350SD conversion idea
 

i had an interesting idea the other day. since diesels do not need to be smogged, what is preventing me from reg'ing the car and then putting in a yacked out m117? this seems too easy, am i missing something here?

does the car have to be inspected in california every time you reg it?

I'm a little confused. You have a 350SD and you want to take the Diesel out and put in a Gas engine? I suspect you can do this. I would be interested in your rod bender engine when it is removed.

As for DMV, No smog required. Annual registration and title transfer do not ask if the car has remained diesel. You can probably re-register as a gas car if you want and then smog every two years like everybody else.

i dont have a 350sd, i just wanted to throw around the idea. i think one with a sick om603 would be a good candidate. on a gas car, you cant just put in any old engine you want. the smog center must see that it has the correct engine for the chassis and all applicable smog gear must be present as well, obviously. since diesels do not need to be smog’d, i figured that would be my way around it.

the premise of this project would be to build a swb v8 w126. the only swb v8s in the states right now are early cars that, 99% of the time, are sick and would require restoration anyway. the 350sd has all of the updates to the w126 chassis and interior...

The real difficulty might be finding a 350SD - it was only sold in 1991 in the W126. I'm guessing most of the W126 350s that year were SDLs, I'd bet there were no more than a couple of hundred SD's sold before the W140 changeover.

There's one in Portland OR for sale but at the price they're asking I doubt you'd want to mess with it. Plus it only has about 110K miles on it.
They're asking $11,500 for it. :eek:

correct, all the ones i have found have been expensive and there are only a few cars to draw from. another reason why i like the idea. :D the challenge.

If you really like a challenge, why not go for putting an AMG modified V8 in a W123. That would be one very interesting sleeper car. Keep all the diesel badges on it. :D
It would probably set you back the same amout of $$$.