The K&W's use an open spring that fits into the control arms like the stock springs. The adjustment perch is at the top in the spring pocket. The only way to adjust ride height is jacking up the car to take weight off the wheels and unloading the springs. It makes corner balancing labor intensive. The kit is single adjustable (compression) and comes with Koni shocks valved to K&W's specs. I blew out the fronts bottoming them out. I had the car too low, split the bump stops and bottomed out the shocks. The replacements were $411.20 each in 2013. They ride nice on a good road. Bad road = rough ride. My car has retired from racing and I'm most likely going back to my K&W's, otherwise I'd offer them to you. You may be able to find a used set. A few owners bought them and hated them for various reasons.

Les

 

Thank you for that info. I figured they were just like the Inox coilovers I have on my SRT4. That is disappointing, to be honest.

 

Something that is often overlooked when it comes to braking but really matters and is where you should spend money first is tires in my opinion. What kind of tires are you running up front? You can have some 8 piston brakes up front but if you running some chinese all season tires, a stock brake srt6 will stop better with Michelin pilot super sports on all 4 corners than you.

 

Couldn't agree more. Currently not running good tires, but in process of having a set of wheels refinished, better and wider tires installed. I can get the fronts to lock up momentarily until ABS does its work with the current tires. It would not do that as willingly with the SRT6 brakes. Both sets of brakes were running EBC Yellow Stuff pads.

 

Small update. The car has been pressed into a daily driving role for me for a little bit. Our other Crossfire was involved in a *ahem* small off-road excursion, and now needs some body work. That means my daily driver SRT-4 is now being driven by the offending Crossfire pilot, until we figure out what to do about repairs/replacement.

The car drives well, but it always seems eager to show everyone its tail lights. Not sure this is a safe daily driver

Ordered a set of Continental Extreme Contact Sports, with stock front size, and 285/30/19 in the rear. Should solve at least some of the grip issues with that extra 30mm, and no doubt stickier compound. These will wait until a set of SE wheels are acquired, or more likely a set of SRT-6 wheels are refinished. Currently have three sets of 'extra' SRT-6 wheels sitting in the shop, so just need to send some out for refinishing.

During our TotD trip, the oil level light came on. Despite the level being perfectly in the middle on the dipstick, the light was on, and stayed on. Lately it has been coming and going. Last night I added a little oil, to bring it to the very top of the range on the dipstick. Light went out and has stayed out after 50 miles of driving so far today. So, maybe the sensor isn't broken. That's also a bit worrying as to the accuracy of the dipstick. There is an adjustment for this level for the sensor within SDS, so that may need to be looked at. The oil in the engine will be changed at 3k miles, which should arrive in the next 2-3 weeks. More careful notes of the amounts going into the engine will also be made, and then we'll see what the story is with the settings in SDS.

 

Still driving the car fairly regularly without any major issues. Our other Crossfire has been repaired well enough to go back into daily driving status until we begin bodywork on it in a few weeks. Still need to send out the SRT-6 wheels for refinishing, although that is now a priority, and should be done this week. A total shop reorganization has been underway, as I shift car platforms on a more permanent basis from the Dodge SRT-4's that have pretty well dominated the shop for the past 16 years, to the Crossfire. This has meant that all of the Neon parts have come off the shelves from long term storage, and Crossfire parts going in their place. This sounds odd, and maybe even trivial, until one sees the mess that is caused by several cars' worth of parts this really represents. At one point, there were no fewer than 7 Neon SRT-4's here at any given time, and that means several engines, transmissions, and just about any part or body panel for that platform you could imagine. Now preparations are being made to part company with all of those, and move away from project-car neons. Sounds silly, but it is cataclysmic around here

The past couple of evenings, I decided to jump back into my Real Dash project. There was a push on this last winter, and then it was put aside as the weather got warmer. The goal is to finish this up, get it reliable, and deploy it out to this Crossfire in the next few months. When it was last fiddled with it, a Crossfire instrument cluster was modified to accept a 12.3" LCD, an Arduino and interfacing electronics integrated in, all pushed to a Khadas VIM3 single board computer (SBC) running Android Pie. From there, a USB hub with a requisite CAN adapter did the final interfacing to the electronics. Then the setup was mocked up with all of the pertinent Crossfire electronics on the bench, and wired up into the dash. Also added in was an Innovate Motorsports LC-2 wideband O2 setup, fuel pressure sensor, oil pressure sensor, and a few other items.



