What can I expect with a manual swap?

[Canucked]

Looking for info for a manual swap into an '05 outback sedan 3.0R. The little info I've been able to find says the ECU will not function without the TCU. Looking for anyone with knowledge on the subject so I can determine if I should even bother with it. Can it be 5 speed swapped with some form of TCU trickery? Or is 6 speed spec B with 3.0R spec B ecu the only option?

[Konns]

I would like to know that too!

[rougeben83]

Look in the 4th gen Legacy section, there's an active thread on it now. The guy basically had to remove his entire dash and front interior to replace the ECU, BIM, and one other module to get everything to play ball with the manual. Being that you have an H6 (which never had a wide release in manual trim), getting your ECU to work will be the key in your swap.

[RWebb]

you can expect a nightmare

[cBax]

I 6spd swapped my auto XT. The mechanical part is somewhat easy, just get all the manual car transmission parts and fabricate a cross member. There are half a dozen circuits that need to be wired to the ECU and the TCU is removed. Then for the 2.5, you just flash a manual rom to the car.

 

In your case, there is no manual 3.0 USDM rom. But if the sensors and wiring is the same as JDM or ADM or EDM, then you can try to flash one of those MT roms at your own risk. Doing so has the risk of bricking your ECU, but it might work.

 

I ran my swap before changing to the manual ROM. The only issue was the canbus code. If you can live with that, just swap it and forget it.

 

Unless the 05 3.0 has a different canbus system than my 05 xt, there is no reason to switch the cluster or key or any of that stuff. I think it gets harder in 07.