Building a w124 drift car
 

I've been talking about doing this for a while and I'm ready to pull the trigger.

These are the options I was thinking...

M103 with a redrilled diesel manifold to run turbo at low boost. However manual transmissions are nearly impossible to find. Why does no one make bellhousing adapters??

Or

Yank out the MB powertrain, sell it, and drop in a SBC/T5.
This solves both the transmission and aftermarket search hurdle I'd run into with a m103 or M104.

Can I get the scoop on the diff? How much abuse can it take, and can it be welded? Will it work with a Chevy application?

Also is there a quick and easy way to improve steering radius? I remember reading up on that s123 diesel drift wagon running Volvo 240 components, however I'm not sure how much fabrication was involved, and if the w123 is similar to the w124.

If I were you, I'd start with a 400e. The engine bay is much bigger and ready for almost any motor swap. The differential is stronger, and I've welded one before.

A m103 is a gutless turd. I wouldn't waste time with one.

400e's are not easy to find. I did find however a 94 e320 running for $250.
The engine bay should be the same aside from the core support and cross member no?
I think I'm gonna go LS3/T56. It's much more expensive but I think the best option. Maybe I can even try and find a 400e diff.

The 400/500e's have a different firewall to give more space for a v8 engine. They also have bigger spindles, different sway bars,, hub bearings, a stronger rear subframe, and the bigger 1.3L differential. They also come with a rear mounted battery already.

The only reason I would consider dealing with a 6cyl car is because that's all the coupes came in.

But if 4 doors don't bother you, find a beater 400e.

Hmm. Well there's no 400e's even for sale near me... so I guess maybe I can build a tubular subframe and order a 400e sway bar and spindles, then maybe take the angle grinder to the firewall if I have to haha.

V8 cars do have a bigger hole for swaps.

Turbobandit makes insane power on a m104 w124 with the 210mm diff. Not all w124s have this diff and no m103 cars do but the v8s should. A big downside to this is you can't find 210mm lsds like you can 185mm. The rear end ratios also suck on v8 210mm diffs.

As for the trans you can cut and adapter and use a custom flywheel on the flex plate. Ive seen this done on other applications with good results. Starter mounting does become difficult however.

If I were doing this Id get a late m104 w124, they make 217hp, and swap in a welded 3.07 210mm diff from a v6 w210 4 matic. For the trans I'd go with a getrag from a v8 e34 and bellhousing adapter plate like I mentioned above. Or just do what everyone else does and get a s chassis.

A V8 e34 getrag will bolt to an m104 with an adapter plate? Where do I find the adapter plate?

You'll have to make the plate and flywheel. Like I was saying you can make the plate out of 3/8" to 1/2" aluminum and use some countersunk holes, dowels, and creativity to line it up. Then decide what clutch you want on your transmission. With that you can either modify an oem flywheel to bolt to the flex plate, machine a steel round to convert the flex plate to a flywheel, or have a sexy custom flywheel made for $$$$. Then you need to decide where the starter goes.

Someone at some point made an adapter to put a mk3 supra trans on a om617. A friend seems to have located one but that's not something I'd count on finding.

Some people say to heck with it and weld bellhousings and make flywheel spacers/adapers for the crank. That's not a preferred option. You'll never get things concentric and when the clutch flys apart the modified bellhousing isn't stopping it.

This isn't s13 cheap or easy. That's why I've driven to Virginia from Indiana to get a rust free manual 2.6 190e for what people ask for the transmission on the forums. I also went to Georgia to get a hardtop hatch S12 200sx 5 speed 4 banger rice rocket.

The m103 seems to be a good choice, turbobandit uses it and some other swedish/norwegian guys, i spoke to a guy that made a 'budget' drift build i cant remember the name anymore.
The stock engine on e85 is capable of at least 500hp, the thing with using the stock engine for drifting is the oil will be pushed to the back so there might be a chance of loosing oil pressure, the m104 engine doesnt have this problem.

You can just use the aluminium m103 plenum right? its a start, you can always upgrade to a turbobandit-like plenum.

