Auto to manual conversion

[alfie007]

I am thinking of buying a 325i Sport which is currently an automatic and would like to convert this to a manual. Does anyone have some good technical knowlege on this. So far, I have been told that the only difficulty is replacing the existing pedal box. I understand that these are normally fitted at an early stage of the cars assembly due to a lack of space. I have also been told that the ECU of an automatic is slightly different from that of a manual as extra circuits/electronics are required. If this is the case, would keeping the existing ECU be OK as a replacement manual gearbox would simply not require the additional automatic programing?

[Ant]

ECU is less of an issue, wiring mods are required to take the inhibitor switch out of the loop ( easy enough )

The pedal box is a nuts and bolts job, TBH you can add the clutch pedal as the shaft is already in place ( common to brake and clutch) you may need the bracket for the helper spring though

the holes are already in place for the clutch master cylinder, just need poking out ( 3 spot welds each )

HTH

and Welcome to the zone

[monkey]

i have done this mod to an e34 and the only prob that i had was modding the wiring for the starter as an auto will only start in park and neutral other than that it was easy to do and the engine runs fine with the auto ecu . that was an e34 an e30 may be the same