If you can't get SERIN2 to work, I'd skip the idea of writing your own Synchronous Slave routine.

You keep saying that you've set all ports to digital.
How did you do that? What statements did you use?
The method of turning off analog ports varies from PIC to PIC.
Are you sure you got the right ones?

Did you set TRISE.
If so what did you set it to?
I've seen people go TRISE=%11111111, thinking that they are setting PORTE to all input, but what it really does is turn on the PSP module, which along with other problems, disables PORTE.2 for general I/O.

Don't dismissed 396 as being correct, simply because you've tried it and it didn't work. 396 is the correct mode number, not T2400.
<br>