My 190E 3.2 Twin turbo project
 

This is the new toy - a 1987 190E 2.6 auto with a twist :D


The 2.6 12v engine has been swapped for an M104 3.2 24v engine. The conversion was done by Ben (mb5032) The engine is from an S320 and according to him the bigger cars weight meant they dragged a little extra from the engine with revised cam profiles and a tweaked ECU.

Having spent ages trying to source a 3.2 for my black 2.6 I eventually found this one already fitted in a 190 shell! As far as I know this car is unique in the UK - as I thought I would be building the first one :)
This shows how little I know as he converted this one (extremely well) 11 years ago and still only has 50k on the clock. It has been off the road for the last 3 years as Ben completed his 5.0 V8 conversion 4 years ago and was therefore prepared to let me have this one.

I spent an entire weekend removing the stale smell and green algae/dust/cobweb/leaf buildup that occurs when a car is left standing for a few years. Fixed and lubricated everything that didnt work and made a huge error
I assumed with just 50k miles on it the engine wouldnt suffer any of the infamous M104 harness issues - WRONG! Because of my error in removing the coilpacks and disturbing the wiring loom I managed to create some rather large short cicuits in the loom
The vehicle is currently sitting awaiting a new ECU and coilpacks as well as me getting all the aftermarket management ready
However every wire in the engine loom was cut, reinsulated with heat shrink, resoldered and rewrapped to prevent any further incidents :)


I will be fitting 2 new front wings, all new brakes and a full Zender kit (also from Ben) with some Evo1 Cosworth wheels (well the stock SL wheels that I already have ;) ) in the next few weeks


Now I don't have to fit the engine the turbo conversion is going ahead full steam.

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The engine installation is really neat with only the air filter making it look non factory! It is temporarily in the wrong place just to drive tha car around, Ben had it located in a cold air box when he used it

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Tight fit in there :)
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Turbo kit pics and wiring loom repair pics to follow :)


Mark

Nice project you got there. Should be an absolute beast when its all done. You gonna use the AEM? If you need complete wiring instructions(assuming you retained the stock wiring loom) get a one day subscription to http://www.startekinfo.com/StarTek/ and get all the info youll ever need. I personally used it to assemble a e320, sl600 and a sl500 bible. The sl500 bible is for a um... different project :D:D:D

Yep - I intend to use the AEM at the moment purely because of the spark control, however i will consider other options right up to the point the turbos are on and I need management :)
I am pretty lucky with regard to the wiring as it is a mix of 190 and S320 wiring and Ben had all of the wiring diagrams he used 11 years ago when he did the swap so the diagrams I have are by far the best for my car.
That said - If there was an AEM specific diagram then thats different :)

I need to work out what sensors are where as i come from a Honda/Rover background as far as turbo conversions are concerned although have owned my R129 300SL for over 6 years so Mercs are not entirely new to me, the different sensor types and locations are

SL will be next for a turbo conversion though :)

I know for a fact almost all my engine management wires are different from the pre 96 M104 wires but i neglected to printout a older 320 wiring book when I had the startek subscription. I could still help if you have question though since the first car I ever did major wiring on was my e320 lol. Hell of a start huh?

Id tap that washer fluid tank, fill it up with 50/50(water/meth) washer fluid, install a coolingmist waster injection pump, and have the most bad ass 7L water injection kit ever haha.

I thought the 190's with V8's swapped in were a tight fit, but dayam!

Early M104 Wiring issues :)

After giving the car and engine bay a really good clean I removed the coilpacks and cleaned around head area. This caused the wiring inside the rubber block to short out ( I didnt realise at this time) and my previously perfect engine had all sorts of running problems for the next 24hrs until it died completely.

As mentioned above, here is my cheapskate solution to the harness issue

I used repair cables recommended by someone on the UK forums, the coil connectors look different but fit perfectly.
Part number is A2025406081 and consists of a new coil pack connector with a length of attached cable
The repair cables worked perfectly, the coil connection was spot on despite looking different and not having the wire retaining spring they are a perfect and secure fit.

