Hey guys. I was thinking about getting a custom manual transmission for my 350 cause it's not even an option for the car. Just wanted some feed back. Good idea, bad idea? Expensive as hell? What do you guys think?

 

Your first problem is figuring out how to make the car continue to run after you remove the automatic that all the ECUs in the car expect to be there and need to communicate with.

 

There's no way around it?

 

Well back in my 1MZ-FE stage, when you swap our the auto for the manual. In order to trick the ecu you would need to uses some resistors (i forgot the value) and attach it to where the ecu connects to the tranny solenoid. That way when the ecu sends the signals to have it shift, it will still see a value/feedback from the resistor.

So who knows, grab some of those tranny manual for our cars and figure it out. Though i dont think you could use the 250 manual tranny and bolt it to the 350. I think it wont bolt up to it.

 

Yeah I was kinda thinking about that too.

I was wondering if ECU was such an issue, how they did it on the 250. I dunno. ECU crap confuses cause there's too many of them in our cars.

 

The IS250 MT doesn't have the same ECU as the 350.

The IS250 MT ECU is programmed to know there's a manual in it.

However, since we're not Lexus, we can't create our own custom ECU programming.

(and we can't just swap a 250 MT ECU in either since the engine is different)

Car ECUs are a lot more complex than the old days. The power -windows- on the 2IS have their own ECU.

 

I'd really like to know how you plan to simulate the input and output shaft speeds for this conversion to work. The OEM gearbox tells the ECM a LOT about what it is doing, how warm it is, etc. You'll need to do some kind of full emulation or the ECM will go into limp mode which would undoubtedly hurt power.

 

Just an update.

Lotus is coming out with a new vehicle called Evora. It will have a 2gr-fe motor with a 6-speed manual tranny.

So......... if you really really want to. You could look into the Evora and somehow incorporate some of the electronics and the 6 speed tranny made by Toyota into your IS350.

 

ohh man a manual is350 sweet let us know how it goes..

 

2GR-FE is not 2GR-FSE. It won't be a simple swap. More importantly, getting Lotus to sell you an ECM will be a feat all by itself.

 

Im sure its something close enough where he might/could make it work. Besides like i said if he really wants to do it. Im sure he will find away.

 

Haha.

Well, I'll check it out. I'm also keeping in mind costs.

I don't want to spend a ridiculous amount of money just to get a manual transmission, which seems to be the reality if I chose to get one.

 

Someone correct me if i'm wrong, but the evora will be a mid-engine car, the transmission will most likely be a transaxle setup, not the traditional transmission found in front-engine, rear drive cars.

There's a company on here that made an adapter to mate a 6-speed manual for the gs400/430. see if they can set something up.

 

woops! my bad, dang one step closer but yet one step back.

 

WHo would that be?