Nick Morris

I'm trying to explore the avenues for building a W211 wagon with the OM648 diesel engine. Since this car was never imported to the US it would involve getting a wagon chassis with the gas engine and then swapping in the diesel engine (and subframe(s)?), fuel system, and control systems/wiring.

Could anyone help me understand the relative difficulty of this job? Are there any obvious deal-breakers? Would the computer side of things make it too complicated?

Thanks for your help!

kajtek1

what country or continent?
You said "imported to US" but does it mean this is where you plan to do it?
Than state is important as engine has to have certification for local emissions.
You should know those engines were never certified for California and about 8 following states.
Than the engine will never fire if you don't have SDS genius around the project.

tjts1

Just drive one across the border from Canada. Problem solved. Plenty of OM648s registered in California today. That's a non issue.

kajtek1

You are confusing US federal-certified engines who were imported used to California from other states, with cars who don't have US certification in Canada.
Lot of Smart owners tried and then had to part the car.
It is doable when you get MB of Canada send you certification letter, but other than that, you are in the hole.
Lot of excelent W212 diesel wagons available very cheap in Japan due to their law requiring new engines at low mileage. But you won't see them in US.

tjts1

Nonsense. My friend bought a BMW model in Vancouver BC that was never sold in the US. Drove it across the border and they didn't ask any questions besides the usual passport etc. Took it to the ref station near Redding, they smogged it and slapped a sticker on the door sil. It's been happily registered in California for the past 3 years. Clearly those Smart owners didn't know what they were doing. Then again Smart owners have neven been accuse of being too smart.

kajtek1

If what you are saying was true, we would have whole fleet of Lada SUV in this country.
Again, each imported car has to have at least US federal certification before it can be registered here.
There are 3 government agencies who needs to approve the car and CARB is only 1 of them.
Check with your friend what exactly he pass.

Nick Morris

I'm in North Carolina, where 52/100 counties do not require emissions testing. I should be able to register the car in one of these counties.

tjts1

LOL not sure there's a huge market for LADA NIVAs around here but next time you're in SF start counting the number of RHD Delica vans and old diesel land cruisers all with Cali plates. All of these made they're way from Japan to California via Canada.

arto_wa

The biggest deal breaker is: It is not worth the effort, just forget the whole idea!

tjts1

This is totally worth the effort and you absolutely should do it. If you have both complete Vehicles parked side-by-side to swap everything over.

lkchris

The initial reason this configuration was never sold in the USA is that the drivetrain is not identical to the W211 sedan. Because of the extra weight of the wagon,Mercedes fits a different rear axle ratio and therefore this is a unique drivetrain requiring a separate EPA certification, 50,000 mile road test and the whole thing. Mercedes determined it wouldn’t recover that cost with projected sales. Fwiw, they did think they could recover costs of certifying AMG wagons since they were free to price them as they wished.

You should consider the rear axle ratio thing when shade treeing your conversion, as this may disappoint your performance results if you don’t.

SchmittAuto

As it has been stated, it’s not any easy swap. Lots of things to consider, but it can be done. Here is ours. Should be driving in the next two days.

tjts1

I would at least put E550 4 pot brakes on it while you're at it. It's a direct bolt on and dirt cheap upgrade.

rocky472

The exist in California. I purchased a 05 CDI in February and drove it back east. They couldn't be sold new in CA but could be registered as a used car. Previous owner had it shipped from TX.

SchmittAuto

E320 cdi’s exist. Just no wagons. I have yet to see or hear of another in the states. There were diesel wagons in other countries, but with the smaller 617 engine.
Not too concerned with the brake performance as of yet, that can all be done at a later time. Some 55 brakes would be a nice touch.
The swap has been strait forward so far, the only way to do it is to have a full donor car. Engine, some wiring, shifter, driveline, diff and fuel tank.
Most of the wiring was done today, should be ready to start her up tomorrow.
i actually found the original owner of the donor car on here by accident. Always nice to know it was well taken care of before.

kajtek1

Aren't you forgetting about computers?
I wonder if tanks are really different?
I'd assume pumps have different pressure per design, but tank it tank.

SchmittAuto

Yes computers are swapped over, also transmission is going from a .9 to .6, so need to change trans harness.
the tanks are different. Diesel tank does not have extra vent lines for evap. Sender has a return line as well on a diesel. Could be done without swapping, there are always different levels of doing it right.
This car will be 99% like it came off the factory line this way.

EUROPA-DIESEL

Hi there. I saw your post that you have a w211 cdi wagon you swapped. I am very much interested in doing the same swap. Just wanted to get a quick laundry list of what parts I need to pull from the cdi sedan to put in the wagon.

I have a motor complete with harness and ecu.

The wagon I am looking to purchase is 4matic. Can I mate the cdi to a 4matic diesel trans? Or did you just pull the rwd trans from the cdi and put it in the wagon?

Text or call me if that works better for you 647 746 1201.

Thanks- Dan

Will's Fiero

Benz never built an OM648 4Matic. To make a 4Matic diesel, you'd need an OM642 (3.0 V6) with the appropriate oil pan.

Benz did build gasoline inline 6 4Matic W124s, IIRC. I don't know how difficult the gasoline 4Matic oil pan would be to adapt to the OM648. the OM648 catalyst (maybe turbo?) would interfere with the front driveline, so you'll need fabrication expertise to route the exhaust around the front diff, driveshaft and T-case.

EUROPA-DIESEL

I guess my best route would be to swap everything from the cdi to the wagon and just keep it rwd. Let me know if there is anything in addition to whats listed below i should grab:

Engine harness and ecu
Body harness
Engine
Trans
Drive shft
Rear diff.
Cluster

tjts1

Why bother? Diesel is $1/gal more than RUG.

Will's Fiero

You're MUCH better off buying a donor car, parking it next to the recipient car and transferring over everything that's different. I don't know everything that's different and you'll probably get a different list from every respondent to this thread.
The ENTIRE fuel system is different; the diesel has an intercooler, which may make other parts in the cooling stack different; There may be calibration differences in other modules (e.g. the instrument panel for calculating fuel economy in the display)

Heguli

Word. All the big parts are no brainer, but if the donor is not at the reach, chasing down all the miscellaneous small parts like brackets and clips that are different or broken, is really time consuming and frustrating.

Keep in mind, that if you change the ecu alone, it has to be virgin, and then paired with the EIS/ELV. Or you can swap all those from the donor. And if you have the 7G-trans, it also has to be paired with the EIS