Thanks for the info guys, a little background: I bought it in Kuwait from a scrap dealer who told me he bought it from germany but when I put the vin into a few benz sites it came back telling me it was supposed to be a 300E 4 matic. I obviously got something wrong!
It's my 2nd Mercedes, 1st one was a 97 C280 which saved my life when some assh**e ran into the back of me. Since then I've nothing but respect for the build quality and don't really want to drive anything else in this country.
As for the 230E, I'd really like to perk it up a bit performance wise as the 4cyl is a bit slow also the kickdown only seems to work when it wants to.
I'd really like to drop a 6cyl into it, can any of you see any imediate problems with that i.e. what other components would I have to change?
I'm an aircraft mechanic so I'm not scared of anything technical but it is my only car at the moment and I have to travel about 200kms a day for work.