I was just wondering is it actually necessary to cut the floor pan to make room for the shifter when doing this swap. I have an 88 ta with very low miles and find it rather undesirable to hack into a perfectly good floor pan and ruin the originality of the vehicle, granted if i decided to return to an automatic and sell the car down the road. I would greatly appreciate some advice on this from individuals that have completed this type of swap

 

all i can think of is to make a template for the cut out. cut the whole neatly as possible, then if need be, weld it back in later down the road.

 

when doing an auto to manual swap your going to have to cut a hole for the shifter. on an auto there isnt a hole, only for your gear selector cable. the hole doesnt need to be very big though, just take measurments and it isnt to bad.