I think I misunderstood when you had posted that above! Fortunately the R129 parts are a viable solution.

Thank you

 

A fairly unexciting update, but the brakes are bled. Did I open a bleeder without a line on it and spray brake fluid everywhere? Yes. Did I **** up the paint on one of my freshly painted calipers? Also yes, but fortunately on the back where you'll never see it.

Here is the bleeder in action. I found that rubber cap for the the fluid level sensor port on top of the reservoir was dried out and leaking under pressure, so I have it capped off for bleeding and a replacement on the way.



The only other thing to mention is a preview of the next project on the car...

 

not sure if you are using the motive power bleeder with fluid in it, but i found that sometimes the master cylinder reservoir cap side (not so much for the threaded caps) could pop off under pressure causing brake fluid to spray and leak all over. keep atleast a rag under master cylinder and access to water/extra rags on hand. so i try to use the bleeder empty (no new fluid) for pressure only and check up on the master res every so often to top it off. otherwise if you have a compressor i have had success with the el cheapo harbor freight pneumatic vacuum bleeders. also since the clutch shares same reservoir tank i would do the bleeding with the front raised slightly higher if bleeding clutch slave along with plenty of extra clutch kick pumps at the end just to make sure air is bled. if for whatever reason sponginess still is there you could leave the front higher on incline overnight to let the stuck bubbles make their way back to reservoir.

out of curiosity would you happen to know what makes up for the difference in track width with the 2 evolution models versus standard 2.3 or 2.6? is it just wider wheels/ tires? do they have longer control arms/ different suspension pick up points?

i remember reading a long ways back the later 201s had slightly taller front shock mounts and better fuel tank baffling. I never verified but there very well could have had updates to chassis. the forum stuff is lots of hear say and according to different online sources for specs there seems to varied numbers on info such as curb weights etc so its hard to tell whats what. for instance i kept finding online searches the evo2 used 245/40/17 front and rears, so i am under the assumption that besides amg bumper fender spacers the front wheel tubs could be different.

 

I found that it is way better use use the power bleeder with no fluid in it and just keep the master topped up in between bleeding each wheel. That's why I ended up adding the quick disconnect, because otherwise its really annoying to have to keep taking the cap off. Personally I've never had a ton of success with vacuum bleeding.

I don't think there is a track width difference, just the wider wheels. As far as I know the EVO 2 had some tub work done in the wheel wells for additional clearance. I'm not sure about the EVO 1. I don't think I'll have an issue running 7.5" wheels though.

 

good idea on quick disconnect. one of my motive bleeders has that with adapters. thinking later on could use one for refilling gear oil since i never found a pump that fits redline oil bottles.

as for track width i read somewhere either online or old magazines in comparison to the 16vs and evos one of them stated that the evo1 had a larger track width than evo2. typo?

7.5" width on a 201 is cake so long as et offset is near 36 granted it all depends on your ride height atleast for non coilover cars. i have a set of real amg penta 16x7.5 et 42 or 44 with 205/50s that barely clear front strut with a small spacer (wheels are bent but hold air so i use for rollers no street/track experience with it). aside from that ive used 16x8 et34 r129 evo1 wheels with 215/45s and 16x7.5" 3pc OZ fittipaldi wheels same 215/45s with no issues for about a decade. so it all depends; was curious how much closer towards et 0 would be necessary just to clear the spring/perch on front coilovers as that clearance is small already for front 201 wheel wells. if you are using a evo2 kit why not wider than 7.5"? stock evo2 wheels were 8.25" chances are fenders will need to hacked up to fit the arches anyways.

 

I made a gear oil filler out of a garden sprayer from Amazon. Just cut the spray tip off and clamped on a section of hose. It works perfectly, if a little slowly pumping gear oil.

 

Battery is in place in the trunk and some of the wiring has been completed.





I'm using the setup Hennes Design shows to facilitate swapping an EVO/W126 coolant reservoir to the original battery location with their mounting kit.



This should free up a little more space to mount the turbo.



Next up is pulling the rear seat and figuring out wire routing through the car, as well as removing all the old trunk mounted CD changer wiring. The car has a cassette player. I'm guessing it wasn't optioned for a CD changer, but maybe Mercedes installed the wiring/cable for it in every car?

 

Battery relocation is complete. Some minor trimming of the plastic trunk liner allowed it to go back in to place around the cable and 150A fuse between the trunk and passenger compartment.



I was able to run the cable through the factory wire run under the carpet and to the passenger footwell, where it fits neatly behind all the trim and heads in to the engine bay through one of the factory bulkhead penetrations..



I hooked the hot cable to the added fuse panel up front and test started the car with no issues. I'll run wire for electric fan relays out of the new panel prior to installing the coolant reservoir.



I'm happy with how the battery relocation all came together. I think with a slightly shorter battery I could easily install the factory cover over the spare tire well and maintain full use of the trunk if I wanted. So thats a nice upside.

 

I see you also have Garagistic brake lines. On the front lines, did the female end come with a 17mm wrench size or a 14mm wrench size fitting? My original was 17mm, and the new lines are 14mm. They work, but they fall through the hole and the line can't "lock into place"

 

The front lines are 14mm. You're not the first person I've heard mention this issue. I'm going to reach out to Garagistic to see if they are able to change future production.

In the meantime this is what I did to properly lock the lines in place.





