Bodyboarder said:
Oh you flipping beauty !!
Guessing you’ve done your homework then on all things diff related !!
Can I pick your brains in what I’ll need ?
Looks like the easiest solution would be to buy a 3.64 diff and have an lsd fitted ? Keep mine to one side . Do you know if the automatic diffs are the same fitment / would work with my car ? Presume the M diff is different ( think I’ve read it’s mounted completely different ?)
Thank you
Of course, any time
In terms of fitments, excluding the M as that is a different kettle of fish, all E85/E86 housings will fit on all E85/E86 Z4s, meaning you can take a whole diff from a 2.5 and put it in a 3.0si. The main incompatibilities lie with the crown size and output shaft pattern.
Crown size (168K, 188K and 210/215) will affect the specific LSD fitment. Most major manufacturers (such as Quaife) will do different LSDs to fit different crown sizes, the main thing is to make sure you are buying the right LSD for the right diff.
Output shaft pattern, as far as I know there is only 1 E85/E86 variant that has a different diff output shaft, the E85 2.2i manual (might also be the case for the 2.2i auto, but not sure).
To summarise, yes you could just go ahead and buy any of the 3.64 diffs available (E85 2.5i auto, E85 3.0si auto, E86 3.0si auto). And yes the M is completely different.