odd idea fo an auto swap...

[FestYboy]

went searching for a trans for my g/f's aspire and found a '97 mx-3 4 spd o.d. for sale. having an extra gear would be nice on the highway seeing that 60 mph is around 3300rpm.

need to know 2 things for me to consider this though...
1. is the inner CV shaft spline count and dia. the same?
2. would i have to fabricate new mounts?

i'm assuming that i'd need the B6 flywheel and torque converter and the trans ecu, and i know that it'll bolt up to the b3, but the axles have me a bit worried...

help?

[Safety Guy]

I don't know about the stuff you are asking about, but I suspect there may be a change in ECUs to control the 4th gear on these. ATX 323s all have the three plug ECUs instead of the two pluggers. It may be in part due to the switch to a 4 speed ATX. Just a thought.

Karl

[IdealSociety]

axle splines are different (much thicker) because the mx3's use either a g-series or g/f-series crazy combo transmission (for the K8) you would have to use capri axles in order to use it, but i could be done. as for computer issued im clueless on that one as ive never even worked on an auto festy so ive got no clue.

[FestYboy]

so mazda controls thier trannys through the ecu and not a separate unit? are we certain that there's not an onboard control attached to the trans?
since the axles are different, how difficult to make a hybrid axle?
Ideal, how did you mount your g series trans? any pics? for my proposed auto swap, i noticed that there's a top loaded mount for the trans instead of at the diff case, were you able to bypass that or did you fab an adapter?

[Safety Guy]

Festyboy asked:

So mazda controls thier trannys through the ecu and not a separate unit? are we certain that there's not an onboard control attached to the trans?

I have no idea. I was just guessing about the ECU/ATX control issue. I'm hypothesizing that the extra plug on the ATX 323 ECU may be for electronic ATX control. Just posting this to allow you to check it out further before you start!

Karl

[FestYboy]

that's cool, thanks for the info. BTW, you wouldn't know if the aspire trans is electronically controlled would you? from what i can tell the festy and aspire auto trans' are manualy controlled via vacuum.

[Guest]

IIRC the Festiva atx is a little longer than the mtx. Did you measure the length of the Mx3 atx? With my B6 and stock mtx with a/c I think I had less than a 1/2" clearance between acc pulley and frame. Kind of curious as well. Zippy would just LOVE overdrive. And my wallet would really appreciate the gained mpg.

[FestYboy]

well, i'm willing to start this project, especially if it'll help more than just one person. i'd just ask that anyone with ANY input would post what they know so that this doesn't take forever...

Dj, I don't think that i'm going to have clearance issues at the pulleys seeing that i'm not moving the motor at all, and there's about 4" of dead space between the aspire's ATX and the driver framerail. one would assume that if there's a differance in length, it'll just fill up that space and NOT push the motor over.

i'm going to see if i can get wire diagrams from work today and see where/what i need to splice into or if it'll even be possable.

[Safety Guy]

I plan to be swapping an Aspire ATX into my '93GL soon. The only difference between Festy and Aspire ATXs that I know of is the lockup TC on the Aspire unit. Other than car specific mounts, that's it. Both should be vacuum controlled only from what I've heard.

Good luck with the MX-3 ATX. I wonder if that is the same ATX as in 323s?

Karl

[FestYboy]

ok, so hear's what i found, the atx from the mx-3 has a separate trans control unit. this is a good thing.

the aspire has NO electronic contronl OR harness connections aside from the PRNDL switch. that means there's NO TCC control (no lockup convertor) according to the factory manual and diagrams. this is not such a good thing, but can be remidied through some fancy wiring.

the big hurdles for this swap is figuring out what info the trans needs from the ECU, and the driver side trans mount (it's on the top of the trans)
there's 6 connections between the TCM and ECU but i don' know what info passes on those, and from what i can tell, the mx-3 is the only atx that can be used because the TCM is part of the ECU in all other apps.

so if anyone here has a vac diagram of a 95 mx-3, or access to the factory manual, please share