Evo x sst to 5 speed swap complete!!!!!
Oct 30, 2017, 04:27 PM
#1
Newbie
Thread Starter
Evo x sst to 5 speed swap complete!!!!!
Hello all. I decided to finally share my ENTIRE SST to 5 speed swap from start to finish that includes every detail.
NOTE - process and parts are the same for the Ralliart but the wiring IS DIFFERENT and needs repinning, im not sure what this entails, but that's all I know
Car is a 2010 Evo SE (SST transmission in a GSR trim). Purchased it december 2015 with 48k miles with plans as a daily car. I liked the transmission when I purchased it, without a hesitation of wanting to drive a 5 speed because I thought the DCT was a crazy awesome thing to have in an evo. After a month the clutches started to slip (stock), and upon some quick searches brought up some nightmare stories and issues dealing with the strength and longetivity of the SST. I pulled the tranny shortly after buying it and installed new stock clutches with a fluid change, did this myself easy peasy.
Fast forward a year of daily driving, around 20k miles on my 40 mile commute to work, never really gave me any issues besides the clutches until my fork 4 randomly gave way the car would skip even gears. I decided to once again, pull the transmission and took it upon myself to fix it. Mission successful. Put tranny back in car and decided to go with business as usual. As the power needs in my car grew, so did the budget. Seeing the price of some clutches to be able to withstand a 6466 were anywhere between $1600-$4500 depending on clutch stage and company. But having worked on a few failed SST's, some simple fork fixes, to seeing them utterly destroyed by a solenoid failing and costing in the upward range of $5k to fix. I quickly saw myself babying my car and not enjoying it in fear of it breaking again. Dont want to trust a computer or a solenoid to make my wallet cry and withdraw my 401k to fix it.
As many people know, my car has had a plethora of issues since purchase, including roasted head, timing chain failure, mivec gears exploding, transfer cases failing, to the transmission, I've literally rebuilt the entire car from the ground up, and its hard to sell a SST car as I kept getting lowballed, and didnt want to abandon my car as I've went through every bolt and part and dedicated time to learning it. After tough consideration, it was time to swap to a 5 speed.
A good friend of mine by the name of Mark did this swap on his ralliart, along with an FP red, convinced me to start the swap. I decided if my SST sold I would start, and it did, while working flawlessly up until removal at 68k.
My buddy gave me a parts list and it is EXACTLY as I show
GSR PARTS - transmission, flywheel of choice (I chose fidanza lw flywheel), clutch of choice (I went with ACT 6 puck) shifter, shifter console, shifter calbles, console, driver side transmission mount, driver side CV axle, brake booster (this is important as the CMC fluid is one with the brake fluid), clutch pedal, brake pedal, your choice of CMC and slave cylinder, transfercase seal (the MR t case is a direct fit no matter what anybody says, the seal is only difference). THE BIGGEST THING I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH IS THE HARNESS. GET THE SAME MODEL YEAR HARNESS, but onto that later. Front chassy harness (harness with engine bay fuse box) and engine harness. Now onto the fun part!
I decided to tear out everything SST related, and start from there before ordering parts. There are multiple guides for these first steps, so I'm not going to go into depth. I removed transmission, transmission oil cooler, brake pedal.
I sent my ECU to my buddy to get him to bench flash my car to a GSR (yes you can still use the same ECU and ETACS)
WIRE HARNESS REMOVAL
Ok, this was the fun one. Now, your front chassy harness runs from the fuse box in the engine bay, through the firewall, to the console, passenger side, and driver. Passenger side theres 1 single plug that runs near your foot for the AYC pump. Disconnect that. Next, remove the 4 bolts that hold your heater core in and pull the heater core out around 3 inches, next (assuming you have your SST shifter removed and assembly) there is a black box behind your airbag box, that is your yaw sensor, unbolt the 2 bolts and disconnect it DO NOT DROP IT. There is a plug on that same loom, unplug that too.
