I've heard of a manual swap being done on the 3800 platform, I've read plenty of people asking the same question as me. But nobody with a straight answer of if and how to do it. And sadly the examples of the other cars that have done it the links to the examples didn't work so I've got not much for answers. I believe it would not only be possible but quite easy if the right transmission exists. And I do want it to be front wheel drive still and am looking at making 400hp at the end of my build ( I haven't started yet but have the car and am making a plan) also you guys are always so helpful and I just want to thank you genuinely.

 

That's because for 1000 people that ask the question, only 1 person actually does it. People love to talk about hardcore mods, but when it comes time to tear their car down to basically nothing and start pouring $100 bills into it, the number of people willing to actually do it goes down to almost nothing..

But heck, even for a simple 3800 top swap, I'd bet 50 people ask the question for 1 to actually do it and that's literally a $500 bolt on.


Frankly it's not a bad thing though that so few follow through. In the early days of L67 swaps, I saw no less than half a dozen cars ultimately end up in the junkyard because the person either ran out of money or talent to finish the job (or they did finish it but it was a basket case and never worked right). They took a perfectly good running / driving car and literally turned it into scrap metal trying to modify it.


Scratch the easy part, lol. No 2nd gen w body EVER came with a manual, so literally nothing bolts in. The shifter doesn't bolt up, the pedal box doesn't bolt up, theres no place to put the slave, the transmission doesn't bolt up (no drop in transmission mount although there are several that bolt up to the engine), no axles drop in, pcm needs tuned, wiring needs modified, etc etc.

It's certainly not that hard - there's probably 2 dozen+ 2nd gen w bodies that have been swapped. But it's far from a 'simple' job as there is light fabrication work involved.

Several transmissions will work : 282 / 284 used to be the old go to, but Id imagine they're tough to source now as they haven't been made in 30+ years. Those morphed into a few different NVG made iterations in the 90s which are essentially 282s with a few minor changes (slave location, etc) but they do have a different model number so searching just 282 won't bring them up. Over the last decade or so, the manual swaps have been mostly moving over to the slightly newer F23 (which is probably the most common for someone starting a manual swap today) with the occasional F40 sprinkled in.

My point is just that that there's more than half a dozen transmissions that will bolt up to the engine and work. It's all of the other stuff that takes time in the swap.

I presume you mean 400 wheel hp (as people modifying cars don't usually measure in crank horsepower as it's hard to measure for modern engines outside of a test lab)? If so, have you ever driven a 400 whp FWD car? IMO that's quite a lot unless you plan to run a really serious tire all the time (DR, 100 TW semi track tire, etc).

Given you haven't started modding yet, I'm just suggesting you may want to think about modding something that has better traction capability before getting that deep into things. It's almost like a parabolic curve where the car gets quicker and quicker with HP, but then you hit a certain point and it starts getting slower again as it's too hard to reliably put the power down - especially at street speeds on a street tire.



Back to your main question, there are quite a few threads out there about it, you just need to broaden your search. All 2nd gen w body cars are basically the same underneath, so Id expand your search to include other models - especially grand prix as Id bet easily 3/4 of those converted are GPs. Here's a few threads I found with just a couple minutes of Google search:

https://www.w-body.com/topic/58113-i...peed-f23-swap/

https://www.grandprixforums.com/1991...peed-swap.html

https://www.grandprixforums.com/gene...rand-prix.html

Sure the exterior sheet metal is different as are the plastic pieces inside, but once you strip all of that cosmetic stuff off - the structure underneath (the stuff that matters for this swap) is practically identical.