OK! Eventful night! The initial build of the car is now complete. After buttoning it up and putting it on the ground, the first order of business was to keep the process scientific. That meant getting out the corner weight scales, and weighing the car. Any guesses on how much weight the M113K, plus the intercooler accessories and all supporting bits added to the car?











If you said 300# (my son's guess), then you were wrong. Very wrong.





























Subtracting the original weight (posted above) of 3125#, the total weight added to the car was a grand total of 142#!!! FTR, the scales were properly zeroed, and a comparison check was made.





An initial ride felt good, and without getting on it much, it went through all 5 gears, and worked in manual mode, too. After checking things over, I went up the road one more time, and leaving a stop sign, the engine RPM flared up, and then the transmission caught, and an immediate check engine light. Grrrrr! Back to the shop.



Transmission fluid was low. Despite running it through the gears on jack stands, it was still low, and so fluid was added. Codes were cleared, and another test drive was attempted. Shifted 1-2 no problem, went to 3rd, and then suddenly revved like it was in neutral. Slowed down, caught again, limped home. Transmission fluid leaking from somewhere up front on the right side, right at the bolt that runs from the transmission to the bellhousing (from the rear). Unsure what is going on. Called it a night. Frustrating. Tomorrow is another day.

 

Was able to work for just a little while tonight.

Drained some transmission fluid off, and after going through the proper procedure, found that it had been overfilled by more than a quart. No more leakage was observed, but the car remained on jackstands tonight.

Hooked up SDS/ DAS, and cleared out a bunch of old fault codes and adaptives from the TCU and other modules.

Weather was bad here tonight, so no test drives.

Car would run about 219° at idle with an 80° ambient temperature. Too hot! Tomorrow I will attempt to fit a W203 fan (thanks to @Dave2302 from SLKWorld!). My initial preference is to turn it into a pusher fan and put it in front of the A/C condenser, but that probably has a less than 25% chance of success. After that, it will be time to relocate the radiator, much like Dave did on his SLK project.

 

Tonight saw some forward progress. Radiator removed, and spot welds for the lower core support were drilled out. Removed core support, and then did a rough fitting of the W203 type fan that @Dave2302 recommended. Put everything together as a cooling "module" as it would be called on a newer car. And test fit everything. Need to fab up brackets, and reassemble this weekend. Looks like it will still be very tight at the engine, with maybe 3/4" clearance from the pulleys. I'll grab pics tomorrow.

 

Started working with the W203 Fan. After cutting off the unwanted bits, and using some aluminum strap and a metal brake, four brackets were made, and riveted on.






Next, plates were cut, and holes drilled in the lower core support, stainless nutserts installed, here's what it looked like prior to welding and general cleanup:




Weld through primer was applied to all of the bare metal. After this, the entire cooling module was assembled, and then positioned in the car. Lots of fiddling with final positioning, and once satisfied, alignment marks were made, and the whole assembly was removed.

The brackets were then welded in, and at this point, called it a night. Work will not continue until Tuesday evening.

Left to do are the upper core support brackets, wiring, plumbing of the upper radiator hose, shield for upper radiator hose, and oil cooler AN hoses have to be made. The split cooling (VRP Performance) coolant bottle will now go right behind the left side headlamp.

All this, then back to addressing transmission issues...

 

Did quite a bit of work today, but the work didn't warrant a lot of pics. Ok, I just didn't get any.

Reassembled the cooling module, and got it bolted in. Fabricated upper mounts, securing it in. Set about modifying the intercooler pump mounts and plumbing for them, and also mounted the split cooling reservoir on a new bracket behind the driver's side headlamp. Built a temporary upper radiator hose.

Next, fabricated the oil cooler lines, and secured them in place. Bolted the horns back down, adjusted for clearance on the oil cooler. Bent the power steering cooler line for similar clearance.

The upper radiator hose is not going to work long term, it hits the fan assembly and pinches. I will acquire an aluminum pipe bend, and modify the thermostat housing, welding this on, which should put the pipe right in front of the power steering pump reservoir. Making this a hard pipe will eliminate the chance that the hose will rub on the fan.

So that leads to the misadventure of the day. The fan. Went to go wire up the fan, and the control wire colors did not line up with the Crossfire. Did some research and determined that the black/white wire on the fan is +12v ignition, and the green/blue wire is the PWM control. Disconnecting the PWM wire will force the fan to run 100%. Wired this all up, and resulted in a non running fan.

After much testing and frustration, I grabbed the spare fan I just got at the yard this past weekend, and plugged it in, dangling underneath the car. It fired right up and ran properly. The one in the car is apparently dead.

This now leads to the next project. The upper radiator core support is welded in place, and blocks access and maintenance of the cooling module from the top. Changing the fan would require disconnecting everything, draining everything, dropping the cooling module out of the bottom of the car, and starting over. I do not want to do this.

