Late model Charger manual transmission swap?

LX-platform Chargers are getting very cheap, especially the V6 models. A colleague of mine just picked up an 05 with a 3.5 V6 at a municipal auction for $1600. It was a town cop car without the Police package that the state police cars got, but it does have the same crappy rubber interior as the state cop cars. This low price got me wondering how hard a manual transmission swap would be. Pedals from a Challenger or Crossfire, maybe. Hemi engine cores that lost oil pressure are cheap and abundant, so a stick shift Hemi Charger might be doable on the cheap. GRM thoughts?

Electronics suck unless you are going to rewire the car from the front bumper to the rear bumper, seriously. Or have a BSEE/BSEET.

Besides that it's totally doable with factory parts.

In reply to Ranger50:

Do you know which factory parts?

In reply to M030:

Challenger. Same platform as the Charger.

In reply to Ranger50:

Thank you

I have seen at least one done using the parts sourced from a Challenger. I have the dream of doing it myself someday but it will still be several years off. Basically the two cars are the exact same platform just different bodies. If you start with a V6 yeah strip it bare and find a wrecked Challenger and strip that bare and move all the wiring, computers everything over. Not a small project.

Another option would be maybe rig up a stand alone computer to control your Hemi then different transmission all together and make a more bare bones car. The Charger stock has a ton of systems that complicate its operation. If you strip some of that out you could really lighten up the car.

I'm not positive, but I don't think Dodge has built a V6 manual challenger. I could be wrong, and I don't know what bellhousing bolt pattern the 3.5 uses-might get lucky and it uses the same as the Hemi.

In reply to psteav:

Afaik, same sbm pattern.

In reply to psteav: There is a v6 Redline Challenger at my local dealership that I am fairly certain has a manual in it.

Unfortunately there is no v6/manual challenger, and if there were it would have come with the 3.6, not the 3.5 anyway.

The 3.5 does not have a small block mopar bolt pattern. It has the chrysler v6 pattern which has been used on a variety of engines since the 3.3 in 1990. 2.7, 3.2, 3.3, 3.5, 3.8, 4.0, and MAYBE the new 3.6 (not sure on the last one). But out of all those motors, the only RWD transmission that was ever hooked to any of them was the 6spd in the 3.8L Wrangler.

So there IS a transmission that will bolt to the 3.5 (although who knows if the shifter or mount location are even remotely compatible). How much other work is entailed, im not entirely sure.

What year Wrangler had the 3.8/6spd? Maybe it has a seperable bellhousing that I could mate to a cheap, junkyard T5 5-speed from an old Mustang or Camaro