Maxing Out a 300E?

[Tump]

Hello fellow enthusiasts!

As I've said before, I've done so much work to my beautiful 87 300E that it will never be financially reasonable to sell it. So, I've opted to tweak it a bit and possibly tweak it a lot more to keep it running longer and faster. Its body and interior are perfect so I'll tell you what I've done and ask if what I propose to do is reasonable and/or if any one else has performed these mod.'s before.

Current Mod.'s:
Right now modifications are minimal. I have 16" five hole rims (ET41), new Bilstein HD struts, a K&N replacement filter, and a modified air intake pipe (I cut the lip off the end and built a funnel like intake blocking off the heat from the A/C high pressure line to capture more cold fresh air from directly behind the grill). I removed the resistor that retards timing 6 deg. BTDC and timing is now either 0 deg. BTDC or 2 deg. BTDC thereby increasing compression and gaining about 11 horsepower. One of my pre-cat.'s became clogged before I had the head done so I replaced the exhaust with a stainless steel header/cat. unit from Time Valve that eliminated the pre-cat.'s and replaced them with just one, modern, higher flowing cat., thereby gaining about 5 hp (exhaust emissions are well below the legal limit).
This summer I am going to replace the front anti sway bar and bushings with a 500E sway bar and bushings, and the rear with a 400E sportline sway bar and bushings. I will also replace the resonator with a stainless y-pipe from Time Valve and a new Time Valve stainless or a High Performance muffler to gain between 2 and 5hp.

Proposed Mod.'s:
Later I'm thinking that I might as well replace the brake lines with stainless steel/teflon lined lines and the rotors and calipers with those from a 400E/E420 front and back.
After that I wonder if it would be possible (and/or slightly reasonable) to replace the entire original 103,12 valve engine with an early 104, 16 valve engine and/or an AMG engine from a C36? If these mod.'s are possible I would like to also replace the original 4 speed automatic transmission with a later 5 speed driver adaptable tranny to mate up with the more powerful C36 or later 104 engine.

I would then take the car to club races.

I believe that I could get this done for about $10K parts and labor, significantly cheaper than buying a used C36, C43, 500E or E55.


Any advice, opinions or experience would be appreciated.

Tweaking my MB is a relatively safe and highly amusing hobby.
Marc
Restored87300E

[ke6dcj]

Unless you do the work yourself, you will NOT get a C36 engine & tranny to work in your 300E for $10K. Budget closer to $15-20K. I kid you not, esp. since I basically did the same with our the wagon, but I did all the electrical research and wiring myself.

If your car was a 93-95 E320, then you could just drop in a 1995-1996 C36 engine & tranny.

An easier drop-in would be an EARLY 104 engine that used CIS instead HFM.

Again, you'd get more performance selling your car, and purchasing a 400E (low teens). Drop a 3.07 or 2.82 diff in a 400E and you have 80% 500E performance.

:-) neil
1988 360TE AMG
1993 500E

[joe p]

You could always drop in a 400e cis-e mill and brakes. The 92 400e's were fun, no asr and pretty decent power. Minimal adaptations and 124 to 124 swaps are always pretty straightup as long as you are in the same general production area. The cis-e cars are pretty much alike in the wiring and such and the .3's are in both the 400e and the 300e. (only difference is the number of fibers in the packs) If you were REAL frisky you could adapt the 91 500 sl 119 into the 124 using some of the parts from a 400e.

I'd stay away from attempting to adapt a LH mill into it as the entire harness is different which leaves out the 104. I wouldn't kick a fat hog in the butt for the first generation cis or lh 104's. (those are the ones with the distribitor ignition instead if the 3 coils) They just are rude compared to the LH mills. However the cis-e 119's are pretty slick and launch better than the LH 119's.



Joe

[ZorroAMG]

The whole front end of a M119 W124 (400E and 500E) is significantly different from that of an M103 or M104 W124. The front end of the car was basically built around the V8 engine, making costs for the project a very large number.