Yes, like I said it was tuned carefully to make sure the handling is improved without degrading the ride quality. One of the elements need to be softened in the rear.
Sway Bar or Shocks or Springs. Sway bar is very difficult and not worth the trouble aftermarket, shocks are easy, springs would be an experimentation and gets you a similar quality ride and handling to the original Sportline.

If the rear is as stiff as the front the car follows the road imperfections too much and just feels like track car like I said.

This was also true for the W124 Sportline. I had one of those too back in the day....

 

ICV hoses are now replaced. When removing the cold start injector, the bolt closer to the head was totally seized, and my attempts to hammer a T40 into it for removal (I did not wanna drill a bolt that small in a tight area), it broke the tab off. High heat JB weld later and it's back on...and as I predicted the car did not start once it was replaced. Leaned the mixture screw out a bit and it runs. Not super swell, but I left it at that, and I am going to duty cycle adjust the mixture screw soon with a couple multimeters to help.

Shifter is now rebuilt with the parts from Flieben, and Mein Gott, what a better driving car just by that alone. I discovered the white/clear plastic bushing inside the shift that holds the spring captive had failed and shot the spring out, which explains why the thing did not return from the 5th gate back to neutral, and why getting into the 1st/2nd and even reverse gate sucks. The Reverse pin is slightly bent but I am going to ignore that and leave it alone.

Right now though I am eye balling H&R 2.6 springs on Ebay for $240, new, which is a nice price.
I also just ordered ball joints, and I am going order a spring compressor soon, along with a ball joint tool.
Clutch master & slave cylinder arrived today as well. I will probably install those soon, but I need to find the soft line and order some more reservoir line off Belmetric.

 

I've somewhat unofficially placed a pause on the project. Car is still drivable, but I've started to amass some parts, and I will be doing a bulk sum of work to it in the near future to make it not such a ****box to drive. I also want to get the replacement rear bumper installed which I'll get in a month or so now. I have some other priorities to take care of, so the car's on a back burner for the next month or so.

-Transmission fluid
-Diff fluid
-Next oil change
-Control arm rebuild w/ urethane bushings and new ball joints
-Clutch master, slave, and soft line plus reservoir hose replacement
-New speakers (only 1 of 4 works)
-New O2 sensor + duty cycle tune the mixture
-Fix remaining vacuum leaks (going to smoke test the engine in the next week or so)
-Search for a low temperature fan switch, or put a resistor in the harness to make the second stage of electric fans trigger more often*
-Replace shifter trim plate with 3D printed replacement
-Replace all 3 vent surrounds with 3D printed replacements
-Get access to the dash pod control valve to vacuum test everything again, and cap off what does not work. I have intermittent temperature door failure to full heat. Something is leaking that wasn't initially.
-Repair the odometer + new cluster lights to LED

*I have the AC pressure switch hot wired together for permanent low speed fans, I would like to revert this if I succeed, potentially.

 

Back for my first post in a while. My rear bumper arrived two weeks ago courtesy of my friend in Georgia who brought it down to me.

And I also got a really sweet score. Somebody about an hour away from me was parting out a severely rotten 86 automatic Cosworth, and I got the front seats (power), rear seat (with headrests), and trunk lid w/ spoiler from it. I also have the front sway bar too, although I recall the 2.6 having a larger sway bar. The leather on the seats is basically completely gone, but the foam is in good shape for re-upholstery. I'm not entirely sure I will end up using them, and I already know (and knew prior) that the rear seat will not fit in my car. I know where a late model sport rear seat and a single front (passenger) seat is from a Sportline 190E, but I'm trying to close a deal with the seller. It's on the other side of the country, so it's not going to be easy to get to Florida. Alternatively, if anyone has a late model sport back seat but owns a pre facelift car, I'm open to trade.

The spoiler to my surprise (although it really shouldn't be) is made of that same weird foam that every single spoiler on every German car back in the 80s had. I recall it being for pedestrian safety which is a little goofy. I'm used to it from Porsche ownership, so I kind of like it. A common issue seems to be that it gets these bumps on the outer sections of it? I need to look into possible solutions, I assume I can sand it down somewhat but I'm not entirely sure that's the best idea.

I'm going back over there on Monday to grab a couple more parts. I forgot to get the headrest mounting brackets, he never removed them from the car actually. I'm also going to grab the steering box from it, which is still attached to the chassis. Cosworth steering boxes are 3.0 ratio vs Sportline 3.3 vs stock 3.6 (or 3.8 I see referenced too). I have already been planning to get a 390mm airbag steering wheel from a late model W201. I'm expecting it to need to be overhauled.

And if anyone knows anything about whether I can convert the power seats from this Cosworth to be manual seats, that would be helpful. I do not want power seats, I don't need it in such a tiny car, it's weight and complexity I do not want. Plus the trouble finding all of the parts will no doubt be. I might not end up using them, I might opt to just install a pair of vintage Recaro LSC or similar seats.

