Listen, I know you boomers love the phrases, "Just buy an S", "Why would you do that", "BMW knows best", "Go to the Dealership", and "I live an incredibly sheltered existence and don't know why anyone would try to have fun working on their car", but I'm not that kind of guy and if you're about to post something like that, anything you say will be instantly discarded by me, so don't even bother. Assume that I'm talking purely about compatibility, and leave your opinions out of the equation. If I wanted an S, I'd have an S, but I don't want to deal with that nightmare eating up tensioners and guides every 2 miles. Efficiency is my literal only goal, I do not care about power.

With that out of the way, I want to know if I can bolt just the intake manifold from an R56 S, to a Non-S with an N12. I have my reasons for trying this. I am not doing any forced induction with this engine, so I know I'm going to have to fab some kind of block-off to any of the extra turbo stuff. If it fits on the head, and the ports clear correctly, that's good enough for me. Has anyone tried to do this? Does anyone know where I can learn more about the intake system from a technical perspective? If I succeed in my quest, there may be one more new aftermarket part for the Non-S in the world, or an easy DIY job that could help airflow temp and volume in certain applications.

As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and I can afford to lose money, but I don't want to if I can't get this first baby step out of the way.