RB26DETT swap in....anyone else done this?

[texsilvia]

I have a chance to get an R32 front clip with low mileage and was thinking of doing the mother of all swaps in to an S13.

Things I know:

1) McKinney Motorsports makes a kit to allow the RB26dett to be installed into the 89-98 240's and keep the TT system if desired.

2) The propellor shaft that drives the front wheels will pass somewhere to the right of the transmission hump under (or possibly partly through) the passenger area.

3) The driveshaft will need to be shortened and will require a new larger yoke.

4) The tranny tunnel and paseenger floorpan will most likely need to be fab'd to accomodate the transfer case.

5) The front half-shafts will probably need to be shortened, and the skyline spindles and hubs, possibly the entire skyline front suspension used in place of the silvia parts.

What I don't know:

What is the position (front to back) of the front differential of the AWD skyline relative to the wheel centerline of a silvia? A few inches +/- from center is acceptable. A source of potential problems is the geometry of the front subframe on a silvia and whether or not it will interfere with the halfshafts. Is anyone familiar with the subframe layout of a silvia vs. that of an AWD skyline?

What else should I look for? The crossmember from an R32 will bolt in to the silvia w/o modification IF the motor is an RB25DET....is there a significant difference between the RB26DETT crossmember and the RB25DET crossmember? If not, this simplifies things greatly.

The rest of the swap seems straight forward, cooling, intercooler, ECU, exhaust, etc all seem relatively easy compared to the AWD challenge.

This project is in the rough planning stages, if the AWD system proves to be far far too complicated, and by that I mean fabricating frame components, we may go with the "proven to be easy" RB25DET.

-Texsilvia