Two ?dumb questions

[YiLi]

Okay so I read almost every post about stalling problems and have the list ready for my first visit to a local mechanic to diagnose and fix the stalling problem on my 1993 300E - own for about a month now.

So my two rather dumb questions are: 1) how do you all run these various tests on your vehicles. Do you have techie type home shops or if I had gotten a book with the vehicle I too would know to read codes etc. from some place on or in vehicle? and then 2) I browsed and learned I would purchase a CD rom manual, but where do I look on the vehicle to see if I have the E300 2.8 or 3 or whatever?

Sorry if these questions are too elementary for the group