@Jake
Can you help out with shipping recommendations? I live in Seattle, WA. I did a brief check and it was ~1.5k there and back. That's almost half the cost of the actual work and would rather invest that money in additional work. $300-$400 I could live with as I'm going to have to hire a car during the time my car is away. I'm guessing it would take at least 3-4 weeks to turn it around. So my non-work cost could easily get to $2K.
If sending the car to FSI doesn't work out then I have a great local option. Squire @
http://www.squiresautowerke.com will be doing the work. He carried out my PPI and my full service. I was both happy with the work and the price. He recommended the LN IMS replacement with Clutch/RMS etc at a price similiar to your IMS retrofit service.
But please let me know if you can help here.