I have a cheap amazon special box of assorted crush washers. I found one that fit around the fitting and prevented the 14mm hex from sliding through the hole. I wanted to use copper so that I was sure that it didn't damage the fitting or put extra stress on anything.

 

Looks better than what I did with zip ties. Lol

 

I ended up talking to @flieben_ca on Instagram who was the guy who designed those lines. He thinks they realized an E36 or similar line was the right length, and cut back on production to be lazy.

 

That wouldn't surprise me at all.

 

It's been a while since the last update! I removed the radiator to get better access to the belt driven fan in order to swap in an electric unit (I can't stand belt driven fans, I'll go electric all day, every day). While doing that I noticed that the bearings in the water pump had a little bit more play than I liked, so I tore down the front of the engine to replace the pump and tensioner, as well as give everything a little bit of a clean up.

You can also see my completed coolant reservoir relocation to the original battery compartment. This frees up significant room for the turbo, whenever I get to that stage of the project.



I also had a bunch of hardware and the entire throttle assembly cleaned up and re-zincked. The car is never going to be a show car, but I do want it to be presentable, and little stuff like that is a nice touch.



While I had the easy access, and since the throttle bracketry was off the car anyway, I deleted the cruise control and the engine bay side of the AC. The AC piping was a nightmare to get out from under the engine and back of the compressor, and includes a fuel return cooler that I removed and won't be using.

With that done, everything started to go back together.



Everything cleaned up reasonably well and I managed to find the right belt size with a little measuring and guesswork. For reference the correct belt size for an M103 with the air pump and AC compressor removed is 6PK2275. Maybe that will save someone else a bit of trouble down the line.



From there it was easy enough to drop a new radiator in place! You can really see how much room there is now on the passenger side of the engine.



And this shows how little clearance there is for an electric fan on the 6 cylinder 190E, but a slimline Spal unit worked and should provide more than enough airflow in the factory shroud.



I also built a new control circuit for the electric fan, using twin relays, mounted out of the way and triggered through a BMW (E21/E30/E28) auxiliary fan temperature switch, that threads in to the cylinder head just forward of the factory temperature sensor on the Mercedes.



With that done the cooling system is back to 100% and ready for the next phase.

Which was... test fitting the wheels, where I ran in to a bit of an issue. The rear fit perfectly, as seen below, but the front wheels don't clear the R129 brake calipers without 3-5mm spacers. This wouldn't be the end of the world, but wheel fitment is looking like its going to be pretty tight up front with how low I'm expecting the car to sit. I have a set of W124 400E rotors and calipers that will clear the wheels, but the 400E rotors don't clear my non V8 lower control arms.

I'm not happy about it, but the right thing to do is to replace the lower control arms with the version that came on the 400E, so that everything bolts up properly. I could probably get away with taking a grinder to the LCAs that I have on the car, but even then I think I'd only end up with 1-2mm between the rotor and ball joint, and that's not enough wiggle room for me. So enjoy a picture of the wheels on the rear while I wait for new control arms to arrive...

 

Where did you get that boot you have? I was just ordering stuff today for being able to smoke test my K jet air meter, but that looks cheaper and better than what I was doing.

Also interested in knowing what you are doing with those removed AC parts. I could use spares for my car. Not sure where you're located, probably not nearby me (Florida).

 

I'm keeping the AC stuff for now. Future plan (far future) is to re-install a custom AC setup with a different condenser and filter dryer. So I will likely use some of it, but not until I have the intercooler and piping figured out and I see what kind of room I'm working with.

Honestly I've always had good luck building a cap out of duct tape and securing it with a hose clamp for smoke tests...

This is the boot though: https://www.ebay.com/itm/388242892820

 

4" fit over the AFM? I measured OD out to 4-1/4" and bought a 4-1/4" to 4" boot and an aluminum pipe to go with, figuring other K Jet cars might have hood clearance problems.

 

Cheap 4" ones can stretch enough to fit. Any taller and it will hit the hood pad.

I couldn't find a 4-2.5 that would stretch enough to fit, so I'll need to adapt to 2.5 for the intercooler piping.

 

Looks like you are way past this step, but when I had a 190e my favorite mod was installing some springs that were a direct fit from a SL500. It gave the car what seemed like infinite cornering ability. No body roll at all.

 

that’s awesome. I assume from the R129?

any idea what the spring rates were?

 

Correct, from the R129. Also, when I said direct fit, I meant no modifications to the 190E, but I did need to cut a couple coils from the springs since the R129 is much heavier. Not sure what the actual spring rate was, but I had a shop install them and they said their machine had difficulty compressing the springs to get them installed so the rate must have been really high. At the same time I also installed some 18x8.5 AMG monoblocks with some wide tires that also helped the handling. The wheels barely fit and they definintely rubbed. I've always wanted to replicate this setup with the rest of the suspension upgraded. On mine the rest of the suspension was OEM.

 

That sounds amazing. Do you have any photos of that combo?

 

Fairly unexciting but important update. I replaced the lower control arms with the V8/late W124 version and fitted the 400E rotors and calipers up front.

 

Awesome. What’s the reason for changing control arms? You don’t think the old ones are strong enough?

 

The M104/V8 style lower control arms are required to fit 400E brakes to the front of a W124 or W201. The rotors hit the ball joint on the earlier style control arms. Other than the ball joint housing the control arms are identical across all models.