On the driver side the harness runs to your gas pedal, brake pedal, and etacs box. Remove your lower airbag under your steering wheel, and main trim piece. please write down or take a picture of the plugs you have to remove. Disconnect the plugs from the etacs box, unbolt the ground next to where the clutch pedal should be, and the 2 plugs that run to the floor harness next to your hood popper, one is a brown plug and one is a big white plug. Now to pull it out. Have a buddy in the engine bay, while you FIRST feed the DRIVER side wiring out (those were the plugs you pulled from the etacs) have your buddy pull them while you feed them out. This is where it gets challenging. I opted against pulling my entire dash apart, as there are big clips that hold the passenger harness into the firewall that you literally cannot reach. Now you and your buddy need to YANK the harness back and forth pretty hard, to break them free of the clips, once theyre broken free you can pull it through and start un plugging everything in the engine bay.
Now this part made me lose sleep but I will explain why. So entire intact chassy harnesses are hard to come by, without being destroyed. My buddy gave me a harness out of a 2012 GSR (I have a 2010) and decided to install it. Upon installation, 90% of the plugs matched up, minus the 2 floor harness plugs I mentioned earlier, so after my buddy tirelessly read through the entire electrical diagram, I decided to swap the wires over to make them compatible with the 2010 harness. Long story short after soldering over 100 wires it did not work. The car could not recognise the ECU. I found a cheap intact 2010 harness so I ordered it, and installed it in reverse steps as mentioned earlier, plug and play.
CLUTCH PEDAL INSTALL
So this is where you get to put a giant hole in your firewall!!! YAY!!!! I opted for an OEM CMC for now, to get it to work. So theres a bracket that holds the wires up behind the etacs box, theres a pinch weld in the firewall right where the GSR clutch will be. Theres 2 bolts, a top left bolt and a bottom right bolt, snap the bottom right bolt off or cut it. Mount the top left clutch pedal hole to the bolt hole, mark your holes for the 3 remaining mount holes, and mark a spot EXACTLY IN THE MIDDLE of the inner part of the clutch pedal.
Take a 3/8 drill bit and drill out your pedal mount holes, and use a ONE AND A HALF INCH holesaw bit on the center hole for your CMC. Drill them out, have a buddy push the 3/8 bolts through and mount the pedal, install your CMC, simple as that.
I decided to leave the paddles on the car, just as a reminder of what I accomplished. Once your brake booster arrives, remove the 2 brake lines running to your master cylinder, and drain. Remove brake booster and install the GSR equivalent, install the CMC rubber tube to the brake booster clutch fluid nipple and fill with fluid, open the slave cylinder bleeder and let it gravity bleed. While that is gravity bleeding install your T case (DONT FORGET YOUR SEAL, its an o ring that goes around the diff hub so it doesnt leak), install axles (passenger axle stays the same, driver axle changes to GSR) and i opted with redline cocktail transmission fluid. Filled transmission. Bled the clutch and brakes, sat car on ground. Installed engine harness and ECU, put engine bay back together, had a no start. After some thought i switched an etacs plug with the fuel pump plug, started right up. Now the dash will be a christmas tree until you encode the etacs. I got the etacs decoder and changed all values that were sst related to 5 speed and all lights are gone, with a normal GSR dash.
After driving it for 4 days and putting roughly 300 miles on it, I love it. It feels like a race car now. I'd say it was totally worth the swap. And the total parts cost was around $3500. I got most my parts from Mad Scientist Motorsports down in jacksonville FL, Mazdaspeed Parts out of TX, and my buddy Mark. All the SST parts sold for $2500 (including SST) so really $1k out of pocket and that includes the act 6 puck.... Isn't bad. It's hard to go into detail, as almost everything besides the wiring harness is unbolt MR part, bolt on GSR. I can not speak as much for the ralliart crowd, but it is virtually similar besides needing to cut out a spot on the splash well for the transmission to fit. If anybody has any questions please ask. This was an enjoyable swap...And there are ways out of your SST without trading your baby in. Overall labor was about 40 hours, and pretty much was guessing as I went, whilst on jackstands in my driveway, i can realistically say a shop should be able to do this in about 35 hours for anybody looking for a labor quote if a shop desires to tackle it.
