Dude, you sir are my hero!

I have been looking into doing the differential swap for some time now. I have been putting it off thinking that I would have to remove the front sub-frame and support the front drive train from above. Great to know that I can squeeze the front pumpkin through!

Even cooler that you made the front diff an LSD. I'm interested to see how it performs when you push it. Do you have the sport package on your '03? My '01 5 speed had it and my current '04 6 speed does not. Night and day on handling.

As far as gear ratio's, I totally get it. The gear ratios are nearly the same on the '04-'06 6 speed with mild overdrive in 6th. Improvement? Yes defiantly. Could there be more improvement? I think so. Highway cruising is much better as well as fuel economy. 1st is still crazy, and I think it is prematurely wearing the syncros in 1st and 2nd on our cars. I don't know why BMW choose those gears. Towing capabilities? Weight to peak torque issues? Maybe they didn't want to create a large disparity in fuel economy numbers as to hurt sales of the larger heavier V8's or compete with the e53 diesels in Europe? Just throwing some ideas out there. Don't really know.

Can you still do soft 2nd starts? Anyways, awesome work! I'll let you know how mine turns out.

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2005 X5 3.0, 6MT, Alpine White on Truffle Brown, Sport, Preim, and Cold Weather, Alpina Stainless Headers, AFe Intake, UUC SSK, OEM 87's, 3.64 Differential Swap,Performance Modified Euro 2 Tune, UUC LTW Flywheel and HD clutch, Bilstein B12 Suspension kit
Future mods ZHP/Schrick Cam Shaft upgrade, Operation code name:Doppelschrauben-Kompressor

Wife's Ride: 2011 e70 X5 351 M///Sport.

Also in the fold: 2004 X3 3.0, 6MT, Black Sapphire on Terracotta, port, Premium, Cold Weather.