Warfrogs

Alright guys, so I've had my Civic EX with AT for about 2.5 years and I love it, but sometime during the winter, my transmission started slipping between second and third gear.

It's still drivable so it's no MAJOR issue or anything that needs to be addressed immediately, but I'd like to know your opinions on what to do. I'd love to get a manual in there, but if I'm doing that I'd consider doing a full K20 swap to save time/money because I'll probably do that eventually anyways. I'm not entirely sure how much it would cost or if it even makes sense to do it all at once. I don't have a lot of garage access/time/tools/drive to do it myself, so it would be shop costs, but I have a few great connections I could take advantage of.

Basically, my options are just do a straight automatic transmission swap, which would probably cost the least, put a manual in on its own, or wait it out and do a K20A2 with a manual transmission whenever I get the money.

What are your opinions and does anyone have any idea roughly on costs (even within 500 would be fine.) Thanks so much for any opinions, this has been pressing on my mind for the 3 weeks since I noticed the slippage.

MindBomber

If you baby your transmission with fluid changes and don't drive to hard then you easily have another 25k miles until the car is no longer driveable, so don't worry about it failing any time to soon. A straight auto-to-auto swap isn't necessary at this point.

Since an auto-to-manual swap isn't something you'd be capable of doing yourself, your looking at easily $2500-3000 to have that done. It's not worthwhile unless your planning on keeping your car for a long time, are not planning on k-swapping and can't sell your auto and replace just buy a factory manual.

Wait till it comes time to k-swap and do it all then, budget a minimum of $6k for that unless you get lucky and find a cheap swap.

MindBomber

It's bigger and has more horse power stock, as well as more potential overall for engine builds.

Warfrogs

Thanks for the advice Mindbomber. I'll probably start saving up for that then. :-)

When I do the K20 swap, because I'll probably end up tossing a turbo in there eventually, should I get a built up transmission or just go with whatever I get with it?

MindBomber

Are you building a 400hp turbo K or a 1200hp turbo k?

Warfrogs

Haha good point. I just want it to be bulletproof but there's no way I'm going to aim for 1200hp so I suppose no real need. Thanks for pulling me back to earth.