r129 sl engine swap?

[RBYCC]

Before converting this car to twin turbo I would ask how many people have used the Hughes kits, how many gave up along the way and how many are truly satisfied with the results

Modifying a 20 year-old car isn't a simple task. Everything you do will uncover parts that are worn. Every modification will require a one-off part to be fabricated. Every step forward will be accompanied by two steps back

If you (and your cheque book) can handle that then go ahead. If not, I'd stay away from the modification route

Just ask RBYCC how long it has taken him to get the car as he wanted it and how much it cost

Speaking from experience of modified cars (two GTi Engineering Golfs, a Schuler Range Rover, Triumph TR4, BMW 2002 race car) I can say they are a pain in the 4r$e

Nick Froome

Nick

Truer words were ne'er spoken

Hughes in late 2006 cleared the inventory of the early nineties TurboTechnics kits.
The kits are well engineered and manufactured to meet an OEM like standard.

I would estimate Hughes sold 10-15 kits world wide at the time.
Very few are installed and running trouble free as most decided the performance of the kit wasn't enough and they wanted more power.

There in lies the problem...
Encouraged by videos of 1000HP 10000RPM M103's out of Sweden, the TT owners made mistakes.

The kit needs to be installed as Hughes did on new delivery cars.
Some parts don't fit...more on the M104 with air pump then on the M103.
Only fabrication on the M103 was getting matching fittings for the oil cooler line from the oil filter housing to the turbos.

It's not a DIY, experience needed along with a dyno to establish a tune without destroying the engine.

I've built max performance 426+ cubic inch race hemis in the seventies but was not familiar with a Merc turbo install, especially the dyno tune.

In all of the vast USA, I found one man, Brian Murphy at Willow Automotive in Chicago, who had experience with the M103 and M104 turbo installs.
Brian was the main USA dealer/installer for Willy Mosselman in the late eighties. Mosselman stated in a August 1987 Autoweek article that Brian could make installs go faster then he could.

Trucked the car about a thousand miles to Chicago.
Took every day calls with Brian for about a six week period to get things figured out as TurboTechnics supplied no real instructions.
It cost about 6000 sterling for the install and 1000 for the round trip trucking!

Was it worth it..to me yes as I wanted power without the sacrifice of reliability.
I doubled the stock power output at a cost of about 40 sterling/HP.

I support what Nick is saying..if you're going to do it then do it right.
I wanted as close to a factory production line look, feel and reliability which I got but at a cost.
The other factor was that I started with a motor that I owned from new with 65K miles and still within original factory spec

 

[IanA2]

Well I'm one of those with a Hughes TT 12V kit and I'm flip flopping about whither to put it in my SWB 300GE. I've been put off by the lack of response to enquiries of TT who are near me. RBYCC has resolved that for me.

I'm still hesitant about installing it, mainly because of the cr@p brakes on the G, but there are obviously other general strain issues. That said I must say RBYCC installation costs are frightening. I genuinely was thinking it would be around half what it's cost him.

Might be fun though....

 

[jasrocks]

This is just a hobby car tbh,certainly not something i use everyday...time spent to mod it is not such a big deal in that respect...and to do it properly i may add,my dad knows loads of good mechanics im sure would be up for the task...but again thanks for the infomation.

@HOWARD im to new of a member to use to pm feature,anyway you could let him know im interested?

 

[RBYCC]

Well I'm one of those with a Hughes TT 12V kit and I'm flip flopping about whither to put it in my SWB 300GE. I've been put off by the lack of response to enquiries of TT who are near me. RBYCC has resolved that for me.

I'm still hesitant about installing it, mainly because of the cr@p brakes on the G, but there are obviously other general strain issues. That said I must say RBYCC installation costs are frightening. I genuinely was thinking it would be around half what it's cost him.

Might be fun though....

My install was done in the USA with labor cost based on about $100.00 per hour/60+ sterling.
Labor costs were on the high end as the install was done in a major city.
Get some quotes from installers on labor as it will probably take 100+ hours to correctly install.
Many hours just spreading all the parts out on a long table and trying to identify them !!
More hours figuring out what goes where.

Ed A.