My car is also a 230E 1988 W124 so it looks like you have a few people here who can help you. I also have the owners manual in english. As Jim has stated the engine is durable, I have had to replace the fuel pump relay, the NY hot weather got to it I guess. I am currently tracking down a fuel smell from the front and a vacumn leak but nothing really major.

Spark plug gap is .032. You can set this slightly wider to say .040 if you want to experiment. This has worked well for a lot of people.

The Euro lenses can be bought right here at partshop (see link above) or www.************************ , the lenses aren't that expensive. If the price is high then chances are you are being sold the whole unit instead of just the lense.

Hope this helps.