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Shifting method for "drag only" MT to auto swap.

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Nate Crisman

10+ Year Contributor
749
6
Nov 26, 2008
Blairstown, New_Jersey
I'm planning to swap my 1g awd manual car to an automatic trans. I have a complete 92 awd auto car here for parts, and I'm familiar with all the mechanical details of the swap. What I'm not 100% sure on is the least expensive method of shifting the car. I do not want to swap in the auto specific engine wiring harness or the tcu. The car is a trailer queen drag car, so I would be fine with the most basic method.

Any advise would be appreciated.
 
Well, the easiest and FREE way of going about things would be to just swap in the auto tranny, stock auto shifter, and shifter cable and do the Kiggly manu-matic mod. Essentially, this mod gives you 100% line pressure and forces you to shift the car manually as this method eliminates the need for a TCU at all. The guys at English Racing have done this method for a few customers and it has worked out great for them. You could also swap in a nice B&M ratchet shifter or something, but the costs will be much higher.

Kiggly Racing - kigglyracing.com
http://www.kigglyracing.com/tech/Pics/1g Auto Manual Shift Wiring Small.JPG

I almost went this route myself, but I decided on swapping all of the wiring harnesses when I did my auto swap. I am now using an EPROM TCU and a ForeignMuscle.com TCU chip that shifts for me automatically. I absolutely love it! AUTO FTMFW!
 
That looks to be EXACTLY what I'm looking for. Free & DIY goes great with an essentially free auto swap & stock converter.

I'll do a little research to tonight, but that seems completely workable. I should add that the auto engine wiring harness is in poor condition, so I have zero qualms about chopping off plugs. The trans seems to be stuck in 3rd gear, which I'm hoping is actually a bad Tcu and not a bad solenoid.
 
With the above being said. The Lucas/English guys don't shift their own cars either.. Seems to be easiest to simply let the car do it for you. I'm on that thin line between Manual and Auto so I have to feel in control. Then again, my auto has a manual valve-body so I have no choice but to shift it myself LOL.
 
With the above being said. The Lucas/English guys don't shift their own cars either.. Seems to be easiest to simply let the car do it for you. I'm on that thin line between Manual and Auto so I have to feel in control. Then again, my auto has a manual valve-body so I have no choice but to shift it myself LOL.

This is a true statement...

Lucas' 10.0 HTA68 'little auto' is still controlled by the TCU as it is a factory '92 auto awd. Jeff Bush's 42R drag car, the 'big auto', uses a B&M ratchet shifter, but has AEM shifting for him.

I only mentioned the English guys because they usually recommend the Kiggly mod for auto conversions due to the low cost and few parts needed. I opted against it when they offered as I wanted to run a TCU.
 
I just want the simples and cheapest option. Having the car shift itself is no value for me, I'm not going to drive it on the road at all. If I can use the oem shifter assembly, even better vs paying money for an aftermarket shifter.

This is going on a budget "built from part-outs" racecar. About the only new part on the car is gaskets, everything else is second or third hand junk.
 
I wonder which AEM box the guys at English racing using to shift the auto transmission?
 
I wonder which AEM box the guys at English racing using to shift the auto transmission?

As far as I know they are just using the standard AEM EMS v1 box. I'm not sure what specific model exactly and I guess I could be wrong altogether that it's only the standard EMS box but I've never seen another box in the car before and I crew for them fairly often.

I would just e-mail/call them up sometime and ask. :)

English Racing
360-210-7484
 
Both of those cars were out before the V2, so even if they are running the V2 currently, at some point they had the V1..
 
I also went the kiggly mod route. If you do decide to shift manually, make sure the shifter you buy allows you to ratchet in both directions. FYI, the B&M Quicksilver is probably the cheapest in that style & works great for me.

Listen to the commentary on my 1-2 shift, LOL!!

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DhurPp_BRPE?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DhurPp_BRPE?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
 
Both of those cars were out before the V2, so even if they are running the V2 currently, at some point they had the V1..

Well the aem boxes for our cars do not support automatic transmission control. I'm wondering if maybe they use the universal box which does support it, however just because the box dosent support it, dosent mean they haven't figured something else out!

