First post as well, but I've been lurking around for a little while.

My car too came with an SK ecu.  I went to the junkyard and pulled a me7.5 1.8t ecu and reflashed it with the HS.bin.  It doesn't matter whether it's an auto or manual car.  There are a couple XDF's floating around for the HS.  You can disable the immobilizer or input your vehicle specific info to retain the immobilizer on the spare ECU.  Grab yourself the ecu connectors and an OBD port as well.  Leave yourself a little bit of wiring still connected so you can make a bench flashing setup.

One thing to note when logging is the instrument cluster (if memory serves correct) can cause the logging tool to crash so you need to separate the ECU K line from the rest of the system.  I accomplished this by cutting the wire where it exits the ECU and attaching an overlay wire to the OBD port area.  I then wired up a toggle switch so I can effectively connect/disconnect the ECU diagnostic line from the rest of the system and still have everything in place like factory.

Like most, I'd advise against reflashing your stock ECU with the HS.bin as you'd be dead in the water if things went awry.  I keep my stock SK ecu in the car so I can just plug it up if needed in a pickle.  Running stock hardware for now so easy enough for me to do.