Hey all, been on this site for a while now but never posted, so I thought I would give it a go

So I am the proud owner of a BA Fairmont Ghia v8, and recently at around 150xxx kms the BTR box failed and I lost reverse and first started slipping. My attitude towards my car has always been that when something brakes, upgrade. So rather than just replace the auto with another I decided to go down the path of a manual conversion.My budget started at like $2500 but I just kept adding and adding...
Started off looking at 5 speeds when I realised how expensive the t56 boxes are, but then found that the v8 5 speeds are t3650 rather than the t5 which is supposedly better, and the wreckers that had the full conversions available wanted around $2000 not including a tailshaft. I then started looking at t56 conversions but no one seemed to have any, I could only find one wrecker that wanted $2500 for the box alone.
But then after spending weeks searching gumtree I found someone selling a t56 with only 70xxx kms out of a wrecked GT, called him up and had a chat about it and he was more than willing to part with the full conversion minus flywheel for $1800 as the car was going to be scrapped anyway. Turns out he bought the wreck cheap for the front bar and the brakes, sold the engine and now the gearbox and made his money back and then some.
So went to pick it up, the pedal box still had to be removed from the car but my mechanic mate made short work of that. But it turns out that the box was missing the clutch slave and the clutch itself was looking worse for wear.
After calling around it turns out the wreckers wouldn't part with just a clutch slave and flywheel, so I splashed out and got a new Exedy HD clutch kit. Came in just over $900 posted.
So we got everything together and got stuck into the conversion one Friday in one of my best mates shed. Him being the mechanic did the vast bulk of the work, I helped where I could but having only basic mechanical knowledge it was a big learning experience for me. But everything went in with minimal dramas. The biggest problem came when we realized that the clutch kit did not come with bolts for the flywheel, and since the manual flywheel was thicker than the auto one reusing the bolts was not an option. It took the beter part of 3 hours of driving around shop to shop trying to find them, eventually found them at Amcap and cost almost $80 for 8 bolts.
Everything was done in about 12 hours but that's with a lot of messing about and chatting, and 3 hours+ in the middle getting the bolts and what not.
The car went into limp mode as expected, limited to 3k revs and 45kms an hour, and was running quite rough.
A week later it went in to BPT motorsports for a custom tune on the dyno and reflash of the pcm to manual. I opted for the Sniper tuner over the Xcal 3. Not only was it significantly cheaper but it was recommended by the boys at BPT as being better all round. They got it the car running beautifully, and I picked up about 30rwkw over the previous tune. It now makes 305.4rwkw, 227rwkw and about 620 nm of torque. The overall feel of the car is much, much more responsive than with the 4 speed and the exhaust sounds soooo much better.
All up cost about $4500 including a service

So sorry about the rant but thats the story of my manual converted Fairmont Ghia. Brief overview of the car: 3v ghia, fpv pod cai with 3 inch piping (i believe), pacemaker headers to a dual 2.5 inch mild steel exhaust system to quad dump tips, Kaas 2 way locker, vttr 6pot front calipers and 355mm slotted dba4000 rotors. Lowered on bf gt rims, lots of other aesthetic mods. Lots of mods to come

Last edited by Awesom-o on Sat Oct 05, 2013 9:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was wondering though how many others have converted their ghias to manual? As they only come auto from factory. I am aware of one other 6 speed manual ghia, 6 cyl, but surely there must be more?

I was interested in converting my 5 sp 3v XT to a 6sp as the boxes over this side are about $1600. I presume the clutch and flywheel are different between 5 & 6 sp!

As far as I'm aware they are the same. I just bought an exedy hd clutch kit off eBay, it didn't specify if it was for a particular box. It does have to be a v8 clutch and flywheel though, as I think the splines are different or something like that. So if you're just upgrading from a 5 to a six speed then all you should need is the box and the tailshaft, everything else should be compatible. And then wire in the reverse lockout or just force it in like I do at the moment.
I could be wrong though, so if anyone else could confirm it that would be great

How did you go with the clutch?