About the adapter plates, there are definately some on the market for bmw gearboxes, gs5 and gs6. Dieselpumpuk and bakaxel sell these (im not sure if im allowed to mention it here).
I've looked for this myself, but its still a bit too expensive including the sachs, there is a kit of it.

Turbobandit manifolds are expensive and they're overseas. I've learned I can redrill a OM606 turbo manifold for the M104.

Not really, this was tried before but the 606 ports are round and smaller than the 104 rectangular. Compare exhaust manifold gaskets.

Maybe you can get a flange laser-cut and then weld a log manifold with weld-els? Not optimal flow, but it would certainly work.

A 7m and 2jz have simmilar port spacing. If you wanted to chop and weld rather than custom fab something maybe you could use m104 flanges on a 2jz manifold. Bonus points for twin turbo action.

I mean not really. Despite the fact that the 2JZ has a big space between the 3-4 cylinder, the 2JZ is a much smaller bore space block.

If your'e thinking it has a similar bore space to an RB26 block, that would be correct however, as you can in fact bolt an M104/M103 head on an L-series, or RB block.

Interesting. I had a 7M and when cleaning out the garage I placed the exhaust manifold gasket on my m104 head and remember it was very close. Maybe the 2jz has a smaller bore spacing. Either way adapting a manifold with m104 flanges seems like a good option.

606 does have the rectangular ports I thought, the 603 has round which matches up to the m103

See post 7

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/performance-paddock/362767-treadstone-turbo-manifolds.html


See post 4

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/325321-om606-24v-exhaust-manifold-gasket-pic.html

Sbc swap in any (at least up to w210) Mercedes is a problem because of the front sump and rear steer issue. Modifiing the pan is easy enough but that doesn't move the oil pump. I've seen drag links cut and made to pass under but I don't particularly like that option. Maybe a drysump sytem would be the right move. Although expensive it also deals with pressure loss in corners. Plus you'll spend a decent chunk adapting a good manual to a mercedes motor. A ls or truck engine could be done. A Canton or similar s13 style swap pan will get you front sump but you may still have to weld on it to adjust the rear corners of the sump. I've actually bought a ls oilpan gasket to see if a m117 pan could be adapted to a LS motor and it looks possible but hard to say for sure without an actual engine to check for balancer and trans clearance issues. For the diff I'm not certain but I know the gen2 w126 and gen2 r107 are similar looking to a w124. A w140 diff may be the same mounting points too. I'll have to crawl around under some of my parts cars to look. Either way they are all low numerical ratios. 2.47, maybe a 2.8x I think for 210mm rears. I have a r129 parts car that will be on the chopping block after I get the m119 out. That rear will fit I'm pretty sure but it's 2.xx I'm sure. If you do go with a w124 I'd sell the whole r129 roller pretty cheap and you get all the heavy duty suspension and brakes.

You can get a reverse sump pan, if you raise the right hand side of the motor up enough it will clear the pivot arm. No steering or cross member modifications need to be done.

On which engine?

Did you already found out something about increasing the steering radius?
I've been searching too but didn't find much.

Im not sure about w124 spindles(or knuckles) but r107 have a bolt on steering arm that can be modified or replaces with custom a custom part easily. w201 sway bar is narrower i know and may get you a little room for inner tire clearance if it will fit.

DieselpumpUK makes some OM606 adapters and clutches to BMW ZF Gearboxes that would work. The Adapter's not awful in price but if you're not that great a fabricator or you wanna keep an OM6xx/M10x power, it is an option.

I was pretty familiar with the company that made the OM617/Toyota R series adapters. I was talking to them when they were trying to make an OM603/Toyota R series adapter using a custom cast bellhousing instead of the 617's adapter plate, but by that point the company had unfortunately folded.

I don't know what your power goal is but for that amount of work you can do some light modification to get an S13 diff in there and that gets you your 3.54-4.30 ratios. That does have a power limit that most of your engine options discuss will hit, but I'm not sure I'd lean much harder even on a 210mm MBz diff because by that point you'll be breaking output shafts at the hubs.

So does the W201 and W124.

A narrower front bar wont help your steering angle you'll hit the inside of the bar before it makes it to the sway bar mount.