Real Fiero Tech

That. Is. Amazing.

One of my friends should have a video of it. The BOV on it sounds awesome! I'll see if I can get it.


He actually built the car himself for a customer. The customer had it for a few years and he bought it from the guy. He has his own fab business here in MI- Whitbread Performance Innovations.

Here's a current project he's building at his shop: It's a custom Tube-Frame chassis built for endurance racing with another built TDI mated to a 6-speed.

Cool. Who's doing the body / aero on that one?

It has a blow off valve? Or are you just hearing the wastegates open. Usually diesels don't have a blow off valve.

CincinnatiFiero wrote:It has a blow off valve? Or are you just hearing the wastegates open. Usually diesels don't have a blow off valve.

I don't know tbh. I know diesels usually don't have a bov, but maybe you might have to vent some boost when you are above 50psi. I don't think I saw one though. I'll have to ask.

Series8217 wrote:Cool. Who's doing the body / aero on that one?

The chassis is a RCR Nemisis, and the body-work is based off the Cadillac Lemans Prototype. His boss purchased the body and pulled molds off of it.

I had a friend put a BOV on his Duramax, which wasn't pushing anywhere near 50psi (All it had was a tune/exhaust), and you could hear it fairly clearly. I'm not sure how the BOV is controlled as there is really no vacuum source however.

Got 1,200 miles on the wagon so far, averaging 37mpg. Pretty well mixed driving conditions. Picked up some Mercedes factory alloys with snow tires last night on craigslist, they may be too big but we will have to see.

That's some awesome mpg. Looking forward to the wheels.

The wheels don't fit. There is a big chart of widths and offsets that fit W124s and this size was on the list. What I didn't catch was it was a fitment for a AMG and Porsche E500E, aka a factory widebody car. The wheels poke and rub under braking. I'm not going to roll fenders and screw with my suspension for snow tires.


I did go look a 300E 4matic last night. There are automatic 4matic diesels in Europe, the 4matic in the early cars wasn't the most reliable and its not very common so there isn't much knowledge out there about it. I wanted to pick this car up to get to know the system, how integrated into the oil pan is the front diff, how does the transfercase bolt to the trans etc. And have an AWD car for the winter...

Got there and there was black paint over the 4matic failure lamp. The 4matic-1 was developed by magna-steyr and used a viscous coupling, much like mid 90s jeep grand Cherokees (also magna-steyr). The viscous coupling is usually worn out. Mercedes will sell you a reman diff around $3000, a guy in Canada rebuilds them for $1600, and those are your options.

So I passed haha.

Rebuilding a BMW viscous coupling: http://www.e30tech.com/forum/showthread.php?t=118249
ZF did the BMW hardware.

How does the 4matic system work? In the BMW/ZF stuff, there's a geartrain that transmits power, while the VC only acts when there's a speed difference front to rear. The VC or later model electric clutch could fail and but T-case would still transmit power to all four wheels. The failed VC/Clutch only affects the limited slip attributes of the unit.

I would expect that any AWD system that could handle more than 100 HP would operate similarly. The Pontiac 6000 didn't even have a limited slip... totally open center diff and it was still pretty unstoppable in the snow.

The old school Civic wagon/van thingies had AWD with a direct geared rear output and an inline viscous coupling in the driveshaft so that the viscous coupling transmitted ALL the torque that went to the rear... but it had about 80 HP.

I know very little about 4matic which is why I wanted to buy one.

4matic-1 was so hit and miss they stopped making it before they stopped making W124s as far as I know. In the US you for sure couldn't get it in 94/95. In 96+ they called it 4matic-2 and supposedly it works differently.


When the 4matic breaks they are Rwd, the front wheels don't do shit. You're just hauling around an extra diff and an a transfer case.

Mercedes didn't use LSDs most of the time on gas cars they used what they called ASR which as they put it "simulates" and LSD. It works through the ABS pump. When one of the wheels starts spinning the abs pump slams the brakes on that caliper so the open diff will start trying to turn the other wheel. It actually works pretty well. It was an option on gasser 2wds but I think all 4matics have it, but I believe they only have it on the rear diff.


The bad ass system is ASD which was only available on diesels. Its basically an air locker that uses hydraulic fluid instead of air from a high pressure engine driven pump similar to the self levinf suspension pump. Below 15mph when it senses slip it will lock the rear diff 100%. Above 15mph it is a standard LSD with some percentage lock up.

