Well just the one company anyway. The main player for standalone TCM for the DCT is HTG and they are still around and very active. But its still a pretty complex wiring project and I dont know if the swap is really going to be something the community is after if there is nobody providing and wiring package for it.

Probably will be easier and cheaper to swap in the new z34.5 9at assuming it proves to be decent (fingers crossed it is). Bell housing adapter, custom trans crossmember, and new driveshaft. Nissan tcu electronics should be easier to work out. :confused:

Nobody wants a slush box. DCT, YES.

:iagree:

I don't see how people think a couple extra gears will make much if any difference. 7, 9 whatever, a slush box is a slush box. I'd rather go through the growing pains on this and have something great than trade for an auto

The swap scene has been evolving well, I am still paying attention and watching. When we first started this, it was a lot more difficult than it looks to be lately. One TCM brand has really risen to the top on popularity, called HTG. I’ve been watching a transition where they are going from tons of customers posting complaining about how helpless and unguided they feel, just ready to give up and put a stock trans back in… to tons of satisfied users in love with the swap and working on refining their trans tuning as they go. It seems like they are becoming a more streamlined solution as time passes… 6 months ago I would have never want to have been responsible for sending any customers down that path.. but it’s getting better.

Another company has released a printed circuit board that basically handles all the wiring you have to do inside the transmission to convert it for use with standalone TCM. This is huge for making it more DIY friendly. You still have to wire it, but this circuit board lays it out and clarifies what you’re doing.

There is another company who had cracked the internal TCM of the older E90 DCT, and were able to take control of it. This is awesome because now they can send commands to the original bmw TCM to tell it when to shift etc, and carry over all the R&D BMW had in the TCM, making it have truly OEM driving quality out of the box. They were originally saying they had no plans to ever crack the M4 trans, but lately they have shown otherwise and that they are working on it.

So it’s not that this project is dead in the water, but that we have sort of been waiting for the right time to strike. I did not want to end up with a dozen+ customers that cant drive their car for a year because the support structure isn’t in place to get them to the finish line with the project.

The 8HP swaps have been picking up and that’s a good thing because it is a great trans and will definitely sway a lot of would be DCT swappers, leaving more DCTs for us and not driving the prices up too quickly.

The mechanical part of the swap.. as you know, designs are finished and proven in use. They can be produced quite literally at any time.

The 9G Tronic, if anything like the ZF8, would be a massive jump up both in shifting behavior and torque capacity from my current 7AT. It'd most likely still need an adapter plate, TCU, mounting, and new driveshaft though, plus will be into next year before we can get a hold of the new Jatco designed one from the new Z.
Would rather have a DCT at that point, plus actually have one just sitting in my garage.

Is there not enough interest for any tuners to help pioneer with HTG instead?
Their FB group and support has improved a massive amount over just the last few months, to the point where I'd just be concerned about wiring and not software control.

I think that the incentive is low for platform specific tuners to get into it. They don’t have much to gain or money to make for all the time they will invest. Seb is in the perfect position because he’s at a good Z shop, is a tuner himself, qualified/experienced with technical wiring, and even has a personal interest for his own car. It’s easy to imagine though that the idea of starting again from scratch now only to switch TCMs, at great expensive of time of money, is probably discouraging. He has never implied that he will not, it’s just that no discussion has taken place over this, because there has been no defined moment where we gave up on the original TCM supplier. Last contact with them was more about how it’s coming, but alas it never comes. What happens is you wait and wait and wait, and then you just stop thinking or talking about it.

The DCT swap community is full of overall support for swapping the trans into any vehicle, and then it’s up to the user/installer to take any additional platform specific steps. I see this as a generally more likely and viable business strategy for companies in the DCT swap scene over platform specific shops.

Dear Charles,

Thank you for caring about your customers.

Sincerely,
Your customers

I did fire off an email today to one of the more well put together DCT swap shops in Europe to see how complete of a wiring package they offer these days. If not by now, then at some point somebody is going to have as plug and play of a universal kit you could viably have.. and then someone like myself (or preferably Seb haha) can supplement it with the necessary additions for the platform that we need.

This DCT swap video will make you smile.

Awesome car and a cool dude
You can tell he's passionate about modding cars and he's definitely caught the bug for life now. (Edit: probably should've worded that last part differently for post 2019 society, but whatever...)

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My friend Neal makes the DCT kit for that car. When he first starting looking into doing the swap and posting about it, is how I originally learned that it was "a thing" people were doing with other platforms and that standalone TCMs that could run the trans were available. I will most likely contract out production of the adapter plate to the same machine shop he is using.

My situation is different from most. I jumped on board because I already can't drive my car. It's sat since July 4th and it will be next year sometime maybe before I will be able to drive it if it gets out at all next year.

Here's to hoping you have some luck over the winter months :tiphat:

Any luck on the overseas shops with a wiring package?


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No they didnt want to talk to me. My guess is they just want customers to purchase and work with them directly rather than through shops.