 

To my knowledge there is no way to convert the power seats to manual seats. If you do not have manual seats in your car you will have to source manual seats.
I was lucky that the dark brown seats I found were manual. I much prefer manual seats as well. They also give passengers more foot room in the back.

 

I imagine there has to be a way to do it. I don't want to take out of the seats out of my car to compare right now, but I will eventually. I think it'd be harder to retrofit the power, or in general to find sport seats that are not power seats, than it would be to figure out how to convert them. I'm imagining it's likely just the seat base or something along those lines. Reclining might be a little difficult but the two slider adjustments should be simple enough.

 

The seats are entirely different, you will need to source a manual seat as a whole. But once you do, the new manual seat will just bolt on. The bolting hardware is identical.
I just did this 3-4 months ago.

 

And now as my neighbor is coming back into town, I have to vacate it from his driveway. I was last in the middle of trying to duty cycle tune the mixture, and presently cold starting is rough. Although interestingly it seems to be quicker than it was before I was messing with it, so that's some progress. I should come home tomorrow, I hope, with the LSD and steering box from that Cosworth. I am talking to somebody who should have the wiring harness and switches I need to use the Cosworth seats, which I plan to try out for a while. I still think most likely I will end up getting a pair of Recaro LSC type seats to use instead, and I will put the complete set of Cosworth seats up for sale/trade for other W201 parts.

Still need to find a body shop to get that damage fixed. Badly. Once that's repaired, I'm going to work with an old head friend of mine to work on testing each of the three two tone colors on a different Sacco panel, so I can decide which I will use. Most likely it will be one of the grays, because I think painting the wheels to match would be really nice looking.

 

Does anyone make a low temp engine coolant sensor? Aka one that would trigger at a lower engine temp.
For the M103, obviously.

 

Not sure if that is offered but most of us just solder in a 1.5K ohm resistor in parallel with the sensor which lowers the effective turn on temp by ~5c to below 100c.

 

I figured wiring a resistor in line would probably be the way I have to do it.
What resistor would be necessary to bring it down further to like an 85 or 90C trigger?
I need the fans to be on not for engine cooling but to get air flow over the condenser for the AC.

 

Given the electronics about 5c is the maximum and optimum lowering for idle overtemps. That is because there is hysteresis in the controller circuit.
Once it turns on the engine will have to cool off something around 15c for it to turn off. So once it turns on, it will never turn off until you **** down the engine.
But the cooling system will be fighting the fan because you will need to lower the thermostat temp as well.

Also there are other factors that need to be considered for the emission system. It does not wan/liket the engine to be lowered below 85c.

You can try a 80c thermostat and a lower value resistor but I do not quite understand your intention. Because lowering of the entire cooling system would just run the engine cooler and may not have the same result you are looking for.

 

Even in Florida heat the engine is not even hitting 90C, cause I have the cooling system in proper shape. My problem is without the electric fan running, I'm not getting enough airflow over the condenser to get the AC to blow cold. So when I hit famous I-4 traffic here, I the AC starting blowing warm, and then I turn into a Finnish sauna. That's what I'm trying to do here, but it's starting to sound like I should just give up on that, and control the fan completely by myself with a two stage switch instead.

In other news, mundane things. I changed the trunk lock gasket, easy 5 minute job and hopefully will help with my water intrusion problems.
I also set the Cosworth trunk on the car, I'm undecided about the look. The bubbling of the spoiler also really sucks and I haven't figured out what can be done about that, but I do like the external third brake light.
I think I will bolt it to the car for a while once I do the repairs around the tail light, and see how I like it. I have plans for doing the two tone painting on the bumpers and Sacco panels after that happens, so I'm hunting for a body shop right now.
I also finally got a hold of the guy at Perf. ****. and got diaphragms coming so maybe I can fix my vacuum pods, at least everything except the defroster. He point me at a new defroster valve that sold for $80 on Ebay a month ago. Going to start religiously hunting in Germany for one.

Also, didn't want to jinx myself until somebody confirmed, but I went back to the Cosworth yesterday.
I managed to get the missing rear headrest brackets I needed, which are an NLA part.
I also got the steering box, which the guy was unaware of it being special I guess. It's an early aluminum, bit over 3 turns lock to lock, going to be MUCH better than the stock steering ratio in my car, especially when I combine it with a 390mm steering wheel.
I also got the entire subframe, so I've got both front and rear sway bars, but most importantly, contrary to what the seller though, it's an LSD! I managed to get the driveshaft as well, so I've got a set of spare 185mm diff parts, and I've got the Cosworth diff to swap into my car. It needs some work, but that's one of the key components along with the steering box for me to want to keep the car.

So it's official, I am going to be building this for autocross next year, since my local SCCA chapter kind of sacked it for this year due to losing venue space. We're going to see if I can't win a trophy of some kind with it.

Also, if anyone knows where I can find a 3D print file for this part -- 201 683 00 06 -- please let me know. It's the plastic piece that holds the trim around the shifter down, and the shift boot on for the manual cars.
I will also be putting up some parts for sale, like the bare subframe once it's stripped. I will be reinforcing and upgrading my original, as it's got less rust than the Cosworth one.

