W210 E300 estate sleeper - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

m1tch · #1 04-14-2015, 02:19 PM

Hi all,

As I am still awaiting activation on superturbodiesel I figure I might as well post up my project on here.

I am picking up a W210 E300 turbodiesel estate this weekend, I decided to go for the car as it has the engine I am after (OM606) and the fact that this W210 is quite rare as it has 0 rust. I mean absolutely no rust anywhere, nothing on the arches, under the car, spring perches or anything at all so I had to get it as a base car for the project.

The plan is to keep the exterior as stock as possible, although I might tidy up a few things such as add in LED sidelights, repaint the wheels etc but nothing major. I might also look at modernising the front end slightly fitting clear lenses to the headlights and also look at some of the subtle grill options.

The car is 100% bone stock, its been well looked after and the last MOT had no advisories, checking back through the service history its only really needed tyres and a few wear items such as track rod ends.

The plan is to run 1/4 miles at Santapod raceway to see what sort of time I can get out of the car in different configurations and mods. Here is the general plan for levels of mods:

Initially I will keep it quite stock but give the car a good service, adjust any cables etc - this would give me a baseline of what the car would do as stock.

Stage 1 - this would include mods that most people would be happy to do, these include air filter mods, exhaust change, resistor mod for fueling on the stock electric actuated pump.

Stage 2 - this would build on stage 1 but try and maximise the mainly stock setup, mods would include uprating the intercooler and remapping.

Stage 3 - this would include more serious modifications such as swapping out the stock elements for 8mm elements, much larger turbo such as a HX40, maybe look at water/meth injection, swap out the stock box for something else.

This project will be running for quite a while (years) and the mods would also depend on the cost of insurance - all mods will be declared.

I will post some photos up when I get the car and will report back on here with any updates I do and how it affects the performance. This thread will hopefully give others an idea of the things that work and don't work as well as any additional considerations that I might encounter.

I will also be posting up any drag times I get - will be interesting to see what happens with the autobox but there are a few good things about the autobox:

No loss of boost between shifts
Can have 'launch control' by using the footbrake to build engine load
Shift patterns can be adjusted as to when the shifts happen

This should be a fun project and I know even an unopened engine with stock internals can make silly power and torque, the key to this project is to be running quite big numbers but not get noticed in a carpark of other cars.

Mark at Pelican Parts · #2 04-15-2015, 06:26 PM

Looking forward to this!

m1tch · #3 04-16-2015, 08:32 AM

Initially I am going to be going for more of an 'OEM+' idea, owing to the insurance considerations I won't be going all out in my initially ownership, I will take as many photos as I can whilst I do any of the work on the car.

The engine is so stock that even the inlet manifold hasn't been touched or cleaned since it rolled out the factory. I will be looking into things to smarten the car up a bit as well such as looking at fitting clear headlight lenses/units, perhaps change the grill colour.

I will also have a look at some suspension tweaks that can be done - having a read up it seems that there are spring pads ranging from 1 to 5 with different heights - will see what mine has to then perhaps reduce them to slightly thinner ones.

Initially I will be looking at simple DIY changes that anyone out there could do to smarten their car up, will also have a look into LED lighting as I have used LED sidelights in previous cars for better visibility.

The wheels will be staying stock at the moment but I might look at repainting them a different colour to have a subtle change. Fitting a subtle boost gauge will also be on the list along with an EGR gauge to monitor any changes.

The performance modifications I will be looking to do this year are:

Air filter change
Exhaust change - thinking cat back with an exhaust cutout valve
Suspension changes - minor lowering up to 40mm

I added suspension changes on for this year as I might need to simply refresh the suspension owing to the miles on the car, so I might as well upgrade any parts with something better - again going along the 'OEM+' route.

m1tch · #4 04-16-2015, 05:57 PM

I will be doing a baseline drag run with the car simply serviced and adjusted as standard at the end of next month - will be very interesting to see what sort of time the car will get simply being well maintained and adjusted etc.

Will be posting up photos tomorrow of the progress I make when I get the car tomorrow and post up some initial shots of the car.

