Hey there. Haven't visited the forums in about 6 months ... great to be back

I have a 1991 230E built and bought in South Africa. This car is as solid as a tank, and still gives a smooth ride when the revs are high. But therein lies the first problem: this thing weighs in at a hefty 1.9 tonne and with a 2.3L engine putting out only around 100kW, it doesn't go anywhere from takeoff. So I need a more powerful engine.

Secondly, this beaut of a car has given its fair share of problems (I mean cmon, it's already 14 years old). Oil leaks, fuel leaks, water pump replacement, radiator wiring, noisy tappets (which are hydraulic, so they cannot be adjusted), just to name a few. The car has been in one accident where the left side of the car was whacked by, believe it or not, a BMW E36 speeding through a red light. That hit was so powerful that it physically moved the whole engine (ok, the bulk of it) off its mounts. All of this has been fixed, but my gut feeling is that since then (it was all about 5 yrs ago) the car has been dying. The problems are mostly engine-related, and we've hardly had problems with body, panels, interior, etc.

Thirdly, there's no point in selling this car because I won't get much for it. It's one of those cars that you drive till it drops. But its been visiting the mechanic's garage so frequently that it's probably better to sell. But then again, I'll miss the superb engineering of the Benz of old, and the smooth ride, and the quality, genuine interior (not full of plastics n shiz that are common in newer cars). So I figured, either drive it with its current engine, fix it whenever it needs it, and then it will die one day. Or I can get an engine conversion, and then it will last longer (hopefully), will give me better takeoff times, will hopefully give fewer problems cos the replacement engine will have to be a newer one.

So this is what I'd like to do: replace the current 2.3L 4 cylinder gasoline engine with a 6 cylinder unit, preferably V6, but straight-six is still ok. It should at least be a 3L unit.

What do you guys think? What would you recommend/not recommend? And if you're in Australia, from where can I source Mercedes-Benz engines? I've contacted MBSpares.com, they said they don't have any engines for the w124, and even if they did, they wouldn't recommend cos it will take too long and cost too much.