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Originally Posted by anassa  Beautiful!  I just was wondering: "E36 M3 auto driveshaft" It bolts up to the 6spd and is a direct fit? (Sorry if this is old new already, just new to me!) Does it retain any OBDII functions? - For those of us in Cali keeping OBDII and smog parts could be very helpful to get it ref'd! You probably won't get as many people that will post replies as bfc but every viewer is undoubtedly thinking of how they can also do it.  Great stuff. |
Thanks man! That's actually why I posted it here, to try and give back a bit!
So, in a nutshell, the transmission lengths are relatively like this:
E36 auto>E46 6-speed>E36 5-speed
So the driveshaft on the E36 auto is slightly shorter than you would otherwise want it to be. However, it works. You just have to pull the front section forward off the slip yoke a bit. I've put about 8K miles on this swap and it works well.
I do still have OBD2 scan ability and it will throw check engine lights. Right now those lights are useless and I need to get certain ones coded out, such as:
- No CAN-BUS
- Post-cat O2 sensors
- Exhaust gas temperature sensor
- Radiator temperature sensor
None of those would work with the swap and/or exhaust setup, so I'd just like to see them gone. Otherwise, yes, it works well! The more OBD2-compliant way of doing this is to use the OE headers (which have integrated cats) and the E46 midpipe sections welded to a custom rear section. I don't have emissions in PA, so I run catless Euro headers, a center resonator, and the rear AA muffler. No cats...