Mercedes 190E 2.3-16 vintage racer build (pic heavy)

[Emre]

Hi, guys.

I'm starting a thread to detail the build of my '87 2.3-16 project car for vintage racing.

My goal is to slowly turn it into an early DTM replica ('86-'87 seasons) for use in VARAC Group 70+ and other vintage racing. I may also enter it in NASA GTS and possibly SCCA.

The bulk of the build is being done by Guten Parts + Service (GPS) in South Orange, NJ. The car is going to race under the "GPS Motorsport" banner. We're working in close collaboration with DENT Sport Garage (DSG) in Norwood, MA. Not only do the guys at DSG have lots of experience building rally and hillclimb cars, but they are Cosworth specialists. In fact, one of the co-owners of the shop (Alex Grabau) is largely responsible for turning me onto the idea of building up a 190E 16v. Without Levent at GPS and Alex at DSG, the build would never have gotten off the ground.

[Emre]

After driving and instructing at BMW CCA events for some 10 years, I finally decided to try my hand at wheel-to-wheel racing. For a variety of reasons, I decided to go with the 190E 2.3-16 (Mercedes's answer to the E30 M3) and start off with vintage racing.

After searching for over 1 year, I finally found a clean California car with zero rust, no accident damage, a strong engine (180psi across all 4 cylinders), and the coveted close-ratio Getrag box with dog-leg 1st.



Here's the 16v as it rolled into Guten Parts in March 2010:



The wheels are vintage Carlsson alloys that Levent found for me. They're made by Ronal and are pretty much identical to the ones they made for Hartge. They're staggered 16x7.5" front and 16x8.5" rear. They're gorgeous! We actually had the wheels months before we found a suitable project car.



One of the first upgrades we did to the car was to replace the stock sliding calipers for 4-piston Ate calipers from a 400E sedan. Sadly, the Carlsson alloys had to go. They were a tight fit to begin with, and there was no way in hell they'd ever clear the new brakes.

[Emre]

One of the first jobs we tackled was to strip some of the useless crap out of the car. First off, the a/c system had to go:



Then we tackled the SLS system. That involved removing the engine-driven pump, oil accumulators, and miles of tubing. Here's Levent removing the lines:



Here are the oil accumulators we pulled:



Finally, the SLS pump itself:



We weren't able to remove it completely, but we pulled out the guts and sealed it with a custom aluminum plate:

[Emre]

When we got the car, it already had the SLS system disabled and the OEM stocks and springs had just been replaced with some fresh H&R Sport springs and Bilstein Sport dampers. We'd keep them for now. An eBay search lead us to some Eibach swaybars. Here's a comparison between the OEM rear sway and the Eibach (powder-coated orange):



Installing the front swaybar was relatively simple. But the rear bar install was a major PITA; it basically involved dropping the whole rear subframe! But we did it.

Since the Carlsson alloys had to come off the car, the search was on for suitable replacements. I went to a local swap meet and scored a set of new-in-box Racing Dynamics RGS alloys in 17x8" ET30 with the correct bolt-pattern (5x112") for the Mercedes. We had some custom centering rings made and test-fit them to the car...







Looks like they're going to be a tight fit. The good news is they clear the 4-piston Ate calipers...barely!

[Emre]

One of the major problems with the 16v compared to the M3 is the lack of space for proper rubber. I'd kill for some box fenders! Unfortunately, we're not allowed to add the Evo I or Evo II fender flares, since they involve cutting the sheet metal, which is expressly prohibited under vintage racing rules. This was our first significant set-back; we were counting on mounting Evo II flares to clear the rubber we had planned to run.

To make a little bit more room for tires, we installed the AMG front fender spacer kit. It's a series of bolts and urethane spacers that flare the front fenders out to gain some extra extra clearance. They were needed to fit optional AMG alloys.

Here's the front part of the kit, where the leading edge of the front wheel arch meets the trailing edge of the front bumper:



Here's the rear half of the kit:



Here's the new position of the front fender:



Doesn't look too different, but it buys you almost 1cm of extra clearance under the front fenders. Too bad there's no similar kit for the rear.

Meanwhile, I was able to get a hold of a pair of 4-piston Brembo calipers for my car. These were OEM fitment on the 190E 2.5-16 Evo II (which was never available on this side of the pond), but they were available in the USA on the very early 500E sedan and a handful of R129 500SL roadsters. The Brembos are significantly lighter than the cast Ate calipers and only a bit larger. Here's a comparison:



While I was at it, we also found a straight set of R129/Evo I alloys in 16x8" ET34. They're pretty heavy (and have a face only a mother could love), but they're a perfect fit and clear the Brembo brakes with room to spare. We put some Hankook R-S2 rubber on them for the time being.

