WDB124066

"Some Dude"! Did you read his history. He was probably a fully qualified Navy Pilot at your stage in life. Do you know what that means?? That means landing on Aircraft Carriers at night!!


This guy is professionally trained by the very best in the business, plus years of first class hands on experience with access to the finest minds on the planet to help him Engineer a better car. His budgets would most likely be more than you will earn in your whole life. He is just not "Some Dude 50 years ago". Read the history on the Man - as you are an Engineer under training you will LOVE it!!!!!

Ameen

Give me a break...

Im sure the guy is very wise and awesome... but sometimes its better to use your own research on what is right and wrong than to read about it..

If anything, i think we are disrespecting him using his methodology on 20 year old sedans..

Quicksilver500

Give me a break! Did you read this?

"he helped change racing history as team manager of Carroll Shelby's Le Mans conquering GT-40 effort. Carroll continued his run of engineering success, assisting champions in series including Formula 5000, Trans-Am, Formula Atlantic, The Tasman Series, Australian Touring Cars, Formula Super-Vee, Formula 2, IMSA, and SCORE off-road racing. Drivers to benefit from his engineering included Mario Andretti, Chris Amon, Denny Hulme, Dan Gurney, A.J. Foyt, Jackie lckx, Steve Millen, Alan Moffat, Danny Ongais, Sam Posey, Bobby Rahal, Peter Revson, and his own son Christopher, the 1992 Toyota Atlantic Champion. "

Your disrespecting him by calling him some dude, like your engineering ideas of what suspension should be, half way through your ME degree, are somehow better than a guy with a laundry list like above? Slow your roll and add to your education by reading about what race proven engineering has to offer.

I have my mechanical degree and I learned enough to know that you listen to SAE papers and to 'some dude' who has made a living winning in racing. 10 years of drifting is different than 10 years of making grip in a LeMans winning car. You guys can't compare race suspension setups for rally, drifting, roadracing, etc to street car use. Apples to oranges, they have custom designed setups for specific purposes, but most of the mechanical concepts carry over. Street cars are designed to be robust in as many situations as possible. Benz spent millions of Deutsch marks on development of the w124 suspension, and obviously thought it the best compromise for handling, comfort, stability for the platform. But their design of the geometry limits the range of easy modifications. Look at the EVOII 190E, similar suspension, FANTASTIC record for street and track use even with a wimpy I4.

I don't think anyone is saying coil overs done right are unsuitable, but rather that ignoring the mechanics of the suspension and slamming the car creates an unstable worse handling car. Just look at your A-arm angles when the car is that low, they are the wrong direction even static! Even worse under cornering load.

It work be disrespectful to disregard what Caroll put into book form to help people like you optimize your suspension. So maybe 40 years of win, condensed into a book is work a read.

-Mike
(mechanical engineer :p)

ptoro01

You both go chew on a delicious KitKat chocolaty slice!


I'm impressed at how many mechanical engineers we have on this topic! We should all get together and solve this riddle right.

I propose starting all over but with the same wheel base but on a tubular chassis. That way we could use the body parts so its still a Benz but have a race oriented chassis. Shed all the luxury, comfort and excess, generally most parts. OH and if go the extra mile, we could make the outer shell out of plastics, so then ladies and gents, we could join nascar.

If thats what it takes to go faster, sounds good to me!

Quicksilver500

I like it! Unfortunately there isn't one unique interpretation. For me, I solved it when I got a 500E and put H&R springs on it

ptoro01

Remember, no I in TEAM. But you propose a great place to start. Can we turn that 5.0 into a 6.0...

Oh, we'll also need atleast a million deutschmarks, if someone could line that up. I'm not quite sure about the exchange rates but we might need to find cheap labor too. I'm willing to work for home-cooked meals and clean laundry!

Quicksilver500

Yep! 6.something in the works! Just time and money

Ameen

I don't think you're getting my point...