ENCODING ETACS TO GET RID OF SST WARNINGS
1 YEAR AFTER SWAP UPDATE
Okay, so it's been one year since the swap. Built motor, Chris Robbins 35r turbo, alot has changed on the car and some issues had arisen. I had a few unknown wiring gremlins come about for the wheel speed sensors that I could not for the life of me fix, as well as loosing functions of my AWC selections (tarmac, snow, gravel) and the car was running essentially open diff. Open diff at 500+ HP mustang is not fun and the car will not hook and drives like doo-doo in the corners. I had to install an Accusump so I can manually pressurize the system so I'd have working AWD - although not controlled by a compter, problem solved - for straight lines.
After being a transmission builder at Kozmic Motorsports for a number of months now my opinion has rightfully changed about the SST. Living in Houston traffic is a nightmare, my stock CMC had failed, infamous 3rd gear synchro wear, the grass isn't always greener on the other side. The SST has came a long way and we still are not done creating parts that make it even better. If I were to do it again I'd have just built the SST. It all comes down to what you like to drive. Is the 5 speed more fun? Not in traffic. Is it more reliable? No. They both equally have their drawbacks you just have to pick your battles. It is alot of work and sometimes the car won't function as proper as the car is an electrical nightmare. Hope this gives people insight of the before and after.
NOTE - process and parts are the same for the Ralliart but the wiring IS DIFFERENT and needs repinning, im not sure what this entails, but that's all I know
Car is a 2010 Evo SE (SST transmission in a GSR trim). Purchased it december 2015 with 48k miles with plans as a daily car. I liked the transmission when I purchased it, without a hesitation of wanting to drive a 5 speed because I thought the DCT was a crazy awesome thing to have in an evo. After a month the clutches started to slip (stock), and upon some quick searches brought up some nightmare stories and issues dealing with the strength and longetivity of the SST. I pulled the tranny shortly after buying it and installed new stock clutches with a fluid change, did this myself easy peasy.
Fast forward a year of daily driving, around 20k miles on my 40 mile commute to work, never really gave me any issues besides the clutches until my fork 4 randomly gave way the car would skip even gears. I decided to once again, pull the transmission and took it upon myself to fix it. Mission successful. Put tranny back in car and decided to go with business as usual. As the power needs in my car grew, so did the budget. Seeing the price of some clutches to be able to withstand a 6466 were anywhere between $1600-$4500 depending on clutch stage and company. But having worked on a few failed SST's, some simple fork fixes, to seeing them utterly destroyed by a solenoid failing and costing in the upward range of $5k to fix. I quickly saw myself babying my car and not enjoying it in fear of it breaking again. Dont want to trust a computer or a solenoid to make my wallet cry and withdraw my 401k to fix it.
As many people know, my car has had a plethora of issues since purchase, including roasted head, timing chain failure, mivec gears exploding, transfer cases failing, to the transmission, I've literally rebuilt the entire car from the ground up, and its hard to sell a SST car as I kept getting lowballed, and didnt want to abandon my car as I've went through every bolt and part and dedicated time to learning it. After tough consideration, it was time to swap to a 5 speed.
A good friend of mine by the name of Mark did this swap on his ralliart, along with an FP red, convinced me to start the swap. I decided if my SST sold I would start, and it did, while working flawlessly up until removal at 68k.
My buddy gave me a parts list and it is EXACTLY as I show
GSR PARTS - transmission, flywheel of choice (I chose fidanza lw flywheel), clutch of choice (I went with ACT 6 puck) shifter, shifter console, shifter calbles, console, driver side transmission mount, driver side CV axle, brake booster (this is important as the CMC fluid is one with the brake fluid), clutch pedal, brake pedal, your choice of CMC and slave cylinder, transfercase seal (the MR t case is a direct fit no matter what anybody says, the seal is only difference). THE BIGGEST THING I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH IS THE HARNESS. GET THE SAME MODEL YEAR HARNESS, but onto that later. Front chassy harness (harness with engine bay fuse box) and engine harness. Now onto the fun part!