[Emre]

After all the basic work was done, we took the car to my home track, Le Circuit Mont-Tremblant (Ste-Jovite, Quebec), for a workout. Here are a few pics from the car's track debut last August:







As you can see, we had some serious body roll to contend with, despite the upgraded suspension (H&R Sport springs, Bilstein Sport dampers, and Eibach swaybars front & rear). With body roll this bad in slippery conditions and low-grip street tires, I shudder to think how the car would corner on R-compound tires in the dry!

The track work really displayed the car's numerous strengths and few (but significant) weaknesses. The engine and gearbox were a peach. High-speed stability was excellent. Braking was phenomenal. However, the rear of the car was very, very difficult to control in the corners. It would start to load up, then lose grip without warning. It happened so suddenly that the ensuing slide was almost impossible to gather up. The fact that the LSD was totally worn out didn't make things any easier.

Clearly, something was very wrong with the rear suspension and would need to be sorted before our next track outing. The rear diff was also in dire need of a rebuild. The season was over, so the car was basically mothballed until the end of the winter.

[Emre]

After the winter, the 16v went back to Guten Parts + Service where we began to tackle the rear suspension. They soon found the problem:



The rear subframe had cracked! The cracks were causing the rear to lose camber and gain toe-out under hard cornering. No wonder the rear end felt like it was on casters! On top of that, the subframe bushings were shot, so the whole thing was moving against the chassis:



The cracks were welded:







We'll eventually buy a new rear subframe, have it reinforced/gusseted, and finish off with a powder-coat. But this one should be fine for now.

While the car was in the shop, we did some more basic maintenance work, including installing a new alternator, replacing the fuel injectors, and sorting a variety of electrical issues. Here are the old Bosch CIS injectors:



Critically, we managed to FINALLY track down the source of the on-again/off-again ABS action. It was all down to a faulty wheel-speed sensor that was making intermittent contact. Electrical gremlins such as this dramatically slowed down progress on the car last season.

[Emre]

Now that we finally have the car in good running condition, we sent it up to DENT Sport Garage (DSG) to get started on the cage. The car is being build specifically for historic racing, but I wanted the cage to be SCCA compliant as well as to meet the rules for NASA GTS. We decided on a 6-point cage fully contained in the passenger compartment (not extending past the front or rear firewalls). Tying the cage in to the front strut towers and rear shock mounts would have lead to a much stuffer chassis, but it would bump us out of the classes we were considering.

We settled on a basic 6-point design without any extraneous bars (to keep weight down). As much as this is a historic race car, it will still see most of it's use in an HPDE setting. I strongly prefer to drive my car to and from events, so we designed the cage such that I can still fit some race tires in the back seat area...4-door sedan FTW!

Here's how things look right now...









As you can see, the main bar is mounted very far back in the chassis. This was done for several reasons. First, we wanted the foot-box for the main hoop to tie not only into the frame rail, but also into the rear cross-member. Also, we wanted to move the weight back in the chassis and clear up room for my lanky-ass limbs.

A related goal was to mount the seats as low as possible in the chassis. I'm 6'1" and like to sit very upright in the car. Due to the funny shape of the W201 190E floorpan, we decided to integrate the seat mounts into the cage itself. You can see what I mean here:



This weekend, Alex installed the window net using the Bimmerworld mounting kit with the flex tube. And he started work on painting the cage...





Coming along nicely.

[Emre]

While the car was in storage over the winter, we got in touch with Jay at Ground Control. Turns out he's a closet W201 fanatic and had some ideas for what we could do with the car. We decided to build a custom coil-over conversion using linear Eibach race springs and double-adjustable Koni race dampers. Here's what Jay came up with...

Prototype front strut from Ground Control vs. stock



Strut housings done and power coated GT3 Orange



Prototype rear suspension set-up



We decided to keep the rear suspension a separate shock and spring design (rather than a true coilover) due to packaging issues. We already have very little rear fender clearance. A true coilover would require even lower offset wheels, and we just don't have the rear fender clearance to make that work. More on our fender woes in a later post...

We also found a pair of FIA-approved race seats complete with aluminum mounting brackets. I bought these from a fellow BMW CCA--NJ Chapter member who advertised them on our local forums.