I cut a complete upper core support out of a junkyard vehicle. The plan is to cut the center section out of the Crossfire's core support, and then overlay this new one over the top, and have it bolt down one each side, right near the headlamp buckets. I didn't plan to do this project right away, but the current situation makes it somewhat of a necessity.

Tomorrow is another day....

 

Productive evening. Set about beginning to fix three major items. First, the fan must be replaced. Second, the upper radiator hose is awful. Need to figure out something better. Third, cannot repair the first two without addressing the upper radiator core support, or as @Dave2302 likes to call it, the slam panel.
Here's how things looked going into it:


The first item on the agenda was to grab the donor core support and cut off any piece of metal not part of the main horizontal. Ie, the vertical parts running to the headlamp buckets.

Once this was done, it was time to section out the center portion of the car's core support.



Next, roughing in of the new panel


And finally, finish metal work, lining it all up, and drilling the 6, (well 5, actually*) mounting holes.

I used stainless steel nutserts, and stainless screws.

So I said 5 holes, and while 6 were drilled in the car, the front right hole was there in the black panel from drilling out the spot weld to the headlamp bucket. Unfortunately, it didn't quite line up, and instead had to be elongated.


I'm not too happy with that, but also not sure how I want to fix it.
Next will be the other fix items on the list, and then reassembly. After getting the cooling system worked out, hopefully it will be time to drive it again.


p.s. - I do plan to paint the new panel the correct sapphire silver blue, soon.

 

Spent about 90 minutes on the project tonight. Replaced the lower radiator hose with a new one, as it was trimmed before relocating the cooling module, because the engine was closer to the radiator, making the hose too long. Now it was stretched to reach. Was a disaster waiting to happen.

Next, removed the M113K thermostat housing, and cut off the last 1.5" of it. Reworked the upper radiator hose to closely hug the front of the engine. Hopefully this will clear the fan better. Long term, it will still need aluminum hard pipe welded to it.

Next the 'guts' of the fan were swapped with the good fan. Had to stop there, but will pick it up again tomorrow evening or Saturday.

 

Worked for a while this afternoon, and made good progress. Reassembled everything, adding nutserts to the new upper core support panel for the upper radiator brackets. Refilled the cooling system, and ran the engine for about 30 minutes. Fan ran through all of its cycles, and did keep it cool. So, total success there!

Changing the oil, and letting drain overnight. Tomorrow the bumper will go back on, and will also fabricate a new intercooler bottle mounting bracket (unhappy with the one I came up with). Also will fabricate a new upper radiator hose vent piece, but from a metal pipe instead of the plastic one in there now. The stock piece couldn't be used, as the pieces of hose I needed to use were 1.5", not the 2" the stock setup uses. Pics will be posted tomorrow that will make this much easier to understand.

Tomorrow should also include some road time, so hopefully I can get back to figure out what is going on with the transmission, which is where things were at, before I decided to spend 2 weeks reworking the cooling system!

 

Ok! Buttoned everything up this morning, finished a few side projects, put the bumper back on. It was time for a test ride!

Drove a few miles barely breathing on the accelerator, followed by some 3-4 second bursts of WOT. WOW!

Downshifts at WOT are nearly violent (yes!), and the car lurches forward, but so smoothly at the same time. Very controllable so far.

Drove about 15 miles, and made.aure thing we're doing OK, tried slightly longer bursts from 45-50 mph for 5-6 seconds. Car felt great!

Decided to try out 'W' mode on the shifter, and yes, shifts were smoother. Went WOT, all was good, until I let off. Engine returned to idle, and stepping on the accelerator gave a free rev to 5k. Uh oh. Autostick would not come out of D.

Slowed down to nearly a stop, and could feel the transmission reengage. Drove perfectly normally, and Autostick function also returned. Do not know what the story is there. Going to put it on the Xentry here in a bit. No CELs.

So far, a much better start than the last go around.

Oh, and A/C blew cold, engine temp was right down the middle, and cruise control worked perfectly.








Going to tidy up a few things, and give the car a bath, and will post more. Will be immediately onto the next project - SLK55 seats.

 

I did drive it another 35 miles, but each time I went to get on it, either there was too much water on the road (lots of rain today), or when I did find a safe spot to try it, I had a particularly loud voice coming from the passenger seat (Donna) yelling at me to STOP IT!

What I did note is that so long as I stay off the kickdown switch, the whole thing runs like a champ. I will be driving it to work this whole week (62 miles/day), and probably every day until the end of the month, really. Need to get miles on it before the October Crossfires at the Dragon event, about 450miles to the north. Goal is ZERO issues during this ~1200 mile weekend.

