_Ryan

We've made some progress today and yesterday but not much of it shows in photos. The wiring harness is almost complete. Waiting on a couple of plug ends from Mercedes to finish up the glow plug harness. I hate hacking into wires and putting connectors everywhere. What we did on this car was use the factory Mercedes ends and create our own wiring harness. It is as close to factory as you can get. Everything utilizes the stock connectors. No future wiring problems here.







We installed some H&R springs and some nice Bilstein shocks. No photos yet since I was waiting for paint to dry. While we had things apart, we wire wheeled everything down, sanded it, and repainted. I hate rust. This car is in amazing shape so it made sense to take the time to clean up any evidence of rust that we found.








Then we started cutting things out. The engine wiring harness plug was a little too close to the turbo for my liking so we hacked off the bracket and will relocate the plug to a cooler spot. After it was cut, the area was sanded down and refinished in factory matching paint.





While we had the cutting tools out, we decided to make some room for the intercooler. The washer fluid bottle had to be removed and will likely be relocated to the trunk area. Not ideal but there isn't much space in this engine bay. The bumper beam was cut and once we get the intercooler in position and the bumper clearanced, we will start to add material back into the bumper beam to get the strength back. It is important that this car stays as safe as it was when it left the factory.








Still lots to do but it's starting to come together. We will be finishing tacking the manifold together tomorrow and getting the intercooler mocked up in place. After that we can run the intercooler piping and get the oil cooler installed. This week and next will be pretty busy.

That sounds like a ton of work for a not so great outcome. The 606 is a great motor with TONS of power potential. It's also very easy to swap into the W140.

Zax63

Nice work Ryan, I like your meticulous attention to detail...just like on my S65! lets talk tomorrow about adjustable boost setups, so I can have one setting for wife/kids/valets, and one setting for me. I'd also like your thoughts on monitoring...I want to know whats going on with EGTs and other temps along with boost. Thanks for all your work so far! Also let me know when the front HR springs are in so I can come check out stance and monoblock fitment.

_Ryan

Did some more work on the manifold today. Keep in mind that this is just tacked in place. We will now fully TIG weld everything, fix the gaps, and make it perfect. Everything is as close to equal length as possible while also trying to maintain a good tuning profile. There is a phenomenal amount of math that takes place in manifold design and it's just not possible to get it all perfect and still have it fit where it needs to go. It's always a compromise. External wastegate plumbing is not even close to ideal but there is no choice due to packaging constraints. With better angles we could have used a smaller wastegate or, ideally, two small wastegates but this will still work very well.

We still have to get the external wastegate piping done. It's halfway there.

oldsinner111

looking good man

Zax63

Thanks oldsinner! I see you race your ride and you run a 125hp nitrous shot. I have a couple of buddies who are trying to convince me to add propane injection...did you ever consider that for your car over nitrous and why did you choose nitrous? Thnx. Z

oldsinner111

yes i have mostly everything for my om 617.951. I gave it some propane one day driving and was impressed with V8 performance. But I use her now only when it snows.Nitrous gets expensive after while,i plan on turbocharging my m104 to about 600 hp.That way i won't have to add rods,and build tranny.I'm also thinking about buying a w220 S55 amg,it would be easier to mod.

Zax63

I am a big fan of the w220 chassis, just make sure you understand hydraulic systems - or you have a lunatic like Ryan around who does. My ABC has been a bit of a maintenance "challenge" to say the least. The S65 is a simple tune away from greatness. S55's are nice too. I love my v12 though! I did bigger turbos, top mounts, downpipes, locker, CAI...and it is like a sledgehammer. A giant, velvet frickin' sledgehammer. and still gets 19mpg.

oldsinner111

well i'm hoping i can do away with the suspension,and convert to springs and shocks.I ditch stuff like that,my w140 I bypassed ASR because it slows you down,and ditch ABS. I was taught how to stop on snow and ice.what i worry about on the w220s is they like to hit limp mode real easy,and the crazy shifter problems.i've never had my w140 in the 7 years i've owned her.

Zax63

not to hijack my own thread, but I looked into that with my S65...no one has a great kit. Strutmasters makes a kit but I hear mixed reviews of the quality and they don't have anti-sway bars, so you have to adapt them off of a steel spring S430, and then it's not going to handle like an S55. I almost ordered a custom TEIN coilover kit, Ryan sourcing and measuring all aspects for me, but they wanted $4500.00 to engineer it without the anti-sways

_Ryan

To further hijack the thread, the S55 is a great car. You can get them much cheaper than an S65. The S55 out of the box is pretty awesome. If you are into power though, the S55 tops out much sooner than the S600 (2003+) or S65 cars. The twin turbo platform leaves a lot of power on the table. To hit 600HP in an S55 you are in it for $3k. An S600 will get there with a $1k tune, plus have a bunch more torque.

I am a huge fan of the M275 platform.

_Ryan

Today we got some more work done.

We tossed the rest of the H&R springs and Bilstein shocks on the car. The front sits a little bit high for my liking so I ordered some smaller shims for the tops. Mercedes has several different shim heights for the W140 cars and it's seemingly pretty random on which spacer comes on which car. This car had the tallest shims on it so it's easy for us to replace them with some shorter ones. We only have to come down about 1/2".

