I am itching to embark on auto '95 SC400 to 5 speed manual x-mission project (W58). I toyed with the gated shifter but at this time discarding it as to me it is very little gain. [not trying to offend who have done this change ...and if the 5 speed conversion does not go anywhere I may come back to this.]

So as I sat in the car and visualized where the shift lever 'should' come out. My wrist naturally wants to come almost above the ash-tray. Very close to where the park position is on the auto-shifter. The reality is 'should' does not apply and the shift lever will come where it comes.

Folks who have this conversion or even the folks who have a 5 speed, can you please comment on the position of the shifter. [I have not driven or even sat in a 5 speed SC]. I know some will say, move the seat back ,,, I am 1 inch away form max back (comfortable for me to hold the steering). the additional 1 inch still means 1 inch away from the ash-tray.

So do you guys with 5speed keep hitting the back of the driver seat for gears 2/4?


Salim

 

Salim, I don't have a conversion car or SC400 model but I can tell you that in the correct position regardless of whether you have an early SC300 extension housing ("toploader") W58 or a "tripod" version W58 you won't hit the driver's seat with your elbow while shifting into 2, 4 or Reverse.

It's actually very well placed and for a car not specifically marketed as an all-out sports car it sure does set up the seating and shifting position in an intuitive location like any other driver's car.

My only complaint has ever been how the standard cup holder behind it becomes more or less useless for its intended purpose of holding beverages in a manual transmission SC/Soarer. Not that you can't use it while shifting but it's just not ideal to put drinks there and expect to have optimum range of movement with your arm to shift.

In early 92-94 SC300's the extended shifter housing comes up a couple of inches before the center point in the shift bezel boot (sorry, I don't remember the measurement offhand). There, you need a "swan" bend shifter to make it work. The OEM 92-94 SC shifter or OEM 91-93 Soarer shifters have the most perfect placement but you can use an MK3 shifter or Suprasport shifter. There is also a recent shifter that has just been made available from Australia from a company called "Cube".

Note that all of the above only applies if you use a 1992-1994 SC300 W58. An MK3 Supra W58 is not only a weaker transmission but its extended shifter housing is NOT the same as the factory extended W58 housing in the early SC300 W58's.

If you have a tripod W58 it's going to come out even closer to the driver, making the shifter come up right where that boot opening it since in that application the shifter is straight.

Note that the Auto SC300 or SC400 tunnels need to be cut. IF you were to swap in a manual tunnel to use all the factory sealing/gasket hardware under the plastic console/boot there are two versions: one from Lexus for the 92-94 SC 5-speeds and one from Lexus or Toyota that is the same part for the the 1995-1997 SC300 5-speed and ALL Supra MKIV manual transmission applications.

 

the v160 shifter sits back more and its lower but i dont think your interested in that trans, they are over priced but you could just get a full swap and save money

 

Thank you both; Kahnbb6 for the advice and mikef for the photos.

Mikef, what a delight to see such clean interior which rivals a new car. Do you find the position not so natural?

Salim

 

That's an understatement. Mine got dirtier than that just from thinking about getting in it.

 

I feel that it's directly in the right spot for a 5,10 person. your welcome to sit down in my car to test.

 

^^ That is a VERY clean interior, mikef. That's the definition of "restored" right there. It looks perfect.

For the record, another member on here who performed a V160 swap ended up cutting, remolding and re-finishing the SC manual shifter bezel to accommodate the changed shifter position of the 6-speed. The end result was a stock looking bezel/boot opening that centered the lever. I've forgotten the name of the thread but it was a meticulous DIY.

 

mikef is pretty dead on there. With the w58 your shifter on the 1uz will sit forward and higher. Here's a picture of mine I just ran down and took real quick, pardon the mess my interior could use some serious cleaning and I'm waiting for my oem style shifter boot and bezel to arrive next week, I actually just finished my swap and haven't done much since.



oh, hey.. my passenger side door light fell out.. again...
Jeez my interior looks so crappy in comparison to mikef's lol

Also I should add, I'm 6' and I don't have any issues with the shifter placement, infact it feels perfect, definitely better than my 4th gen camaro's placement. My biggest issue is hitting my head on the roof, because that's almost a daily occurence that a nice bucket seat could fix

