Ok, sorry it took me so long to get back to this thread but things are kinda crazy at work... long story short, 2nd gear is now totally gone, so it looks like it's time for either a 4.44 or a 5mt. I'd prefer the 5mt option- any advice on sourcing (ideally) a used 98 WRX tranny, or any of the other compatibles? I'm checking NASIOC and EBAY shortly and i'm hopefully combing around some junkyards this weekend, so we'll see how that goes. Also, I know I've seen a 5mt how-to floating around somewhere. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks again!

Almost forgot - will any other model-year WRX transmissions work? Found a remanufactured '04 with a one-year warranty on ebay

I believe all the WRX manual transmissions will work.

What did you ever do about your transmission? L&R rebuilt mine for about $1600 but that was 9 years ago. Sorry to be late to this thread.