This afternoon, the rain came down hard, so while I had my son finishing off the remaining pieces of the carcass that used to be a 2005 SRT6 (preparing it for the crusher late this week), I attempted to swap in the SLK55 R171 seats I recently picked up. I knew I would not be using any of the fancy computers to run the seats, as fitting them into this car, without a CAN-B bus was going to be a bit impractical. My plan instead was to simply swap over the R170 wiring, and then I have some tricks up my sleeve for the Airscarf portion. The electrical bits are the easy part for me.

The good news is that the seats appear that they will simply bolt into the R170. Perfect. Wiring looks straightforward enough. Good. Problem is the trim panel on the side of the seats that the buttons go through. The R171 button panel is not going to work at all, and the R170 plastic trim will not fit the seat at all (mounts completely differently). My next plan will involve a lot of plastic surgery on the panels to cover over the holes for the R171 buttons, but then section out the button panel of the R170 seats, and meld them together - without it looking like some horrible hack job. I decided to put the R170 seat back together, and put it back in the car for now. I have a few other sets of R170 seats, and I will pull a set down to become the donors for this trim panel. Once I get past that, the wiring should take only a couple of hours, and in they will go.

I've read from people on the SLKWorld forum complain to no end about the R171 seats. After sitting in the R170 seats for quite a while, and the "test sits" I have had in the R171 seats on the ground, they seem heavenly.

After that project is complete, I will revisit the fuel rail. I am completely unhappy with mine. The low pressure area around #8 is completely unsatisfactory, and I am amazed the MB engineers let this design go. I imagine all of the M113's suffer on #8, and certainly the M112k must have trouble with #6, as it is an almost identical design. I will add the -6AN fittings to the ends of the "U", just like I have on the current one, but will add a new feed point at the rear center of the rail, hopefully eliminating this spot where low pressure happens at #8. I am also planning on re-powder coating the intake plenums. I thought I'd like the teal color, but the more I see it, the more I do not like it in this car. Just not working with the sapphire silver blue (SSB) paint. Thinking a wrinkle finish with either red or blue, but I am open to suggestions.

After this, I have more exhaust work to do. I am getting a horrible echo effect out of the hollowed out cats (the front ones were crushed/broken in the SRT6 wreck). Will be better off with straight pipes in their place.

 

Thank you for taking the time to write all this up. I am having fun "arm chair wrenching" on this project.

Wrinkle finish red--bright red--would look great.

 

Thanks for tuning in! I have this same thread on a couple of forums, and this one elicits the least response, so it's good to know someone is reading along on this journey!

 

So, I drove the car without a passenger for the first time this morning. Let's just say the commute was rather fun! The car is a rocket ship! I have owned many fast cars over the years, and some were technically more powerful than this one, but the sheer ease at which this car handles the power makes it comfortable enough that I could let someone less experienced drive it, without fear that they'd put it into a ditch immediately. Tracks very straight, very little drama, aside from the roar coming through the cabin when that engine decides to light off.

I did hear an unexpected alarm today. While moving from about 25mph to extra-legal speeds, I heard a nagging beeping from the dash. I slowed down and couldn't figure it out, so I blasted back up into the triple digits - heard it again! Grrr...

I think I figured it out. It's the spoiler deploy alarm. If the spoiler is not up by 90MPH, then the aero of the car is upset, so the alarm will sound. It deploys the spoiler at 65mph. In other words, the wing is not extended in the time it begins to deploy at 65 to the time the car is over 90! It accelerates that quickly! I'm now going to use that beeping as a 'gauge' in the car, to know if all is well [img]data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7[/img]

 

Sounds awesome! I would love to see the car and go for a spin with you. Maybe at next year's Dragon?

Interesting that the engineers put in that sort of alarm for the spoiler...will a stock SRT6 accelerate quickly enough to trigger the alarm?

 

Sure!

The Srt6 has a fixed spoiler, so no alarm.

 

Yes, but I thought the programming might be the same for all cars regardless. Certainly a NA car cannot accelerate so quickly--why have this sort of timing thing programmed in to the wing alarm? (Just my little mind wondering. lol.) Or is the alarm intended in case the spoiler is not working at all...but in your case where you heard the alarm, it's working but not quickly enough.

 

Yes, the alarm on the N/A cars is for the spoiler not deploying, and moving >90MPH. It deploys out (normally) at 65mph, and takes only a few seconds to get all the way up. Mine is working properly.

 

BTW, I do plan to be at the Dragon this year, if you are planning to go.

 

I didn't plan in advance enough to make the Dragon this year, darn it. But I'll do my best to make it next year...somehow I need to figure out a way that I don't have to drive for 6 days just to get there and back. I guess I need to win the lottery and have a Crossfire in storage near the Knoxville airport so I just fly in and drive it to the hotel.

 

I think there are a couple of other people coming from AZ this year.