I'm really just curious. Having the ability of a full auto setup and being able to adjust shift points on the fly would be better then having to have a tcu sent out, more reliable as well.

I'll have to get intouch with English to see if they can offer any support!
 
Quick question here.... and dont mean to highjack your thread, but possible help you to. With the Kiggly mod you can delete the tcu completely correct? (from my understanding) Also, wouldnt this allow for you to delete most/if not all of the harness ??

Thanks and appreciate any help you can give us,

Derrick Hofstetter
 
...With the Kiggly mod you can delete the tcu completely correct? (from my understanding) Also, wouldnt this allow for you to delete most/if not all of the harness ??

Thanks and appreciate any help you can give us,

Derrick Hofstetter

Yes, no TCU is needed & you don't need any of the trans related harness. What I did was use the harness side shift selector & solenoid connectors to make mine plug-n-play.
 
From what it looks like to me, this Kiggly Mod simply involves making connections between two lengths of wires that come out of the trans. I don't think it involves any of the wiring harness at all. I'll check it out today, but it's basically connecting the solenoids in the valve body directly to the gear selector switch and adding in switched 12v to power the noids.

so by bumping the shifter forward, the selector switch will actually power the shift solenoids rather than the way the factory system works: (shift selector switch tell TCU what gear you want...and TCU outputs power to solenoids to perform gear changes)

Yes, no TCU is needed & you don't need any of the trans related harness. What I did was use the harness side shift selector & solenoid connectors to make mine plug-n-play.


Beat me to it! And I was thinking about doing the same thing with mine...cutting the harness side plugs off to make a patch harness so I didn't have to cut the plugs off the trans side of things, in the event I wanted to sell/swap the trans.:thumb:
 
Well the aem boxes for our cars do not support automatic transmission control. I'm wondering if maybe they use the universal box which does support it, however just because the box dosent support it, dosent mean they haven't figured something else out!

I'm really just curious. Having the ability of a full auto setup and being able to adjust shift points on the fly would be better then having to have a tcu sent out, more reliable as well.

I'll have to get intouch with English to see if they can offer any support!

I have controlled a Auto trans with a 1300 AEM box before. The reason it's listed as incompatible is because AEM doesn't want you to try it.
 
I wired my conversion with the kiggly wiring setup. I have a Hurst Promatic Ratchet shifter and street drive the car as well. Love this setup.
 
Well the aem boxes for our cars do not support automatic transmission control. I'm wondering if maybe they use the universal box which does support it, however just because the box dosent support it, dosent mean they haven't figured something else out!

I'm really just curious. Having the ability of a full auto setup and being able to adjust shift points on the fly would be better then having to have a tcu sent out, more reliable as well.

I'll have to get intouch with English to see if they can offer any support!



The 1g AEM box has always been able to control the auto trans in a 1g. So your info is very wrong.
 
Ok....the Kiggly mod worked great. I have yet to hook up the OD switch (stupid me thought I could just run out 3rd gear, but didn't do the math that 130mph would be like 8000rpm). One thing I don't like is the stock shifter has no detent between L, 2, and D making it way to easy to just skip 2nd gear and go directly into 3rd. Im going to see about either cutting a notch or getting a ratchet shifter.

Anyway, here's my results thread from testing the auto swap:
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/drag-strip/383501-dsmpartout-1g-10-6-128-auto-swapped.html
 
This is the thread I have been waiting for. I have a 90 awd 5 speed and just picked up a 92 auto awd.

Don't mean to hijack the thread but what all is needed to do the swap?

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
 
Purchased mine through Summit. I chopped up the original shifter, off the base plate. Then I used a steel plate to rivet on to the oem shifter base. That now gives you a nice flat surface for your favorite ratchet shifter.
 
Purchased mine through Summit. I chopped up the original shifter, off the base plate. Then I used a steel plate to rivet on to the oem shifter base. That now gives you a nice flat surface for your favorite ratchet shifter.

Hey Hugo, you should post up a picture of how you connected the ratchet shifter's cable.
 
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