I decided to tear out everything SST related, and start from there before ordering parts. There are multiple guides for these first steps, so I'm not going to go into depth. I removed transmission, transmission oil cooler, brake pedal.
I sent my ECU to my buddy to get him to bench flash my car to a GSR (yes you can still use the same ECU and ETACS)
WIRE HARNESS REMOVAL
Ok, this was the fun one. Now, your front chassy harness runs from the fuse box in the engine bay, through the firewall, to the console, passenger side, and driver. Passenger side theres 1 single plug that runs near your foot for the AYC pump. Disconnect that. Next, remove the 4 bolts that hold your heater core in and pull the heater core out around 3 inches, next (assuming you have your SST shifter removed and assembly) there is a black box behind your airbag box, that is your yaw sensor, unbolt the 2 bolts and disconnect it DO NOT DROP IT. There is a plug on that same loom, unplug that too.
On the driver side the harness runs to your gas pedal, brake pedal, and etacs box. Remove your lower airbag under your steering wheel, and main trim piece. please write down or take a picture of the plugs you have to remove. Disconnect the plugs from the etacs box, unbolt the ground next to where the clutch pedal should be, and the 2 plugs that run to the floor harness next to your hood popper, one is a brown plug and one is a big white plug. Now to pull it out. Have a buddy in the engine bay, while you FIRST feed the DRIVER side wiring out (those were the plugs you pulled from the etacs) have your buddy pull them while you feed them out. This is where it gets challenging. I opted against pulling my entire dash apart, as there are big clips that hold the passenger harness into the firewall that you literally cannot reach. Now you and your buddy need to YANK the harness back and forth pretty hard, to break them free of the clips, once theyre broken free you can pull it through and start un plugging everything in the engine bay.
WIRE HARNESS INSTALL
Now this part made me lose sleep but I will explain why. So entire intact chassy harnesses are hard to come by, without being destroyed. My buddy gave me a harness out of a 2012 GSR (I have a 2010) and decided to install it. Upon installation, 90% of the plugs matched up, minus the 2 floor harness plugs I mentioned earlier, so after my buddy tirelessly read through the entire electrical diagram, I decided to swap the wires over to make them compatible with the 2010 harness. Long story short after soldering over 100 wires it did not work. The car could not recognise the ECU. I found a cheap intact 2010 harness so I ordered it, and installed it in reverse steps as mentioned earlier, plug and play.
CLUTCH PEDAL INSTALL
So this is where you get to put a giant hole in your firewall!!! YAY!!!! I opted for an OEM CMC for now, to get it to work. So theres a bracket that holds the wires up behind the etacs box, theres a pinch weld in the firewall right where the GSR clutch will be. Theres 2 bolts, a top left bolt and a bottom right bolt, snap the bottom right bolt off or cut it. Mount the top left clutch pedal hole to the bolt hole, mark your holes for the 3 remaining mount holes, and mark a spot EXACTLY IN THE MIDDLE of the inner part of the clutch pedal.
Take a 3/8 drill bit and drill out your pedal mount holes, and use a ONE AND A HALF INCH holesaw bit on the center hole for your CMC. Drill them out, have a buddy push the 3/8 bolts through and mount the pedal, install your CMC, simple as that.
FINAL ASSEMBLY
I decided to leave the paddles on the car, just as a reminder of what I accomplished. Once your brake booster arrives, remove the 2 brake lines running to your master cylinder, and drain. Remove brake booster and install the GSR equivalent, install the CMC rubber tube to the brake booster clutch fluid nipple and fill with fluid, open the slave cylinder bleeder and let it gravity bleed. While that is gravity bleeding install your T case (DONT FORGET YOUR SEAL, its an o ring that goes around the diff hub so it doesnt leak), install axles (passenger axle stays the same, driver axle changes to GSR) and i opted with redline cocktail transmission fluid. Filled transmission. Bled the clutch and brakes, sat car on ground. Installed engine harness and ECU, put engine bay back together, had a no start. After some thought i switched an etacs plug with the fuel pump plug, started right up. Now the dash will be a christmas tree until you encode the etacs. I got the etacs decoder and changed all values that were sst related to 5 speed and all lights are gone, with a normal GSR dash.