Mölyapina · #5 04-16-2015, 09:07 PM

What's this stuff about having to report mods to anyone? Is that like a UK thing or something?

TnBob · #6 04-16-2015, 10:00 PM

LED's are sooo easy and sooo nice. If you need help message me.

m1tch · #7 04-17-2015, 03:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jooseppi Luna

What's this stuff about having to report mods to anyone? Is that like a UK thing or something?

It would be nice if I didn't need to, I got a quote for the car with all of the mods all in eg massive turbo, fuel pump upgrade, transmission swap etc, it wasn't too bad but just went with a few mods to start with this year, not in much of a rush.

As I said previously I will be getting a baseline drag run done to see what I can get out of the car in bone stock configuration, here are the only things I am going to do before the run:

Stock paper filter change
Oil change
Cable check/adjust
Transmission reset
Clean the inlet manifold and EGR (but keep the EGR at this point)

This should give a baseline of what a stock, well serviced car would be, I will then do everything I can to get the best time in stock configuration eg tyre pressures, changing the autobox to '4' rather than 'D' etc.

I will get some photos up of how the car arrives, will give it a quick clean up and will give everything a quick check over, will probably plug my OBD reader in to check for any codes.

m1tch · #8 04-17-2015, 02:56 PM

Its here!

Initial issues I have found so far:

1. Breather hose is damaged at one end, might use a catch tank
2. Diesel has collected in the injector wells - its old diesel and I think its the return lines starting to degrade
3. MAF.....really badly blocked with muck mixed with the oil from the breather!
4. Car screams/whistles on acceleration down low, turbo is 100% solid so thinking a vacuum pressure relief valve somewhere?
5. Water temp seems quite low, perhaps a thermostat stuck open?

I will be looking to take off the inlet manifold tomorrow to give that a clean, now that the MAF has been cleaned (as well as the sensor) its running much better as I would say there was a 50% blockage in the intake to the turbo.

I have reset the transmission and it seems a bit happier, I have now understood about the kickdown button right at the bottle of the accelerator travel - its stiff so probably hasn't been used much!

One thing I did notice is that the stock airbox is well designed with a velocity stack on the MAF as well as having a front facing cold air intake from next to the grill. This will mean that I will probably look to keep the stock airbox and perhaps add a different filter instead, although I might try and run an enclosed filter but use the stock front facing intake - something like a CDA.

The inlet manifold hasn't been touched, should come up really good once its cleaned and polished up a bit I think!

tjts1 · #9 04-17-2015, 08:44 PM

Nice purchase, I wish they had sold those here. Good luck with the repairs.

m1tch · #10 04-18-2015, 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tjts1

Nice purchase, I wish they had sold those here. Good luck with the repairs.

Thanks, as soon as I saw the complete lack of rust and a virtually untouched (but well maintained) engine bay I just had to have it.

The seats in the boot which fold up need a bit of a clean and it seems that some of the boot carpet has been damaged at some point - thinking maybe spilled battery acid as I know the battery is in the back around there.

The bottom part of the seats in the boot flips up from the boot floor and I could easily re purpose that space to house things like Nitrous, Propane, other electrical items but also keep them hidden from view.

The stock exhaust backbox has been repaired a few times, I plan to do some work on the exhaust soonish anyway, will look at getting a cat back system with just a single rear silencer. I will swap over the downpipe at a later date once I decide on the turbo etc - eg doing the exhaust in 2 stages.

Today will be a cleaning day though, I have ordered a servicing kit for air,fuel and oil filters.

m1tch · #11 04-18-2015, 01:45 PM

I have been doing a bit of trouble shooting today, the car had issues where it would sometimes lack power when kicking down, eg stuck in gear at say 4,300 and not then change gear.

I also had an issue where I had some screaming/squeeking coming from around the EGR area. After unplugging various vac lines I noticed that the noise went away when the EGR was meant to be actuated.

I then thought of other things to unplug to pin it down, in the end I actually unplugged the MAF which resulted in an immediate power increase with the gearbox working correctly and shifting as it should.

