chris.bachman

Not sure how many of you read Jalopnik but....

"Let's start with this Crossfire, which takes a 55K "Kompressor" mill and adds it into the engine bay of the underloved Chrysler-badged product. Note, the AMG 55K put out a maximum of 500 hp at 6100 RPM stock with a hair-rising 516 lb-ft of torque. Stock..."



http://jalopnik.com/5680691/chrysler...--krosspressor

Insanity.

alumar

thats got to be a bit quick... hope he put an LSD in that

Newzchspy

Thats the Speedriven car in Palatine Illinois I believe?? Forum Sponsor!!

jturkel

haha. he is on the srt6 crossfire forum. was working on it all summer. he was sending me pics of it all summer long....and i'll say that the M113k motor he got came from an E55 that got a ----(edited)--- sweet motor.

he actually might be on this forum too...though i'm too lazy to search for his handle

Newzchspy

Jo Booras is here indeed under Speedriven. Working on a few of my cars as we speak Josh!!!

He's got some project cars that will curl your hair and dry your skin!! In other words, HOT!!! Almost 198 in an SL at the Texas Mile recently too in a 20-30 MPH crosswind) !! (Best in Class) WOW!!

Speedriven1

Right here, guys - thanks for noticing! BIG shout-out to Rudy Compart for doing the physical swap. It's hard work, and the final results were slikk, clean, and beyond professional.

Speedriven1

SHHH!!

That's a surprise.

Newzchspy

Josh let the cat out of the bag, so you might as well fess up Jo !!!

Any Qtr Mile or dyno runs for the Crossfire??

mrobinso

Crossfire love right here (see signature). Too bad the non-SRT edition was so woefully underpowered for its weight (225hp NA V6 engine with a 3,300 lb curb weight).

Speedriven1

It's coming back for tuning, I believe. We'll hook it to the VBox then.

FrankW

damn sick

not feeling the grille tho. lol

320 dreamer

rudy not only did the physical swap he is the genius behind the ecu work. wish the blog would give credit were its due. i have seen this car and its a massive beast but from a detail standpoint its hard to tell from stock. one of the most impressive swaps i have seen.
even brabus cant make the cars start from a key when they swap engines. pauls car starts with the key and looks amazing

ao125

Yeah, saw this on Jalopnik today... what made you want to convert a Crossfire?

Just a mountain that needed to be climbed?

Either way, looks like a pretty sweet ride.

W203Ramos

..........WOW!!!

rcompart

For the love of such a unique car and because Paul said he was tired of being last! They only made them for a few years, never had an update or facelift so they are timeless and they are quite nimble and an absolute blast to drive. Throw in all that extra power and you have a car that can walk a C6Z06 and the like in the straights and run away from just about anything in the twisties. That and it was a personal challenge after assisting LantanaTX with his swap. I liked what I saw and knew I could add to it so we went forward with it. Getting all the electronics figured out and being able to start the car with the key was quite an accomplishment as 32krazy pointed out. Wish the article would have been a little more accurate when it came to the who did what but it's a car that Paul and I built on Jalopnik and people weren't screaming 'OMG, my eyes are bleeding' so that's a good thing. Marcin at Speedriven and Rob at NeedsWings had a lot to do with it being possible so I wish the article called them out and not just the Speedriven name. All in all, glad people outside this and the Crossfire communities get a chance to see the handy-work.

mrobinso

Congratulations again. As I recall from my many hours spent over on crossfireforum.org, few others, beyond LantanaTX and yourself of course, even attempted an engine swap due to the complexities of retuning the ECU. I totally relate to your feelings towards the Crossfire. Such a great car, and with the MB engineering under the hood the car was built to run forever. I sold mine at 75,000 miles and it was still running like clock work.