After driving it for 4 days and putting roughly 300 miles on it, I love it. It feels like a race car now. I'd say it was totally worth the swap. And the total parts cost was around $3500. I got most my parts from Mad Scientist Motorsports down in jacksonville FL, Mazdaspeed Parts out of TX, and my buddy Mark. All the SST parts sold for $2500 (including SST) so really $1k out of pocket and that includes the act 6 puck.... Isn't bad. It's hard to go into detail, as almost everything besides the wiring harness is unbolt MR part, bolt on GSR. I can not speak as much for the ralliart crowd, but it is virtually similar besides needing to cut out a spot on the splash well for the transmission to fit. If anybody has any questions please ask. This was an enjoyable swap...And there are ways out of your SST without trading your baby in. Overall labor was about 40 hours, and pretty much was guessing as I went, whilst on jackstands in my driveway, i can realistically say a shop should be able to do this in about 35 hours for anybody looking for a labor quote if a shop desires to tackle it.
ENCODING ETACS TO GET RID OF SST WARNINGS
This was pretty simple. Download ETACS decoder, connect to your car via Tactrix cable, change transmission type from SST to 5MT, save and there you go.
1 YEAR AFTER SWAP UPDATE
Okay, so it's been one year since the swap. Built motor, Chris Robbins 35r turbo, alot has changed on the car and some issues had arisen. I had a few unknown wiring gremlins come about for the wheel speed sensors that I could not for the life of me fix, as well as loosing functions of my AWC selections (tarmac, snow, gravel) and the car was running essentially open diff. Open diff at 500+ HP mustang is not fun and the car will not hook and drives like doo-doo in the corners. I had to install an Accusump so I can manually pressurize the system so I'd have working AWD - although not controlled by a compter, problem solved - for straight lines.
After being a transmission builder at Kozmic Motorsports for a number of months now my opinion has rightfully changed about the SST. Living in Houston traffic is a nightmare, my stock CMC had failed, infamous 3rd gear synchro wear, the grass isn't always greener on the other side. The SST has came a long way and we still are not done creating parts that make it even better. If I were to do it again I'd have just built the SST. It all comes down to what you like to drive. Is the 5 speed more fun? Not in traffic. Is it more reliable? No. They both equally have their drawbacks you just have to pick your battles. It is alot of work and sometimes the car won't function as proper as the car is an electrical nightmare. Hope this gives people insight of the before and after.
Last edited by Tvair450; Dec 1, 2018 at 08:23 PM.
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Nov 11, 2017, 02:18 PM
#3
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Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: New York, NY
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So I'm steps away from doing this swap but every EVO "expert" warns to steer clear from the idea
How is the car running currently?
Is the harness swap simple?
What the best method to revert the ECU from Auto to manual?
Any vids of the car pre and post swap, I know 1,000 people want to see it?
Last but not least, is the ACD compatible issue free or what?
I just want to know the car made it without problems so I can do this project for 4k instead of a 8k SST rebuild plus 2k for a sump kit and fluids doomed to the same fate.
How is the car running currently?
Is the harness swap simple?
What the best method to revert the ECU from Auto to manual?
Any vids of the car pre and post swap, I know 1,000 people want to see it?
Last but not least, is the ACD compatible issue free or what?
I just want to know the car made it without problems so I can do this project for 4k instead of a 8k SST rebuild plus 2k for a sump kit and fluids doomed to the same fate.
Nov 26, 2017, 02:11 PM
#4
Newbie
Thread Starter
Sorry for the late reply. The car is running perfectly fine 2k miles later, no warning or ailments.
