This contribution deals with the problem of joint frame synchronization and channel estimation for a system using bit-interleaved coded modulation in a MIMO context. A receiver, based on the EM algorithm, is derived. This receiver iterates between detection and estimation. We illustrate how initial estimates may be obtained and how convergence problems may be avoided. Through computer simulations the performance of the proposed receiver is investigated, both in terms of frame error rate (FER) and estimation error variance. We show that exploiting code properties for estimation purposes allows to reduce the length of training sequences, and thus results in an increase in spectral efficiency.