1973/450sl Cylinder head rebuild and crane install

[zeggate]

After having my car for 5 months, returned on 5/3/08 and returned again on 5/22/08. The mechanic now claims the crane XR3000 is not made for my car and he had to shave one of the parts to fit in the distributor. In addition he states the optical unit has very little tolerance and he had to plug the vacuum advance otherwise it would have to be retarded and that would cause backfiring and burning of more gas. He also claims that he hooked the Crane system to the ballast to prevent overload from the alternator from burning out the Crane unit. He also states that these car are meant to run rich. The car runs a bit better than before but I am at a loss as to what to believe. Is the fact that my transistor switching unit is fried causing me to have to accept a second class gerryrigged car. HELP IS NEEDED

[Peter Kraft]

I'm sorry, but your parts changer mechanic doesn't have a clue. I have used that same Crane unit on several early V8 Mercedes cars and have never had an issue.

Those cars are NOT meant to run rich, he probably doesn't have a proper co meter to measure the co content. That is how the fuel mixture is set up on these cars. Obviously, the ignition system has to be sorted out first.

It sounds like this guy is a parts changer, not a technician.

[sgaar]

A couple of things; look here http://www.cranecams.com/pdf/90002000a.pdf and also read the artice in the most recent issue of the Star page 78. That article cover the XR-700 but it is somewhat similar to the XR-3000 unit. There are 3 versions of the XR-3000. Maybe you got the wrong one?