost of motor and parts, you're in the ballpark of picking up a used 93 Civic for the same price. Seems logical. Ironically, this is ideal for me, since I can now tell my wife I'm better off buying her a used auto Civic or something, and I'll keep the Si for myself and swap in a B18 or something.
 
Last edited:
Good plan. Question though, is she unwilling to learn to drive a 5-speed?

Excellent question, Brutal. Let me give you some background here for fun. ;) Basically, my wife is Chinese, in her early 30's, and moved here to Canada a few years ago. Being from Shanghai and never needing to learn how to drive (their transit system is one of the best in the world), she finally took it up last year and succeeded in getting her license just this summer. I thought it would be a lot easier for her if she hired a Chinese coach, so she could understand things better, so we hired her a coach with a 2008 Camry hybrid. Now, it's really hard for people to learn to drive at a later stage in life. It's much easier to learn if you start young. But she's a real trooper, tenacious as hell (although sometimes it drives me nuts!) and I was proud of her when she got her license. Her coach was impressed her as well.

So one day a few months ago, I thought, okay it's time, and I asked her to come out and try manual. I took her to some back roads in an industrial park, with lots of wide, empty roads. Slowly but surely I brought her up to speed on the fine art of the "clutch". I was super happy when she was finally able to move forward without stalling, then bring it up to speed, slow down smoothly, clutch, brake, move it into neutral and start all over again. After 1/2 hour she was driving around the block, using 1, 2 and sometimes 3rd gear, smooth as hell. The session ended and both of us were happy with her progress. The next weekend, we decided to go out again, this time in an empty parking lot. That's when things got ugly.

Basically what happened was, she was going around and around in the lot, as per my instructions, and she was smiling like happy kid, really having fun, when suddenly she says to me, "I'm going to try parking" and instead of telling her not to try it (what was i thinking??) I let her turn towards the parking spot instead of continuing in a turning pattern in the empty lot. She was rolling towards the end of the space when suddenly she HIT THE GAS. I yelled at her to stop but that just made her stomp the gas even harder! The curb, grass, sidewalk and road were flashing up on us and I knew the shit had hit the fan. She whipped right over the curbs, grass, into the street, and I grabbed the wheel and finally got her to take her foot off the gas while grabbing the handbrake. Thankfully there was no one on the road at the time, so she car just blasted across the street and into the parking lot on the other side, but she had brought it up to such a high speed that the front left tire popped when she hit a curb hard on the other side of the street, so that was the only fatality. Thankfully there was no traffic or pedestrians in the street at the time, otherwise it could have been MUCH UGLIER.

So that's the story of her attempts at manual thus far. I've told her I'm willing to get her going on it again, but it scared the willies out of her so she isn't into it (for now). I'm going to keep on her, and this time I'm not going to let my guard down, keeping her on a very strict learning path. I shouldn't have let her try turning into the parking spot, but I had no idea she would suddenly mistake the gas pedal for the brake. wtf is that? hahaha.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top