I'm going to pickup a 94 c280 Saturday. It's destiny is to be the replacement for my 84(?) 300Dt race car experiment. I'll call it reasonably successful with a 2nd and a 4th place finish among a couple other top 10 finishes in maybe 7-8 races(of about 40 cars +/-), which are 100 lap(one 150 lap) races with gutted cars and safety equipment as far as you choose to go. I've only run them at one 1/3 mile banked asphalt oval but this car will be built to standards needed for a bunch of local(ish) tracks that run them including a couple dirt tracks. This one gets a rollcage. The W123 handled great but it just has nothing half way down the straights, both of my great finishes were in the rain where power wasnt the top priority. I blew it up pretty bad last race, it was hurt for awhile but kept going with some cooling mods to run with a blown head gasket venting exhaust but not the coolant.

The w123 was great because of the big real metal bumpers, these races are red flag only, no yellows. They stop it for stopped cars in dangerous situations but spins and whatever just happen. It's not a demolition derby but contact is not frowned upon much so it was a great battering ram when someone wanted to get feisty. I'm a little concerned about the fragility of the multilink rear, I bent a couple rear control arms getting into the wall hard and have little faith the multilink would have survived the last one. thats a rear wheel and the view is straight down the side of the car! From what I see on fcp euro it appears the r129/w124 rear control arms are interchangeable, but I've never owned a w202 or taken one apart. I'm hoping the V8 or v12 r129 subframes I have will be a beefier parts source. I have a w140 300se sourced 3.69 diff that should be a minimal mod installation too I've definitely learned that a faster car and a little more caution will be better but it's still going to get slammed. I can box some of the stamped arms if necessary.

It will probably be run as an Auto for the time being but a manual swap is definitely in the works since I'd like to do some other Motorsports(and games ) with it. My biggest question mark is the computers having issues with the swap. Hoping duxthe reads this far and can chime in. One being weather having the shifter in different gears will have any effect on power/tune? I know a guy that 6 speed swapped his 94 e420, im assuming the engine management is very similar, and he had an issue where it had a hickup at 4500 rpm if the auto shifter sensor was in any gear but park. My concern is, is something in the ECU changing parameters and even possibly a reduced power situation even when it "feels" like it's running ok in park with no speed sensor? My car is a non asr according to "lastvin" so that may be a positive as far as the ECU being involved in throttle and such. Any insight on that would be very much appreciated. The other worry is any anti theft BS that might be there. I know about the late 90s early 2000's electronic key, column lock /no start issues but I really have very little non pre 86 car knowledge. I can't have it cutting power or shutting off or something because of, well... Anything. I'll need to have a push button start that will start in any gear, and I don't know if that would throw the ECU or whatever security this thing has for a loop. I don't really do the next gen multilink rear cars for exactly that reason, computers are not my thing. The wiring harness is a concern but I have a hard time believing it was still running a couple years ago with no issues with a candy coated engine harness. The car got parked for a fuel leak and then some **** bag stole the catalytic converter, which is the other issue that concerns me. Will the ECU lose it over the second o2 sensor reading? I found a little mini catalytic converter gizmo that you mount the second sensor in to fool it, I hope that works.

Hopefully none of these issues will be too much to deal with. The rest of the build is getting every ounce of weight out of it and building my first rollcage/mounting a race seat and harness. No glass, no lights, doors bolted or welded shut and some rub rails. I'm hoping I can actually run the aluminum w123 bumpers, I need to check with tech inspectors on legality. Shame it's not a c320(I assume there was a m104 3.2 w202). I do have access to a 3.2 from a w140 also for down the road possibly.



Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

__________________
WARNING!!! VINTAGE MERCEDES MAY MULTIPLY UNCONTROLABLY!!! I have tons of Sl/Slc parts w108 w111 w126 and more. E-mail me with needs
BirchsgarageMB@gmail.com