 

it's 97-sc300 is the name of the guy on here who cut the bezel, but I didn't do mine, no issues hitting. also I think a quick shifter will be less throw so I assume if I upgrade to that shifter it will be even better, I say it's 1/8 clearance before it hits. the supra tunnel fits perfectly

 

Kobrakai:
Thank you for sharing your picture. You are brave to post yours right after mike. (everybody would be). In any case it is helping me. I am getting my visual clues from where the lever is coming out of the opening. It seems yours is about an 1 to 2(max) inches towards the front and it looks like the lever is straight (not the swan shaped). So did you get the W58 with the tripod? And did you need to cut the tunnel (towards the the hood/tail)? Since we are talking about conversion, I assume you too have a Sc400 ..which used to have an autoBox.

Salim

 

Haha yeah, that beautiful restored interior is damn intimidating mikef! Tell me your secrets

And bingo, I've got a w58 with the tripod shifter. Mine is pulled from a 1993(? woops forgot the year lol) supra 5spd. As for the tunnel, I had to do very minor cutting to where the shifter comes through, I'd say I cut an inch towards the hood. After that everything went up and bolted in great.

Also remember to consider that different swap methods will yield different results: I went with the ksracing full bellhousing kit (flywheel, clutch, pressure plate, clutch fork TOB slave cylinder etc etc) with quite a few modifications ( the biggest being that I went with a hydraulic throwout bearing because it's just not possible to use a slave cylinder/fork setup in these swaps due to no clearance because of where the catalytic converters are placed for the 1uz and I also cut off the extension of aluminum sticking out of the bellhousing to mount the slave cylinder, again clearance issues) and since I did not use an adapter plate to adapt either a 2jz bellhousing or a 1uz bellhousing, my setup may(?) sit a bit closer than others did. At first I was concerned it would sit back further in the car causing potential driveshaft fitment issues, but once I got it mounted in and realized that mine sat so close that I could put the crossmember in backwards and it lined up perfectly, I kinda figured that I had a very unique setup

EDIT: I should also ask, how much are you willing to invest in the swap and how much HP are you wanting to put to the wheels? This is all also a deciding factor on which swap you might want to consider. If you want to stay as close as you can to a near oem looking install and simply want a 5 speed in your sc400 and don't plan on making more power or plan on maybe having a few small power making mods (medium profile cams for example), an sc300 w58 should do you well. If you're looking to make a little more power but want to keep things street friendly, the supra mk4 w58 is known to hold more power (reinforced input shaft, which is where the w58 almost always fails first) and I've seen people putting out over 400whp on this trans and having no issues, granted safe numbers would probably be maybe 330ish whp (my personal goal via a vortech setup). If you want the piece of mind, the r154 has been tried and proven much more than the supra w58 since the supra version of the transmission can be difficult to come by, to say the least (To confirm mine was indeed from a supra, I actually specifically hunted down a guy doing a 2jzgte swap to get his leftovers lol). If you really want to go crazy down the road though, look into a nissan transmission swap. Specifically the ka24de transmission swap. While I have no seen it done myself, I've read quite a bit around here on people who have gone with this swap and are pushing some pretty looney power figures. I know there's also a v160 swap option but that's a major investment that'd be probably a little overkill for what it sounds like you want.

 

I am learning right now and at this stage, do not intend to modify the engine [A fever/bug I have not caught just yet ,, but you never know what future holds ]. I have a 95 SC4 [obdI ,,, which makes it lot easier to tinker with]. Plan is to retain the looks of stock as possible.

Early look tells me to budget 1500 for the transmission side and about 500 for clutch and finish items including cluster. I would like to get W58 close to 500 and then service it up.

I would prefer to have the stick, come up about 2" ahead of where the auto-shifter comes up. Sorry guys I am placing the ergonomics ahead of the function.

Salim

 

Alright, then a w58 is probably the best option for your application. I'm getting my OEM shifter boot in the mail today so I'll take some pictures with that installed so it gives a better idea where the shifter sits in my situation. I know there was another member who used a mk3 w58 and a gooseneck shifter and it had the shifter sitting much more forward. Here's the thread https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sc-...-swappage.html

I'll probably be posting at least a brief writeup and pictures/videos of my swap experience in a week or so since there's no documentation of anyone doing a swap with the ksracing swap kit yet.