For those of you who don't know (I know many of you are aware of this already), the Crossfire's engine was built on MB specs in America (this is disputed, some people believe the engines were actually built in Germany at an MB factory) to replicate the now legendary MB 3.2L V6 engine found in the likes of the SLK320, E320 and others and the SRT model replicated the supercharged 3.2L V6 engine found in the C32. During the Daimler-Chrysler merger the Crossfire was the first production car hybrid of the merger and was based on the R170 SLK platform (previous generation). Due to a high base price on the 'Limited' models (non-SRT), the relative underpowered engine for the heavy vehicle, and the stiff competition in the two-door coupe market segment in America in that price range (e.g. Nissan 350Z, Mercedes SLK, Audi TT, and others) the Crossfire never sold well and production ended after 3 years. Not too long after, Daimler and Chrysler broke off their ill-fated partnership and Crossfire owners are now left with the problem of finding good service for their vehicles as the number of Chrysler dealerships shrink and there seems to be no techs (Chrysler technicians had to be trained by MB to work on the Crossfire. Those technicians/mechanics became known to Crossfire owners as "Crossfire Techs".) who can work on these vehicles anymore. Some Crossfire owners believe the car will one day rank with the likes of the notorious Chrysler-Maserati TC because of the bizarre origins of the car and relative obscurity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_TC_by_Maserati). However, in my opinion while in theory this sounds plausible, due to the massive amount of Crossfires that were produced (I seem to remember somewhere around 70,000), they won't ever be a collector car. On the other hand, I do believe those owners who are able to keep their Crossfire SRT-6s in great condition and with low miles (difficult I know!), will one day have a collector car on their hands, as there were far fewer SRTs produced (rcompart chime-in if you know then number).

Sorry for the history lesson, however, as a fellow gearhead who spent many hours of my time and effort working on my old Crossfire, I jump at the chance to share the story of the Crossfire when given the chance. Can't let my girlfriend see this post - it will reveal the true nerd nature of my passion for cars.

Coupecrazy

Saw this on Jalop as well. Is the car pretty nose heavy now? Or was the balance maintained? My favorite trait in two seat roadsters is the light, tossable front end, and hopefully that remains. Looks like it's a helluva ride.

Cheers,

ao125

@mrobinso - fascinating story. Will a MB dealership service a Crossfire?

@rcompart - was the engine swap similar to what anyone would expect from trying to swap the M112 out, or was the 20% Chrysler that much of a headache?

Again, great job on the swap. It looks like nice ride. I'm sure the insurance is even better too

Speedriven1

Rudy is the man, and he's put in a ton of hours on this and the other builds. In NO WAY is his involvement being underestimated here.

rcompart

@mrobinso - They made less than 3000 Crossfire SRT6s worldwide so yes, it is a rare car that should be quite collectible in 20 or so years if people can keep them in great shape and low miles.

@Coupecrazy - Only added about 175lbs to the front end which in a car that only weighs about 3200lbs it didn't change too much. We did stiffen up the suspension with new springs and shocks to keep everything in check and make sure handling didn't suffer and this last fall at the Dragon, Paul said it really didn't feel like it lost anything handling-wise and perhaps felt a little more planted going into the corners.

@ao125 - There is a lot going on under the hood of this car to make everything work happily with each other. We used parts and electronics from many different MB models to try to minimize the amount of one-off custom made parts that had to be made for the car but we couldn't get away with doing that for everything. One thing that really presented challenges was that the SLK was one of the last cars to have EZS with the switchblade key and making that work with the new ECU. Don't let anyone fool you, that 20% has more to do with the interior appointments and the exterior sheet metal than it does anything else. The car rolled down the same line at the Karmann plant as the SLK using the same parts and quite literally, these cars are an R170 facelift and nothing more. Some like the looks better, some don't but you have that with any car.

Speedriven1

SLK top-down > Crossfire top-down

SLK top-up < Crossfire coupe

Just my $0.02

Newzchspy

Rudy's Crossfire > SLK 32 or 55!!

Loving that engine!! Now thats what I call a SWAP!!


Any qtr mile times or dyno runs on the Crossfire Rudy??

rcompart

Still working on some stuff with the guys at Speedriven before it hits the rollers. As for getting to the track, we need to beef up the car before we throw on the drag slicks or we're just going to be breaking stuff. LOL

Kreuzfeuer

Rudy, I've said it before and I'll say it again: YOU, sir, are a mastermind.

I've seen and heard this car in person, it's a monster and is only the beginning for the Crossfire faithful. There will be more.

Speedriven1

Suck up all you want - he our mastermind. You can't have him - LOL!