15 April 2026:
Not a huge update, but work is slowly progressing. One of the things happening in this car is the complete conversion of the electrical system to more closely align with the newer architectures found in more modern Mercedes. As the interior is already swapped to W209, the electrical system will be loosely akin to a CLK63 in how it is setup. This means that Sensor Acquisition Modules (SAMs) have to be added, in place of the regular fuse boxes in the Crossfire. A Rear SAM in the trunk area runs rear lighting, rear window defroster and more. The Front SAM takes the place of the regular fuse box, and in addition to having fuses and relays, it controls individual lights, wipers, power to the engine, transmission and more. Think of it like the fuse box, Body Control Module (BCM) and RCM all built into a single module. So begins a rather tedious part of this project - cutting all of the irrelevant wiring out of the car and labeling what is needed to move forward. And that is exactly what has been happening. The Rear SAM is about 75% complete, with all rear lighting and many other functions presently wired up. Attention has now shifted to the Front SAM. The first task was to simply cut each and every wire from the bottom of the original fuse box, and then using heat shrink labels, each circuit was labeled so that when the SAM is wired in, it can be done more easily, without having to trace out every wire again. Many wires are already redundant, and will be abandoned in place. This was chosen over removal as removing them would mean completely de-looming large portions of the wiring in the car, and at this time that was not practical (hah!).

How it started


A mess!

Order will arise from the chaos

How the ECU box currently looks

CLK55 main engine bay wiring harness and the front SAM

Work will resume next week, and I expect that it will start to look more reasonable as it goes. That's all for now. Keep checking in!