I still haven't found out if both trannies are the same yet... my "new" tranny may have more problems than the TCC, but we'll give it some more time and some more miles to see how it goes. If it needs replacing, I've got a potential direct bolt-up spare from the old 2.5.
I've gotten rid of all the trouble codes that popped up in the past... had an EGR code pop up today, but that didn't come back when I cleared the code with the Snap-On MT2500 scanner.
Also had problems with high idle (2-3,000 when warming up in the morning... woah...), but fixed that when I realized that the cruise control cable was holding the throttle 3-6% open... so we moved the cable over a few notches and all is better with that.
As far as the speedo goes, we had to switch to the gauge cluster (wanted to do it anyway) because everything came up gibberish after we swapped engines, because we didn't change the interior wire harness (the old cluster was wired for dummie lights)... all we needed to do was re-pin the wire harness per the instructions I learned from a link from AF to theimportkillers.com - saved us a LOT of time and aggravation!
Because we pulled the engine complete with transmission, complete wire harness, drive axles, subframe, the only thing we had to do was unplug the wire harness from the firewall on the top passenger side of the engine compartment, so yeah, I'd call it 'plug and play'.
Had to swap the cruise control cable and accelerator cable from the donor car to the good car, as well as air cleaner box, AC canister, as well as some very minor things.
Also pulled the entire rear end fromt the donor car and put into good car today because the "good car" had bent trailing arms and tracking arms. May have to swap leaf springs back because I think the car sat a little higher in the back with the original.
Rear brakes await... the spoiler (now re-painted to match the good car) goes on tomorrow, the Euro has been painted and swapped already... and the 16" alloy rims and pretty new tires ($50 the guy wants!) go on this weekend.
The car is beginning to get $$$$ on me, but what the heck... it's been fun.