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Thanks! Hope to help people along the way with this swap. I'm specifically looking for the X6021 connector and the female side that joins the harness to the DME. I saw CHARIOTS post about it but can't seem to find a part number related to the male/female side of the connector. That's why I'm also looking at alternative connectors to use. If I manage to make this harness from my old SMG one, I'll try to make a little batch for others so the swap can be a little be less cumbersome in terms of finding the engine side of the harness. You would only have to get the transmission side of the harness which is still available from BMW and then just use my tutorial when I make it to make the other end of the harness. More to come.
Awesome! I've got a spa date for my M3 next week, so I'll pick my mechanic's brain while I'm in there to see if he has any ideas. Keep up the great work, and let me know if you need a hand at some point
 
Awesome! I've got a spa date for my M3 next week, so I'll pick my mechanic's brain while I'm in there to see if he has any ideas. Keep up the great work, and let me know if you need a hand at some point
I'm always down to meet other M owners around SoCal. Email me at iDev326@gmail.com, might have to take you up on that offer soon when I drop the transmission out and put the six speed in if you're up for the task.

Going to be removing the carpet out this weekend and start prepping for the incoming parts. Also going to remove the SMG harness from my car and start cannibalizing that for the custom harness. Stay tuned.
 
So more findings. The transmission side and DME side might be figured out. Looks like the LCI cars have the X6021 12 pin connector in the engine bay how CHARIOT used from the 8 pin that was in his car. They have four wires going somewhere so I’m going to see if I can track them down where they go and hopefully use that as my trans to DME connector.



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Just got some of the small bits from BMW today. Unfortunately I totally forgot to order the hydraulic line that runs from the clutch master to the clutch slave. Another delay. I got the EDC panel all finished up which was a bit harder than I thought. Third pedal is in and ready to rock n roll!




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Got the clutch pedal all finalized and put into the car. I cheated by cutting my carpet out as high and near the center of the car as possible to have more working room without having to remove the HVAC stuff. Ran the hydraulic hose through the main engine harness provision as it had a little nipple for a hose to go though. Also the brake master cylinder reservoir has a port for the clutch master cylinder supply hose to tap into on LCI M5s. It’s on the left side of the reservoir. You just need to cut the nipple off but I recommend holding off on that until you are ready to bleed the clutch hydraulics. I also started to wire up the clutch switch. The X10318 connector is up in the dash. You’ll need to undo pin 41 and use that as your DME signal to pin 2 on the clutch switch. If you do this route, you’ll need to unpin this signal from the SMG connector in the engine bay to pin 18 on the DME. Pin 3 goes to pin 3 on the X10318 connector while pin 4 on the clutch switch goes to pin 41 on the X10318 connector. I undid alot of the original OE wire harness sheath so be prepared to redo this when you start wiring.






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I also began to make the 6 speed transmission harness. As we know, you can’t buy the engine side of the 6 speed transmission harness as its part of the engine bay loom. Two options, either get lucky and find a complete transmission harness that has both the transmission and engine harness connectors or make it. I chose the latter and decided to make my own harness. First things first, when you buy the transmission side of the 6 speed harness, it’s almost a direct plug-n-play to the old stripped down SMG harness that I pillaged (something I’ll highlight later) except for one thing. There are 9 wires on SMG side going to the engine side and only 8 wires on the 6 speed transmission harness. On the SMG/Engine harness, there is no wire going to cavity 10. On the 6 speed transmission harness, there is a wire going to cavity 10, Uh-oh. What I ended up doing was de pinning and move the wire from cavity 10 to cavity 4 on the 6 speed side of the harness. This in theory should make everything work now as there is a wire at cavity 4 for both ends of the connector. When I did a quick continuity test, it traced the wire as a ground for the gearbox temperature sensor. If you do this route, you will need to make notes on what wires you move and what colors correspond as they probably will be different from the online TIS, INPA, ISTA. I’m going this route as I’ve had a hard time finding the harness from a 6 speed car for a reasonable price and figured lets try making it. We’ll see if it works in due time!



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So I haven't posted in a few weeks since parts are still coming in but I think I made some major progress (or I at least think I did hiha). So far this is what I've found on my LCI car that is almost exactly similar to the Pre-LCI car that CHARIOT did.