I'm building a daily driver, which has adjustable ride height, and in my eyes looks good and drives well.. If I was building a racecar, this ****ty wagon would be my last choice for one...

My point is that if someone came on here and wanted to install airbags on their car, more power to them.. Although I hate airbags im not gonna knock em...no **** they handle like crap and your air pilot Shelby car dude wouldn't run them, But if he is doing something different and wants to do something he wants to do, by all means, let's help him out...


FYI, the coilovers on my car drive sooooooooooo good..

Dievs2

this tread gives me a smile
everyone has a theory about how bad coils are for benz, and none of them have tried it in practice.
only one have tried, Ameen. and he ****in loves it

here in lithuania there are few forums about benz. mbclub and mbsportclub. mbclub can only advise you what screen wipers to use. and we created mbsportclub when we got tired from that what is happening on this thread right now.

besides i'm a mechanical engineer too

ptoro01

Well the point is have a sense of humor guy.

Didn't everyone spend their time giving serious opinions. Now we are attacking the entire establishment(mbworld) and turning to daffy for revolutionary support?

To sum it up. We accept that you are free to do anything you want to do. We also appreciate out of the box ideas. This forum has nothing to do with keeping it stock, everyone enjoys tinkering. I'm sure all of us have atleast 1 mod and compared to a honda forum, we too like NOS.

Guy, there are 7 pages examining a part which does fit and has been tried but we want to exchange ideas to evaluate its validity.

In short...style points do not need to be evaluated by an engineer's eye, but performance does. Some of us have mentioned basic things like safety, others have over analyzed geometry. You decide whats important to you.

RBYCC

Knowledge of books or papers help one not to reinvent the wheel...

RBYCC

Every chassis has it's limitations and just adding or changing without major redesign doesn't achieve much.

It's great to state what improvement a mod has achieved, but the real proof is comparing against a baseline.

Without providing a technical documented before and after comparison, the mod becomes just one more "seat of the pants" perceived claim !

I actually am one of the less then 500 owners worldwide of the only Merc that was designed and built with coilovers...

Also one who has owned a C124 from new in 1988...

190E 16V

Ed, These guys need to know that you independently twin-turbo'ed your C124 ages ago for racing purposes, and more recently, radically modified your car.
I would NOT say you're a knee-jerk purist, as they might be implying!

I know you have several performance MB's.
Which one has coilovers?

Saijin_Naib

I'd wager its the CLK63 Black. Don't forget that Ed also raced professionally

RBYCC

I'm a purist in the sense that any mod I make has to be "period" correct.
With the money it costs to modify a Merc, I want to retain a bit of collector value.

The CLK63 Black Series has a race suspenion including KW's right from AMG..
As close as you can get to a streetable DTM car !

Shoomakan

God DAMMIT, Ed. Leave some cool cars for the rest of us, please? :P

stockC43

Not sure if this was posted earlier but some w124 coilovers have been poping up on eBay. I assume the quality isn't all that good though. Yellowline? I just ordered a 190e h&r cup kit for my 300d. Figured they would be better. I'm matching them with r129 strut mounts. We'll see how they work

Dievs2

what is cup kit?

stockC43

http://www.hrsprings.com/products/cup-kits/. I went with the sport

hellah fresh

You are right! There is no I in TEAM... but there is a ME!

190E 16V

Ohhh, man!

I thought we might go a whole day without a "Coilover" post.

bsmuwk

LMFAO - this just made my day.


if somebody can find the proper front camber adjustment plates for the w124 - im going to dive into getting these front coils.

ameen,

which coils did you get? model # wise from raceland?

Ameen

i got the front E36 coilovers... they only make one..

All you have to do is shave off the bracket that is used for the brake line, and ditch the coil spring and only use the helper spring... unless you have some really low offset narrow wheels..

bsmuwk

hmm sounds good.


looks like i'll have to find some camber plates for these.

Saijin_Naib

I believe RDMTek had two sets the last I wrote to them. You can ask and see if any inventory is left over.