It seems that the MAF has never been cleaned and the engine hasn't really been under much load over most of its life. I cleaned a huge amount of muck and dirt out of it yesterday evening. I think that the sensor was so completely blocked that the engine simply ignored it and just run on a base map with slow shifting via the adaptive shift tech.

Now that I have reset the gearbox and cleared the MAF out it must have been giving a signal but that signal was incorrect so therefore not fueling correctly at all - eg too much air and not enough fuel. Unplugging the MAF returns it to a fixed base map but this time with the transmission reset.

I think I will replace the MAF, although will try and clean it up more using MAF/contact cleaner tomorrow to see if that works any better. Happy currently running on the base map though as its giving some good power and it shifts well.

Next week or maybe the week after I will be removing the inlet manifold, I can see its looking rather horrific around the EGR so I am guessing perhaps a small boost leak somewhere plus I am guessing a very clogged inlet manifold.

Need to work out how to get the manifold off, I can see the bolts on top, I can just about see the jubaliee clip from the stock intercooler to the inlet manifold but I know that there will be a connector to the EGR pipe somewhere as well.

I will be cleaning the inlet manifold but keeping the EGR at this time - need to get a baseline of how the car performs with it connected. I can easily disable it by removing the vac line but it shouldn't be actuating when accelerating anyway. I will be simply blocking it off and adding in a tube instead to remove any restriction. I did unplug the EGR earlier today and drove it around a bit and there wasn't a code at all.

I will also be getting an engine bay code reader - the engine doesn't have the usual OBD2 port inside the car owing to the age, it just has the plate where it should be but no plug. Won't be an issue though as I will just get an adapter for the engine bay so I can pull codes and also perhaps do some logging when doing a run.

Next things to buy would be a boost gauge to see how much its boosting on stock - won't be touching any of the stock setup yet but will look to add a manual boost controller to ensure that its getting the correct boost levels.

m1tch · #12 04-23-2015, 04:59 PM

I have just swapped out the fault MAF and put in a new air filter, the car feels much better to drive and idles really smoothly even when cold.

I also have the oil and fuel filters to swap over next, will do that in a few weekends time, the service indicator states there are still around 1,200 miles before the next service.

I will also be taking off the inlet manifold to clean it up, might be a bit difficult to get to the connectors though as there is a power steering line in the way, I can see how to get to the EGR to intercooler pipe but need to see how to get onto the EGR exhaust feed pipe.

m1tch · #13 05-06-2015, 05:05 PM

Quick update on this, found a large boost leak owing to a hole in the intercooler, I have another intercooler coming so will be fitting it over the weekend.

I have also bought a basic 20KOhm potentiometer which I am going to be using as a variable resistor as per this thread, except instead of swapping out resistors I can fine tune the resistance to where I want it to be:

easily and cheaply increasing the boost E300 turbo diesel W210 606

I should be getting some base runs done at the end of the month, also found that the car being an estate has rear SLS so I won't be doing anything with the suspension anytime soon!

I have also fitted a basic mechanical boost gauge, however there is nowhere to run the vac/boost line through the fire wall so I have had to resort to running it down the drivers wing and through the door shuts - I have checked that nothing is pinched and it seems to be fine as nothing is caught - need to get the intercooler back on before I can test it though!

m1tch · #14 05-09-2015, 02:26 PM

I have just completed an oil change on the car, car is now much smoother.

I have also fitted the replacement OEM intercooler so now I don't have any boost leaks.....OMG its now quick! I am getting front end lift even with an estate and you do get pinned back to your seats.

Ironically the boost gauge I have also fitted is causing a boost leak so I will be sorting that out asap.

The car seems to boost to around 18psi then drops to around 14psi (although my boost gauge is leaking so I don't truly know the full boost reading!

Anyway, its much much better now, much more responsive and the acceleration is brisk to say the least! I have no idea how long its been running with the damaged intercooler but several years I think would be the best guess looking at the volume of muck it has attracted.

m1tch · #15 05-13-2015, 02:47 PM

Boost gauge is sorted now, seems that its boosting to around 18psi or so, then drops down to around 14psi higher up the rev range - guessing due to the large demand for air vs the small turbo.