So I wrapped up on the engine bay side of the wiring that was necessary. In the engine bay, it required splicing four signals. Two from the transmission and two from the yaw sensor to the DME. The two wires from the neutral position sensor goes from pin 3 and pin 1 on the neutral sensor go to cavity 19 and cavity 6 on the X60002 DME connector which is the black connector. I just cut the existing wire which I left enough wire on both ends to strip, twist and solder the wires together to splice them together. I left the old SMG harness in and just zip-tied and tucked it away where the old SMG ecu used to be. It's a lot of work to take that part of the harness out of the car as it ties into a lot of other harness etc. It can be done but I decided to just tuck it away and leave it for the time being. Your call when it comes to this.
Cable management Electrical wiring Auto part Wire Engine

The two yaw position sensors get relocated from the SMG connector X53003 which is the 52 pin connector. I relocated pin 13, pin 18 and pin 20 over the DME connector X60001 which is the grey connector. To get the connectors out, there are two little clips on the end that you'll need to slightly pry up with a pocket flathead to get them to slide out. They don't need to be pried a lot, just enough to get the connector to slide out of the connector sliding housing. The pins from the SMG connector that need to be spliced go from pin 13 to cavity 11 and pin 20 to cavity 10 on the X60001 DME connector. You'll need to splice these two to the existing wires already there. Again, just like above; cut, strip, twist and solder or however you like to do it. Last, pin 18 goes to cavity 9 which is empty on the DME X60001 side so just unpin from the SMG connector and relocate to the DME connector.
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Here's where it gets a little different on LCI cars but not too much. On the LCI cars, the X6021 connector is already a 12 pole style connector as CHARIOT used so you will not have to source this part if you own an LCI car after 03/2007. LCI cars also got 12 pole style connectors on the X6011 but they are white and not blue like on the Pre-LCI cars. I got lucky and my car was made at the right time 04/2007. I could not find the part number for the 12 pole style connector when I was looking so you will need to find out from your local BMW parts source. Sorry!
Electrical wiring Wire Electronics Cable Electronic engineering


Anyways, the X6021 connector already has 4 wires coming off of it. A fused KL87 10A which is the red/white stripe wire going to the 10A fuse in the engine bay electronics, a ground wire, and two CAN-bus connectors going to the SMG X70014 connector which are pins 36 and 37. I re-purposed all four wires in the manual transmission harness I made. I followed CHARIOTS diagram that he posted in terms of where to put the pins on the X6021 connector going to the DME side.

As far as the transmission side of the harness. I followed the newtis.info wiring schematic for the 6 speed transmission signals to make my transmission harness. I re-used the black x60681 connector that was on my old SMG harness and unpinned all the wires coming off that connector from the SMG X70014 connector to re-use for the 6 speed trans wiring. I simply just crimped on new pins and slotted them in the appropriate cavity that corresponded with the wires going to the DME. I spliced neutral position sensor, rpm sensor and trans temp sensors ground together and ran all three as one wire going to the ground wire that was originally already populating the X6021 connector. Everything else got their own wires going to individual cavities on the X6021 connector if that makes sense (hopefully all this makes sense haha!)
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The trans temperature signal coming from the transmission can be ran from the X6021 connector to the X6011 connector at cavity 6. Like CHARIOT pointed out, the wire going to the DME is there but it is not populated on the one side of the X6011 connector. That way you don't need to run more wires than necessary. All you need to do is run a wire from the X6021 connector to the X6011 connector here for the trans temp signal.
Electrical wiring Auto part Wire Technology Cable


I know this is a lot and hopefully it makes sense, if it doesn't I'm more than happy to clarify things as this is honestly my first rodeo in the scope of things. Gotta start somewhere! More to come, interior should be all buttoned up in a few weeks when the last of the hydraulic pipes come in and the DSC MDM switch panel comes. I believe the last of the wiring will deal with the center console switch control for the MDM DSC button and the DSC connector at the DSC pump in the drive-side wheelwell. More to come.
 
I may have missed it, but can't find it now. Wasn't there some difficulty sourcing a drive shaft for 6MT?

If anyone needs one, I may have a couple stashed away.
PLEASE PM ME or email me on a price for that! iDev326@gmail.com. I need one and wasn't hoping to buy one from BMW for $1,200!
 
Ello gents!

I've gotta say, it's nice to see some other other people doing this now.

Try Car-Part.com--Used Auto Parts Market to help source all the major 6MT parts if you've tried everything else like the driveshaft and transmissions! Once you find the 6MT donor cars in the yards just ask them for the rest of stuff like the harness and trim pieces. Most times they'll cut you a deal if you're buying the other big stuff from them anyways!
 
PLEASE PM ME or email me on a price for that! iDev326@gmail.com. I need one and wasn't hoping to buy one from BMW for $1,200!
Empyre Auto Parts in Rialto has a driveshaft for you. Donor car is an 08 6MT, stock number is "EM415", price is $225. Call them go get that thang!
 
