[TinCanSailor]

Beautiful M6 and apologies for not responding sooner; I’ve been wrenching on my wife’s F10 550, daughter E93 335 and my sons 2000 F250 7.3k SD for the past week and still have plenty of work to do through the weekend.

You are correct about the 2 methods. To be honest the bearings, rods and pistons could be done with an engine bridge in place but anyone worth their weight in salt would drop the front assembly and knock it out in a much shorter time frame.

In regards to other items to address while doing this with engine out. I would do 5150 CP rods and pistons if ya want the additional peace. I’d also do the plugs, coils and injectors. By them from FCP euro and enjoy lifetime warranty. While there you could do the valve seal job; I think 5150 might have a kit for this as well. The rods, pistons and bearings from 5150 would be about 5k-ish. The plugs, coils and injectors you’d be about 1.5k.

Labor would vary by shop hour rate and if ya don’t have a trusted supplier indy shop near you then I’d reach out to RKAutowerks, ship it to them and just wait in full confidence for its triumphant return and then enjoy a near worry free WoT life.

In regards to other other items; I would do a diff brace for sure, then the rear axles and driveshaft if you think that you’ll be doing jack rabbit starts on the regs. Otherwise if you are going to be doing rolling start WoT tests in Mexico you’d be good with just the let diff brace.

DM me your contact info if ya wanna chat and/or HMU on IG tincan.sailor and we can continue to chat there.

Best Regards,
-noah