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190e engine swap

djwymo

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Joined
Oct 1, 2024
Messages
1
Location
doncastee
Car
190e
Hi there, new to the forum!

Fancied modding an old school merc for quite a while now and have seen a local barn find basic 190e with 45k miles sold as a none runner.

I've done a bit of searching on the forum and basically want to know what the easiest options are to swap engine & box to something bigger and more tuneable.

As it's the 1.8 and not the 2.6 190e am I right in thinking this limits me slightly due to slam panel / radiator / steering box?

With this said, correct me if I'm wrong but is the m111 kompressor engine (and gearbox) swap the most straight forward and easy to do - running a aftermarket ecu unless I can find a real early donor engine with metal key?

Is it just a case of finding one of these donor cars:


Thanks so much for any help
Craig
 
Yes a 6 cylinder will need the rad under the slam panel and a few other changes from what I have seen. I think the best/easiest conversion is to get a donor and transfer all over. A early w202 would be a good start.
 
The non removable slam panel on the 4 cylinder is not a deal breaker. The slam panel is more or less the same and can be cut out and welded back on, it's just more tidy on the unboltable 6. If putting a 6 cylinder in you need the slam panel removed because the engine needs to go in with the gearbox attached whilst a 4 cylinder can be dropped straight in.

Back in the day when I did mine a 2.6 was preferable as there was plenty about on the cheap. But nowadays I would just buy whatever car is the best condition irrespective of the engine.

The SC M111 engine is actually going up in value. It has been done. There was a thread on the old 190 forum. Iirc it did end up getting quite involved though.


If I was to do another swap now I'd actually look for a M112 V6. You can get still get low mileage complete rusty donor cars for pennies.

The 3.2 M112 has 215 bhp but I would love to see the 3.7 M112 from the W220/ML/SL bunged in a 190 !!!! It's a reliable simple engine and has 250 bhp which is more than enough 😀
 
A few years back I had a nice but basic Sportline 2.0 as a little runaround, it had 200k but still run sweet as a nut.

My neighbour had a low mileage AMG kitted R230 350 with the 3.7 that suffered a catastrophic electric failure due to a massive flood in the boot. I debated about buying it off of him but slept on it.

He sold it for a scrap for a grand !!!!! I could have sold the AMG bumpers and wheels for more than that and had the engine, ancillaries, big ole brakes ect for free :doh: :doh::doh::doh::doh::doh::doh::doh:

That's the sort of thing I'd be looking out for if I was you 😀
 
The easiest D.I.Y swap is the the 3.0 M103. Bolts straight in to a 190, aftermarket ECU not required so long as you have whole donor car. 190 BHP, nice. Can use your original gearbox. Just need to change final drive.

Only problem is finding a donor car ..............
 
The 1.8L engine is known to be prone to cylinder head gasket issues more than the other variants .

The simplest modification is to obtain the 2.3L variant of the same engine ( M102 ) which only has a little more power ( 136 bhp as opposed to the 106 bhp of the 1.8 ) but has a significant increase in torque , which makes the car 'feel' a lot faster . The big advantage of this is that the engine looks exactly the same outwardly , because it IS the same engine , just with larger bore and stroke , so the car will not only look completely original , but the swap is completely straightforward . I did exactly this swap with my 190E LE , with the 1.8L engine , only I also added the taller diff from a 190E 2.6 , along with the driveshafts and propshaft which are different to the standard ones , and I upgraded the front brakes from the solid discs used on the 1.8 to the vented discs used on the factory 2.3L models . The car was transformed .

Below are some pictures of my 190LE when i did the engine swap , and also for comparison of the engine bay in my 190E 2.6 .

Incidentally , people have put V-8 and even V-12 engines into 190s .6  _IMG0582.jpg5  _IMG0581.jpg4  _IMG0580.jpg3  _IMG0579.jpg2  _IMG0578.jpg1  _IMG0577.jpgIMGP6762.jpg1_IGP2646.jpg1_IGP2645.jpg
 

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