Coilpack wiring Repair procedure
For future reference the centre pins of the coilpack wiring are the pink/red and these are all joined inside the moulded section back to a single pink/red positive feed. The other wires are all black with a colour trace. These colours are correct for my M104.994 engine

Numbering from the front (timing chain) end of the engine

1. Front coil (on plug 2) is black with a yellow trace
2. 2nd coil (on plug 4) is also black but with a white trace
3. 3rd coil (on plug 6) is all black with no colour trace

The replacement harnesses all have brown and blue wires, with blue being the centre pin
Strip the harness back at least 6 inches away from the head to a point where the harness is no longer deteriorating, and cut through the 4 wires for the ignition harness and remove the moulded section. Cut each coilpack loom to length allowign a small amount of excess. Now join all 3 blue wires to the existing pink/red . Wire each individual coil connector according to the colours listed above



Now for the rest of the loom

As I delved further I found some more deteriorating insulation and decided to do the whole engine bay loom with heatshrink

The theory was to re-insulate every wire back to a point in the loom where there is absolutely no sign of dererioration - and then go back a fair bit from that point too! This has left me with a connection point only just inside the engine bay just before the loom enters the bulkhead.
Where the loom is bad the insulation is rock hard and cracks or just disintergrates when you touch it. The point I have sleeved back to has perfect cables with normal flexibility and NO deterioration at all. Someone else may have to go all the way back to the ECU housing with the reinsulation!

The white electrical tape in this first pic is from my previous quick fix on the coilpack wiring and the individual injector looms. This is the harness in the main removed from the engine and the first individual wires unwrapped.
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At each plug location the existing wires were cut about 4-6" from the end, then a single piece of 1.5mm heat shrink placed over the wire and shrunk into place. Then more heat shrink was added to the main wire all the way back to the bulkhead. This often entailed using 3 or 4 seperate lengths as the existing insulation would either crack or fall away completely making a single length of heat shrink almost impossible to apply. If this happens is not a problem just add a piece, shrink it then add a second pice and overlap it :)
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Now a pretty important part!
Once the wires have new insulation you need to add yet another length of bigger heat shrink (in my case 2.5mm) and run it about a foot up the loom out of the way.

Now twist the wires together and solder them, I use a gas flame for both soldering and shrinking.

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Having soldered the joint, you can now slide the big piece of heat shrink you fitted earleir back down over the joint and shrink to seal it. Pic courtesy of my son who turned up just in time :)
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The end result looks like this, - the wires are perfectly insulated and waiting to be bound with insulating tape first and then cloth loom tape :)

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I managed most wires including the injectors and coilpacks in just 5 hours and for very little cash compared to a new harness. Its looking really good now. After I finished it I tested every connection for resistance with a multimeter back to the engine bay connector (dont forget I have an S320 harness) to ensure the accuracy of my soldering.


Hopefully this helps someone else :)

Just noticed theres nothing leading/connecting to your knock sensor. Might want get a monitor so you can ultilize that down the road when the turbos are in.

e320 where is the knock sensor, which u describe?
also mark i see on the top pic far right you have the ignition trimming switch, which is the rotary dial with 1-7 on it, you can use this for retarding ignition timing on your engine, if you dont get ignition timing hoocked up

ALL of the wires were off for reinsulation - not just the coil packs and injectors :)



Unfortuantely its a poor band aid on a very bad situation :D

Spark control is critical as you dont want the ignition timing in the off boost sections to be retarded as that justs costs in performance and economy.
The solution has to be complete spark contol under boost situations and this by default has to be mappable - ie stand alone or piggy back.

Intercepting the stock signals is easier, SA is better. However I have a distinct budget in mid for the whole project which includes buying the car, turbo kit, managment, brakes , suspension etc etc and this is not very big :)

I want 500E/AMG power for C280 money - on current exchange rates I want to spend no more than £4000 on the whole car which at current rates is well under $8000 - remember this includes the car itself and insurance.


Mark

you have the same engine as me so i will be intereseted how you intercept the ignition timing signal and which piggyback or s.a you use,

c280nz - I think the knock sensor is integrated into the timing control thing on the front of the motor. What spark plugs are you using? I need colder plugs, I think I have F8DC0 from bosch now.

e320 i had to go to a cooler plug, i run the ngk range of plugs and went 1 cooler range, i went from a factory 7 to a 6 heat range which is cooler with ngks, that is the coolest you can go with a copper tip plug, without going to one of those fancy iridium or twin tip sortof plugs, which arnt ment to be as tolerant if you get a bit of pre- ignition,
u dont want to see the last plugs i pulled out, they were pritty bad,
running to lean up top, hence why i want to go larger injectors.

i looked up about the knock sensor and found it,
side note like roman said i dont think it is easy to intercept the crank signal and modify it to adjust timing easily on our early m104 models like it is on your newer model

I also went with the 6 heat range plugs :) Runs like a champ.

I think roman meant that the crank sensor isnt accurate enough for a stand alone setup. I have installed the AEM FIC into various honda's that are only OBDI and have the crappy crank sensors and the unit worked fine. The key is that the AEM uses the cam sensor also to eliminate most all confusion.

Nice job with the heat shrink. I did the same thing with my C36-powered W124 wagon, until I saved up for a regular C280 harness.

:-) neil

very nice indeed, man..