The harness swap was relatively easy besides getting it out behind the dash, just requires some force
You don't necessarily have to revert the ECU from auto to manual, just simply load a GSR ROM onto it
I have some snid bits of videos during the process, but literally the only thing you cant find a how-to-video on the internet is removing the harness inside
ACD is fully compatible and working
The harness swap was relatively easy besides getting it out behind the dash, just requires some force
You don't necessarily have to revert the ECU from auto to manual, just simply load a GSR ROM onto it
I have some snid bits of videos during the process, but literally the only thing you cant find a how-to-video on the internet is removing the harness inside
ACD is fully compatible and working
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faeskoni (Jan 17, 2018)
Nov 26, 2017, 05:32 PM
#5
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Nice
You, my man, are the ****ING ****!!!!
Id be excited to see any videos, pics, or other tips for this.
Had an SST transmission sitting in my closet for a straight year since aamco took it out and said "no comprende"
A $4000 alternative to bull**** sst solutions at upwards of $8,000 - $10,000 for a solid fix seems way better. Plus no more being destined for failure due to the same **** happening again. Once Getrag wont sell replacement parts it should be obvious this transmission should be dumped. Almost cheaper for a damn dogbox.
Sst vs 5 speed
Hmm
Sst:
6,000+ rebuild with better clutch packs
1200 Sump kit with cooler
+ Shipping for rebuild or core return=outrageously overpriced
Sst shops should just market to conversion projects and sell ready made kits, way more clientele.
Id be excited to see any videos, pics, or other tips for this.
Had an SST transmission sitting in my closet for a straight year since aamco took it out and said "no comprende"
A $4000 alternative to bull**** sst solutions at upwards of $8,000 - $10,000 for a solid fix seems way better. Plus no more being destined for failure due to the same **** happening again. Once Getrag wont sell replacement parts it should be obvious this transmission should be dumped. Almost cheaper for a damn dogbox.
Sst vs 5 speed
Hmm
Sst:
6,000+ rebuild with better clutch packs
1200 Sump kit with cooler
+ Shipping for rebuild or core return=outrageously overpriced
Sst shops should just market to conversion projects and sell ready made kits, way more clientele.
Jan 1, 2018, 11:10 AM
#6
Newbie
Thread Starter
Yes, even though there is a more clientele there is way less money to be made. I've been rebuilding some local SST's on the side and it is a total PITA to get any sort of parts. As for any tips I would say be patient..... buy all the parts in advance and make sure their right, ive went through alot of parts I didn't need or i got sent the wrong stuff.
Few months later car still is driving perfectly fine, I've been beating on it more without a worry in the world
Few months later car still is driving perfectly fine, I've been beating on it more without a worry in the world
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Jun 20, 2018, 03:31 PM
#10
Newbie
Thread Starter
Please call Kozmic Motorsports and ask for Taran in regards to this it is easier over the phone otherwise ill forget haha, as Razor said I completely forgot I posted this here. Sorry!!!!!
Dec 22, 2019, 11:14 AM
#14
Thanks for the follow up, I had my doubts about the SST despite it's amazing functionality. I'll go with what you recommended you did in hindsight, and just build my SST.
Mar 5, 2020, 06:26 PM
#15
EVO X MR TO GSR
ECM BENCH REFLASH MR TO GSR
ETACS DECODER 5.4.4.0
ETACS:
5 Trans Mission: 6AT -> 5MT.
69 TCM: present -> not present.
NOT A SINGLE CHRISTMAS LIGHT ON CLUSTER.
ECM BENCH REFLASH MR TO GSR
ETACS DECODER 5.4.4.0
ETACS:
5 Trans Mission: 6AT -> 5MT.
69 TCM: present -> not present.
NOT A SINGLE CHRISTMAS LIGHT ON CLUSTER.
Last edited by dimen; Apr 8, 2020 at 12:03 PM.
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Kenpachi Zaraki (Apr 13, 2020)