My 350SDL I had two years ago had it, it was a bad ass system.


Mercedes will sell you a mechanical LSD in most ratios brand new, whole pumpkin already assembled for around $1100. Most places will give you a discount, I get around 30% off at the dealers. So actually $800 for a brand new pre assembled LSD is pretty reasonable. LSDs were a super uncommon option on US cars, more prevalent in Europe but still uncommon. So to find used ones is rare.

Mechanical LSD's were pretty common on BMW products up through the E34. After that, BMW only put them in M-cars and relied on an ABS based system to limit wheel-spin. This really sucks on the E46 and later AWD models, as they have open front, center and rear diffs.

The diesel system you describe sounds like what BMW did in the E34 525iX cars. They used a center diff with electric clutch in the T-case with an electronically controlled hydraulically applied clutch in the rear diff. That unit piggy-backed its hydraulic power off the load-leveling rear suspension, which I *think* had its own electric pump and accumulator. That system was only used on that application. I'm guessing BMW was aping Mercedes for all or most of that.

The E30's have gear drives with viscous limited slip in both the T-case and rear diff. They're pretty unstoppable.

The Merc 4-matics are right-drop, right?

Replaced my nitrogen filled accumulator spheres and replaced as much hydraulic fluid as I could with genuine Mercedes fluids. Car rides so much better and its sitting up higher. I hauled around a bunch of metal brackets for a friend the other day probably 400lbs and the hydraulic suspension performed awesome.




Emc, here are the snows, but they don't fit like I mentionned. I think they would have looked pretty good,I really prefer to put upgraded OEM wheels on cars instead of aftermarket. There's something about the fit and finish aftermarket wheels just can't match.





My little sister is driving my 87 300D sedan while the 92 I teased will with is being painted. She's rolling around on factory 1994 8 hole alloys so she doesn't curb my CLK lightweight wheels. I still have these sitting around, I think they only weigh 13.5lbs, factory forged wheels. I may toss them on the wagon

CincinnatiFiero wrote:Emc, here are the snows, but they don't fit like I mentioned.

Bummer. Good to see the pictures though. I feel ya on the oem wheel thing. It's nice being away from manufactures like Pontiac, which only make terrible looking wheels. I guess it doesn't look that bad with the hubcaps.

CincinnatiFiero wrote:I really prefer to put upgraded OEM wheels on cars instead of aftermarket. There's something about the fit and finish aftermarket wheels just can't match.

It really depends on what you want to spend. A set of HRE wheels will be higher quality than an OEM wheel. The CCWs I just put on my GTR are amazing quality, but you get what you pay for.

I'm not necessarily the tangible quality of the wheel though more often than not that is also the case. The aesthetic fit and finish of OEM wheels is hard to describe, I'm probably just weird or super anal.

The highest quality HREs can still look out of place on cars.

Your CCWs are gorgeous but I rarely pay over $50/wheel for OEM wheels. I'm not going to put $2,700 of wheels on $5,000 cars lol. I paid $100 for the snow wheels and $200 for the forged wheels.

Maybe if I ever pony up and buy the AMG I've been threatening to buy ill get some pricey wheels. But I'm having too much fun with the cheap cars.

The three-piece CCWs are also really really heavy. Some OEMs make very light wheels. Subaru wheels and some Porsche wheels are very light.

I feel like Will, random factory upgrade (sort of).

The OM601 4 cylinder diesel was offered in W201 190Ds in the US in 2.2, and 2.0 in Europe. And then in Europe they made W124 200Ds and 200TDs (wagon). All were non turbo.

In the Vito 108D/110D Mercedes for a hot minute stroked the Euro 2.0L to 2.3L and put a turbo on it. They went to bigger motors fairly quickly and then to a different chassis entirely so the 601 Turbo is, dare I say, rare. Well a friend in Holland just stumbled across one for 40 euros so he's sending it my way. Wish I could get a 2.3L crank, pistons, and rods, but I don't know that its worth a grand of parts and shipping costs to spend another grand on rebuild bits here to have a torquey 80HP engine haha.

I do not know if I am going to turbo my wagon but since it came up for sale for around $100US shipping, I figured I needed to have it around. What is strange is it uses a 3-bolt turbo flange, the breakers who had the Vito manifold did not have the turbocharger available so I will have to source something 3 bolt here. Anyone got any ideas?


Vito!