We don't get a ton of drop compared to the old worn out coils. What we do get is much improved handling and ride quality.








We also mocked up the intercooler fitment. We were able to move it a couple of inches up from where the photo shows it by modifying the factory bumper mount brackets. This is not the final intercooler. During our fabrication process we use a lot of cheap parts that are the same physical dimensions as the real ones. This allows us to not worry about scratching or damaging the expensive parts. Everything can be nice and brand new when the car is finished.








It looks pretty stealthy hidden in the bumper. We will do some modifications to increase airflow through the bumper but our goal is to keep it looking pretty stock. My general design philosophy is that the car should look stock to someone who doesn't know cars. To those who are interested, there should be little hints of performance peeking out. Upon close inspection it should become obvious that the car is extremely performance oriented. I think we will accomplish that with this car.

It's funny how such a big car makes the intercooler look tiny. This thing is about 30" long. It's NOT small. This car is very wide. The car is nearly 10" wider than a Subaru STI.

oldsinner111

intercooler looks good,where did you buy spring shims?

_Ryan

Right from Mercedes. You can get aftermarket ones for cheaper. Aftermarket pricing is usually about $20-30/pair.

Part numbers are as follows. The shims are the same part numbers side to side and front to rear. You need to measure what you currently have before just ordering the small shims if you want to lower your car though. Cars can have different shims on the same car. You need to measure what you have first and go from there. This particular car has the 23mm shims up front so we have a lot of room to work with to get it lower.


8mm - A1403210684
13mm - A1403210784
18mm - A1403210884
23mm - A1403210984

You can refer to this chart to get an idea of what your car should have come with from the factory.

_Ryan

Not to hijack too much, but I've had a bunch of people ask me about custom manifolds for the 606 motor. There are no real good sources for USA exhaust flanges so we decided to make some. The first batch is at the machinist right now and will be ready in about two weeks. We plan to keep some of these in mild steel and 304 stainless in stock!

OJ's DNA

Amazed at reading this thread...

OJ's DNA

Any updates?

Zax63

Annoying header issues. We wanted a good TIG welder who did excellent work with thin metal. The best guy we knew was about 3 months out as he just landed a military welding contract. The second best guy dropped off the face of the earth. The backup guy started the project, got about 50% through, and started a full time job, back-burnering our project. He kept promising to finish, then to drop it off unfinished, and when we finally demanded the project back it turns out that he made some errors that have to be disassembled and redone. We found a new welder who expressed interest and then disappeared. Finally, we were able to find a talented welder who had time for our header, and he has begun the process of fixing the header and tacking the exhaust. He should be done in a week or so, then the header is off to Jetcoat for ceramic coating. In the meantime, Ryan has final fit the trans and motor, finished rewiring all of the harnesses to make the install look factory (example, wiring the 1999 cruise control to a 1994 body, wiring all electronics associated with the motor) and has sourced and is fabricating a concealed mounting setup for custom gauges, finished shifter install, and fully plumbed for the intercooler. Car is coming along, more pics and updates in the next week or two!

OJ's DNA

Zax63 - are you using the computer, wire harness, etc. from a diesel W140 that MB sold overseas, are using those items from a W210 606 motor, I was curious about all the electrical stuff, fuel management, etc. - thanks.

_Ryan

We are using all of the factory equipment that originally came in the car. The OM606 motor is almost entirely mechanical and there is very little computer action happening; it's mostly just monitoring. The fuel delivery is controlled by the mechanical injection pump and is really the heart of the beast. We are using a pump from DieselMeken AB with external ALDA. This will allow us to have much better control over our fuel delivery for on and off boost.

There has been a small to moderate amount of custom wiring as well. The OM606 uses some newer sensors and connectors so some adaptation was needed.

We took a little break on the project for a while but are now back on it 100%.

We had some issues with a good welder, as was stated earlier. In the past couple of months we have set up to bring 95% of the manifold and custom fabrication process in house. It's been a struggle to fit the new equipment in such a small space but we have it workable now. This will allow us better control of the process and enable us to turn out a better final product in less time.

OJ's DNA

Good stuff, can't wait to see the finished product.

homeyclaus

Good welders are even more scarce than good plumbers, drywallers, or electricians. Especially ones that are also professional. I can't wait to see it run though, that's an awesome project. And now I am looking at a S350 turbo diesel myself

oldsinner111

wow coming along

Zax63

Back from the dead. This project stalled after the last welder absconded with the header and disappeared into the ether without a trace. He had one weld left to perform, and we owed him in excess of 1500 dollars, so one can only believe that perhaps some harm came to him. Anyway, that was 8 months ago. Subsequently, the car was shipped to another mechanic's shop, whose fabricator quit the next week. Off to my race shop, who uses an outside contractor, who has been working on the project for the past 4 months about once every other week. The updates, however, are finally promising. New header complete waiting for cerakote. Downpipe 90%, intake plumbing in process. I am guessing it comes home from this shop in two weeks, with completion date finally on the horizon within 1 month of that. Fingers crossed! Updated header design attached.

Zax63

minor update, header finished. Exhaust fabricated. Intake Charge Pipes sorted. Back from Cerakote. The Gold and Black stuff is mine, the silver goes to some other gent's BMW:

oldsinner111

Love to have one,with lift kit 3 inches,and drive strait from Tennessee to Argentina