 

You have a broken AC system. Better fix that. When you turn on the AC, with the right pressures being developed in the refrigerant, the aux fans should be turning on for a functioning AC.

Running the Aux fan manually is not the answer. Fix you AC system instead. It could be a pressure switch, relay, etc, etc.

 

Car's been in a bit of a hibernation, messed with a few things in the meantime in between intermittently driving it. I removed the god awful tint on all but one of the windows, the rear window was a torture fest.
I've also been chasing some issues with the fuel system. I think that filter explosion did some real damage to it lol. I ordered a seal kit and alignment pins, so I'm going to take a crack at rebuilding it myself. If all else fails I will give up and send my spare distributor out to a rebuild shop, but I don't expect that to be the case.

I also recently got my facelift sport rear seat in from Seattle, so I installed that to the car. Unfortunately learned there's different seat belt buckles for the sport seats, so I'm currently trying to track down a pair, I know what the part numbers are for the facelift sport seat buckles, versus pre facelift.



My pre-facelift sport seats (front and rear) are up for sale, here's the FBM link if anyone is interested.

If anyone is wondering what my front seats will be, I'm going to be installing a pair of Recaro LSC's I bought earlier this year. I'm on the hunt for Recaro adapter kits for them -- 85.55.19 and 85.55.29 -- I have found one on Kleinanzeigen in several months of searching for 490 euros, attached to seat rails I don't need, which is ludicrous sadly.

 

Nice man, those rear seats look dope. Good luck with the hunt for the buckles!

 

Seats look great.

 

No comment

 

I have finally sourced a pair of "sitzkonsole" for the car, courtesy of a friend in Germany. Both pairs are 85.55.19 for the drivers side, but I think they are actually identical left to right but we will find out tomorrow I think.
I would've already figured this out and swapped them, but I came home from a work trip to find it doing a crank-no-start on me. I came to realize that the auto parts store I got my new spark plugs from last June ****ed me! They substituted the BP6EFS for the BPR6EFS, difference being the R, for a resistor. So I have the local MB dealer getting me a set of 6 genuine plugs which should be proper Bosch plugs, copper non resistor. I also hopefully have some experienced help this weekend from a friend to see if we can finally fix the idle issues.

 

You will be disappointed to find out that the no start is not related to your resistor spark plugs but you should replace them to bring the ignition back to spec.
Using resistor plugs increases the ignition series resistance by almost a factor of 3 and puts more stress on the high voltage components like coils.

Do let us know what the cause of the no start ends up being. Would have to be no spark or no fuel.

 

Well the BPR plugs are fouled to ****, and despite cleaning doesn't fix anything. I've had a ****ty idle issue ever since, that's been intermittently bad, so the plugs being resisted could explain why I was chasing my tail with adjusting things.

I need to order a fuel pressure gauge kit that works with the KE jet on the M103 (and later, KE jet M104 I intend to swap in this car), is there any Amazon specials that work or is the basic or deluxe kit that Kent (Mercedes Source) sells the only thing that works? I am in general suspicious of a ruptured diaphragm or a clogged filter in the thing. I bought seals a while ago, I just need to rebuild the fuel dizzy.

Edit: I also got the correct rear seat buckles for the car now, I forgot to mention that.

 

I can vouch for this one. Works well and the fittings are correct. Anything else may turn into experimentation. Not sure what Kent is selling these days.

 

Are those sitzkonsoles used? Do you know if they work with all Recaro seats and side mounts?

I have this one too and it works flawlessly.

 

The new spark plugs from Mercedes are Beru 14K-9DUO. They did not make a difference, still crank no starting on me.
It seems like I am only getting fuel from 3 of the 6 cylinders or something. When I took everything off that was the case.
The filter basket on the fuel inlet was still intact and not clogged.
I have seals for the distributor, so I think it is time to rip it apart and fix it.

I have one of these being overnighted (only $23.9 for overnight shipping) from Summit Racing. I got them to price match and save me a whopping five dollars lol.

Yes they are used. They are basically steel brackets that adapt the factory seat rails to the bottom mount style Recaro seats.
The problem is, turns out there's THREE styles of manual seat rails, not counting pre-facelift and facelift. Mine are the "fancy" ones with the upper and lower sliders, and then the tilt on the front of the seat.
The Recaro's are meant to only fit with the single or dual slider rails, or "Sitzschiene" as it is in German from what I understand. I am going to drill a rivet out that is the last thing holding the rail to the seat bottom, and I think I might be able to simple cut the front tilt off. What worries me is if I'm wrong this will be FUBAR.

I think the best description of this thread is me learning more and more esoteric knowledge about this platform, that is wholly unprofitable to know since these cars will never be desirable enough to have people build them out into the baby sports sedans they were always meant to be.

 

Drilling out that rivet made me realize the big difference. The tilting adjustment seats there are two holes that are offset as a result. So it will not work.
I must now replace the rivet with a screw and a nut in shame.