CHARIOT, you are the man. Thank you so much for all the info you posted here. I owe you a beer and a steak dinner haha. Also I’ve ordered all my small parts from BMW South Atlanta and Mike the Parts manager has been awesome to work with. Even though they’re back East from me (I’m in Cali) I highly recommend shopping there. Helped me find a lot of the small parts that I’ll be compiling in a list at the end.

Quick small update, MDM switch panel arrived from Germany along with the last hydraulic line running inside the car. Hoping to have the interior in this weekend.



Ordered a 6 speed E90 M3 transmission so that’s coming in two weeks. Going to be a fun side project getting that to work as the M3 6 speeds have trans cooler lines going to the front of the car for a trans cooler. Wonder why BMW never did that on the M5 ;)


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Got a bit more done over the weekend and put the majority of the interior back together.


The hard to find MDM switch came in and is looking spiffy with the relocated EDC button.


There is a bit of a difference in wiring the MDM switch. On LCI 6 speed cars, the signal from the MDM switch to the DSC module goes to the center console switch center up under the dash in the passenger side fuse panel. It’s connector X16919 and is a black 30 pin connector.



Pin 14 is the deactivation DSC signal that is used on 6 speed LCI cars but empty on LCI SMG cars. What I ended up doing was reusing the wires in the center console from the POWER button and old DSC OFF switch. You will need to remove pin 1 from the POWER switch connector. This wire is the LED activation signal for the button when you press it but since we no longer ave it, we can repurpose it. This wire goes to pin 28 on the X16919 connector. Relocate this from pin 28 to pin 14. Once that is done, you’ll then remove pin 3 from the old DSC OFF button connector and splice this to the other wire you removed from the POWER button connector. You will then need to move pin 41 on the DSC module connector to pin 6.





The E90 M3 transmission arrived today along with the harness and some other stuff. Shoutout to Jobe Auto Parts in Madison, AL for shipping the unit to me. Got it for a great deal and happy with the purchase. If you decide to go this route, you will need to figure out if you will run the transmission cooler or not. The ports on the right hand side of the trans next to the electric oil pump have no threads as the factory lines use some kind of plate to sandwich the lines into the port. What I plan on doing is buying a set of used transmission cooler lines from a E9x M3 and welding AN fittings to the stock M3 lines to use a cooler. Most likely will use a Setrab cooler in the front of the car to do so.





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More progress overnight, I got the SMG transmission out. Exhaust, heat-shield and driveshaft came out pretty easily. I even mentioned to my friend how easy this was going along. You might know this as foreshadowing and probably know what is coming unknown to me! Got to the trans, removed wires, removed rear o2 sensors, etc. Began loosening all the e-torx bolts around the bell housing. Had to use my entire set of locking extensions from HF Tools, made life so much easier not having the extensions fall/pop out. Having a nice time I say......

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However, this project really had a close call. One of the starter e-torx bolts had been overtorqued and rounded from the previous clutch job prior to my ownership. Needless to say that was an absolute PITA and came close to possibly dropping the motor and trans together in order to get to this. I used my 8mm bolt extractors to hammer on with my extension train and managed to get it off somehow....luck was on my side. MAKE SURE TO USE THE PROPER E-TORX SOCKETS! IT IS NOT FUN REMOVING THE TOP ONES, especially if they are rounded/over-torqued. Go slow and make sure you are fully seated when getting these off.

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Got the old SMG out, surprisingly the wiring didn't look too bad near the PLCD sensor. I HIGHLY recommend a low profile trans jack or having someone with a lift and a trans jack. I did this with a regular jack, that was much more difficult to balance the trans coming down. This thing is heavy and will want to rollover coming down if you are not balancing this as it comes down if you do it this way! For some reason, my pilot bearing popped out with the trans. Not sure what that was about. Haven't pulled the clutch and flywheel out yet but they looked well beat for a unit that has done 50+ launch control starts. It's also a great time to replace all O2 sensors, I will be doing all four since my car has had lambda errors.

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I ran the last hydraulic line from the clutch master to the clutch slave. Being that the trans was out, it made it a lot easier to fish the line up from inside the car. The line runs from the master, over the trans tunnel and into a grommet. Look at my photo if you need a reference. Don't forget to check the rubber o-ring and locking clip on both ends.

Auto part Vehicle Engine Wheel Automotive engine part


The interior no longer looks like a absolute mess anymore and is all fully back together and functioning. The EDC and MDM buttons are functioning the way they are supposed to and I tested all the buttons to make sure they work as intended. Off to Hawaii I go for a week and back at this immediately when I get back!

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