Swapping 5-speed AT into 2002 Montero XLS?

[MrBahb]

Hello all,

I bought an '02 XLS recently to restore a bit and turn into an overlanding rig. I recently noticed a rattling sound coming from my transmission. The sound increases in frequency when my revs go up, but it does not happen in neutral. Kinda sounds like paper. Because of this, and my worrisome nature, I'm thinking I'm going to have to replace this poorly maintained transmission soon. My question is this: does anybody have knowledge of the possibility of swapping the 5-speed Montero Limited transmission into an XLS? I know the 5-speed comes with Super Select, but is that a part of the differentials, or the transmission itself?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Michael Brown]

The 5 speed is a completely different setup. It uses a different transfer case, electronics, and computer. The Super Select is programmed into the transmission and transfer case.

As far as I know, you would need to change the transmission and transfer case along with the engine flash to get this to work correctly.

 

[CharlieNorth]

A little more info for you, Are you good with wires?
Transmission,
The transmission is controlled by the PCM, this being the engine and transmission computer.
The 5 sp transmission has one more electric servo than 4 speed controlling an additional clutch pack.
There are additional components within the ECU so it needs to be swapped along with the wire harness shown below.
Your instrument cluster shows gear positions for speeds, the 5 speed, well it shows all five. The instruments are not canbus such that the wires are different.

At a minimum you will need the PCM and wire harness for the engine, body and transmission. This is a picture of the engine harness. Mine is partially disassembled since I am installing the 5 speed behind a Mivec utilizing all factory computers and modified harnesses.




The transfer case, you can keep yours or swap. You would need the wiring and control units for this swap as well.

To me, even I who can build or swap most anything, I would buy a 5 speed Montero. I would either buy a later 3.8 or swap in a 3.8.

 

[Toasty]

This swap has intrigued me for years, this era of Mitsubishis are PCM so you'd likely need to swap the PCM and possibly run a wire or two for the extra shift solenoid. It's entirely possible that Mitsubishi already has the interface in place for this but nobody that i've found has done it so there's no real way of knowing. Personally i'd like to swap the 5 speed into a Sport because they came with the V4A51 and that would be an absolute beast in something like a 3.5 XS.

The V4A51 and V5A51 are the same transmission case but the V5 has the extra gear, same transfer case pattern and spline for both. So you could use the XLS case on the 5 speed and not have the electronic 4WD shifter (the PCM shouldn't care) AND if the PCM want's to change shift profiles for Superselect like @Michael Brown says you could very easily wire it up to a switch for A/T mode similar to the Gen 2 by using the wire that would be the AWD detent and installing a switch to ground on it (AT Mode). @CharlieNorth is wiring his up to use paddle shifters and has actually read up on the circuits in depth, he would be the guy to actually know. I'm just flying by the seat of my pants with my 5 speed swap (A650) and wiring it up to have the AT mode (POWER MODE) switch and using the 4 speed OD switch to toggle extra gears manually if i want. Something like; L is 1st & OD-2nd, 2nd is 3rd & OD 4th, D is 1st-4th and OD 5th, should be intuitive enough with D being the normal automatic function.

 

[Toasty]

A little more info for you, Are you good with wires?

You beat me ?!

 

[CharlieNorth]

I tried, just lucky I came inside when I did.
I will try later today to look at the pinouts of the PCM, Might be than only one wire needs to be added if all the others are the same. Sometimes the newer Mitsus can be as nice to swap around as the old ones have been. I do not have a 4 speed ECM here to compare the inside to see if the board has the added circuits, both my Gen3 are 2002 five speeds.

 

[Michael Brown]

I know it could be done. We do this at work every day for application testing. We use a CAN Gateway Bus and manually create all the correct signals for PCM to TCM communication.
It is also extremely time consuming and difficult. More so for those without knowledge of CAN programming.
The problem is that the hardware/software is expensive, and not ideal outside of a testing lab.

This leads back to Toasty's method of wiring the false signals to switches. Which might work, or might cause the engine/transmission to see incorrect speeds for the shifting map.

What has intrigued me is the Aussie's refitting these with Toyota V8's and some sort of sequential transmission for racing. They must be replacing all of the PCM wiring.

 

[CharlieNorth]

The driveline in these are not Canbus. They are straight hard wire PWM control.

 

[Toasty]

On my 5 speed swap (Toyota v8) the original shifter LS430 has a gated shifter which i was originally going to use to avoid CAN issues and gain full manual control of the gears plus the normal drive function much like the Gen 3. After inspecting the shifter it is just a cable shifter (same amount if detents as the A340) with the side functions being on switches. Seemingly really easy to make it function like stock with the Montero shifter but with slightly more control, we'll see though that's down the road a bit.

 

[CharlieNorth]

This is the same with my Pajero swap. The Gen 3 cable runs forward while the Sport runs aft like a Gen 2. I chose to utilize the G3 shifter since the manual control is of interest. The manual shifter is just 3 wires to shift with another wire showing the shifter is in the manual gate.
With this those 3 wires can also be run to a paddle shifter which I have an EVO 10 unit in hand.

 

[Toasty]

This is the same with my Pajero swap. The Gen 3 cable runs forward while the Sport runs aft like a Gen 2. I chose to utilize the G3 shifter since the manual control is of interest. The manual shifter is just 3 wires to shift with another wire showing the shifter is in the manual gate.
With this those 3 wires can also be run to a paddle shifter which I have an EVO 10 unit in hand.

Man, maybe i should do the paddles. Probably could get them super cheap out of an old Outlander

 

[CharlieNorth]

$55+ Ebay prices, get the short wires from the clock spring with them, those I am missing still since I bought off Ebay. I am sure that price can be beat.
Being my vehicle are non non bagged I will be mounting onto the column