Recaro Pole Position seats (before cleaning)



I'm not too crazy about the color of the seats (I wanted black). But they're light, FIA-approved, were local to me and offered at a fair price. So I jumped on them. They cleaned up pretty nicely and don't look too bad.

[Emre]

OK, I know this is a really minor issue, but it was bothering me.

I've never been a fan of the huge chrome grille up front. IMNSHO, it makes the 16v look like a dowdy old man's car, rather than the DTM beast it is. I wanted the car to have the "shaved" Euro look, and that chrome grille had to go.

Levent at Guten Parts + Service found us a pair of brand new OEM grille surrounds to play with. He had his fabricator fill in the holes for the hood ornaments by welding in metal (not just smearing on body filler), then sent them out to his powder-coaters where they were done up in black semi-gloss:



I think the finish came out gorgeous; similar to BMW's "Shadowline" trim, which is exactly what we were going for. I'm very happy with it. Will add more pics once it's on the car.

While we're on the topic of bling, Levent ordered me some Bosch Euro headlights. I much prefer the single-piece glass lens rather than the multi-piece plastic monstrosity mandated by the DOT. I'll probably throw some Lamin-X on them before my next track event.

And to round out today's lesson in bling, those three-piece reverse mesh alloys sitting under the grille are vintage Epsilons. They'll be going on my old E30.
I just can't control myself

[Emre]

The Ground Control front struts are in:





Rears will go on tomorrow. Then the car will be corner balanced and get a 4-wheel alignment. Should be able to pick it up by this upcoming weekend.

[LukeP]

Very cool project! Any plans for some DTM style livery?

[Emre]

Here's the steering wheel that's going in once the work is done...



It's a vintage AMG steering wheel made by Momo. These were used in the 190E DTM cars. Found one in great condition from a member on the 190rev forums.

[Emre]

Very cool project! Any plans for some DTM style livery?

Eventually. The finish on this car is nice enough that I'll probably leave it alone for a while.

[Greg S]

I do love me some 190.

[elliott95]

Very cool build i love these cars.

[cky751]

cool car, I use to have a regular 190e. it went till 400,000 miles

[stealthbeam]

Very cool! Thanks for sharing

[KevRC4130]

Super cool. I love my W123. Mercedes makes GREAT cars.


Obviously at this point not really apples to apples, but how would you compare your 190E to your E30?

[iDOwork]

I love 190e's!!!! Subscribed and keep up the good work!

[Hugo D]

After the winter, the 16v went back to Guten Parts + Service where we began to tackle the rear suspension. They soon found the problem:



The rear subframe had cracked! The cracks were causing the rear to lose camber and gain toe-out under hard cornering. No wonder the rear end felt like it was on casters! On top of that, the subframe bushings were shot, so the whole thing was moving against the chassis:



The cracks were welded:







We'll eventually buy a new rear subframe, have it reinforced/gusseted, and finish off with a powder-coat. But this one should be fine for now.

While the car was in the shop, we did some more basic maintenance work, including installing a new alternator, replacing the fuel injectors, and sorting a variety of electrical issues. Here are the old Bosch CIS injectors:



Critically, we managed to FINALLY track down the source of the on-again/off-again ABS action. It was all down to a faulty wheel-speed sensor that was making intermittent contact. Electrical gremlins such as this dramatically slowed down progress on the car last season.

I knew there was an explanation for spinning the car last year, there is no excuses this year though.

As for the cage, will there be a cross bar between the two "A" pillar bars? What about foot and head protection?

[Emre]

I knew there was an explanation for spinning the car last year, there is no excuses this year though.

Lol. That was a very embarrassing weekend for me. It's good to know there really was something wrong with the car! The handling was unpredictable and spooky.

As for the cage, will there be a cross bar between the two "A" pillar bars? What about foot and head protection?

We discussed all these things, plus the many constraints we have. For a variety of reasons, we made some compromises in the final design of the cage.

[M3 Euro LTW]

You may know this already, and it may not lead anywhere, just a thought.

I'm pretty sure the owner of Bekker's Import used to race Mercedes cars like this in the US. He may have some practical tips, parts, advice for you as you go down the road of racing this car.

May be wrong too.

Too bad the rules are so restrictive on bodywork for the series you want, seems somehow not right if the car was raced with those type of body panels back in the day.

Every once and a while I see one of these tooling around in the Chicago area.. neat cars.

Alex.

[luke318is]

verrrrry interested in this build because I might be picking up a 2.5-16V soon

[Emre]

verrrrry interested in this build because I might be picking up a 2.5-16V soon

I love it, even though it's a bit underpowered and overweight.