So I have finally gotten to the point of taking the ti off the road and totally taking it apart to do the swap. I purchased a high mileage 96 M3 Coupe for parts as I figured it would be much easier to get all of the parts that I would need. I know that I posted earlier to get some opinions on weather I should rebuild the engine due to mileage. It turns out that the engine was in good shape, even after 220,000 miles but since I did find some wear on the bearings and slight wear on the cylinder walls, I ended up doing a complete refresh including all bearings and new rings.
From the beginning, I wanted to try and retain the ASC after the swap. I checked out the wiring diagrams and found that the M3 ABS/ASC system is more advanced and contains a bunch of extra/different wiring and sensors. I figured that as long as I had the donor car, it would just be a matter of labor and wiring. I also figured that I might as well try and swap all of the M3 dash including the automatic climate control and OBC and make that work as well. (Haven't heard of anyone trying the same thing yet) After taking apart the interior of the donor car earlier this week, I found that it might be easier than I originally thought it would be. It seems that all of the IHKA, OBC, and ABS wiring is contained in the front section of the body harness. After removing the dash and heater box to access the wiring, I found that the harness is totally seperate from the other harnesses in the car such as the radio, and airbag systems. After disconnecting and fishing the wiring out from the engine compartment areas (ABS sensors, all lights, aux fan, and other stuff around the perimeter of the engine compartment) the interior section of the harness basically comes right out thru the large hole in the firewall under the fuse box. I would say that the biggest pain was having to crawl under the car to disconnect the rear ABS sensors and un-do the harness clips above the rear subframe to be able to free the wiring. I have gotten to the point where I am almost ready to remove the stock ti front harness from the car. I will update when and if I get things working. I suspect that I may have to add a couple of wires to get the rear wiper/washer working and I may also have some "rear light failure" messages to deal with.
Anyways, back to my original question. I have searched around the forum and also purchased the swap manual and still have not been able to find a definite answer to my driveshaft fitment question. I have the engine and trans out of a 96 M3 Coupe (5/96 prod) and was able to find a complete M Roadster rear subframe. The driveshaft out of my M3 is a 6-bolt that does not match the 4-bolt diff flange. The closest fitment that I found was posted by J!m and he said that he was using S52 engine, ti trans, ti driveshaft, and Roadster diff. Since I'm pretty sure that the M3 trans is at least a little bigger than the stock ti trans, does anyone know if the stock ti driveshaft will still fit? Do I need to go and get a M3 driveshaft with the 4-bolt end? I would hate to get everything else installed just to have to order and wait for the proper driveshaft to arrive.
Thanks and more info to come