Don't mind the mess in the background - all of that represents progress! At the point this pic was taken, the plan was to swap in the SRT-4 engine into the Crossfire, and so the dash layout was modified with the appropriate logo:


Here the electronics driving all of this was a hybrid between Crossfire elements and a Chrysler NGC-3 (CAN) PCM that would run the 2.4 turbo engine. The Crossfire ECU data stream had already been decoded to determine that they spoke a similar enough CAN message language that everything was going to play along pretty well. Now that the car is actually running the M113K, logos will likely change. With RealDash, that is a pretty easy thing to do.

The last couple of evenings, the focus has been the W205 steering wheel. I had had trouble with the LIN bus that talks to this steering wheel, but last night a major breakthrough occurred, and it is now spitting out data for most of the buttons. More work has to be done to get the following working:
1. Shift Paddles
2. Horn Button
3. Button LED backlighting

Now that there is good communication between the Arduino device and the steering wheel, this will be time intensive, but attainable.

There are ways of dealing with interfacing to the wheel, without resorting to the LIN bus, but I like the idea of the LIN bus, because it will allow the use of the current Crossfire clockspring. The original clockspring has wiring for the airbag, but also two wires for the horn button, but nothing more. This constrains most projects like this. LIN bus needs +12v, ground and LIN; three wires. Ground can be picked up via the steering wheel itself, and the two horn buttons will be re-utilized to carry +12v and LIN - problem solved!

The Arduino will interpret the button inputs, and do several things. First, it will break out the horn button signal, and trigger a relay to restore proper horn function. Second, the buttons will control the RealDash, along with encoding certain functions, like volume, voice command, and phone answer/hangup onto a private CAN-B bus, which will feed into the double DIN Android radio head unit in the car. This brings modern controls to this platform. Thirdly, the Arduino will interpret the shift paddles.

The Arduino is also attached to the CAN-C bus, which is the main CAN bus in the Crossfire. It will read gear selection position to ensure the car is in Drive. If it is in Drive, then it will pass along the same CAN messages that the shift lever module does to the TCU to enable the exact same functionality as the Autostick. Doing it this way gives paddle control, without the potential for check engine lights, TCU issues, etc.

So still just a start, but that is the overall strategy. To be proper in the end, it all has to work perfectly, and look like it belongs there. Keeping things neat and clean are important. If it looks like it came there from the factory, then it should function that way, too. If both of these are true, then there is built in reliability and maintainability. These are more important than performance, in my view.

 

Worked on the steering wheel for a few hours this evening. Have the shifter paddles and the horn button working, now. If I can get the button LED backlighting working, I should have everything I need for the steering wheel completed.

 

To say I'm impressed with your electrical (and, for that matter, mechanical) knowledge is an understatement. It's guys like you who will keep these cars drivable if/when their electronics go bad--which I'm afraid might be the car's long-term downfall. I'm glad to hear you are shifting your focus from SRT-4's to the Crossfire--after 16 years with them I can see where it's a major change. We need guys like you to keep the XF's running.

Big picture question: Would it be possible to replace most of the Mercedes/Chrysler electronic parts with the Arduino / Real Dash / other aftermarket new parts to get the car running properly and pass state inspections/smog inspections if the factory parts no longer worked? I don't know how far you can go with this aftermarket stuff, so just wondering if it is able to give all the functions necessary to have a road-worthy / legal car.

 

Short answer is, yes, there are always aftermarket solutions to every problem. In reality, though, there were so many SLK's and other MB platforms that used these electronics, that I do not see a real problem in sourcing parts to keep the electrics going in these cars for the very long term. Given how well electronics from other MB platforms swap right in (I am using an ECU from a CL55 AMG, and soon a TCU from a SLR), that only increases the opportunities to keep things rolling. Sprinkle in work that folks like @Viper-666 is doing with his Skreemulator, or that @tighed1 does with RCMs, and problematic electronics become a community sourced thing. So, no, I don't see long term support problems with existing electronics, but if there were, then yes, aftermarket solutions do and will continue to exist.

 

Worked for about 2.5 hours tonight. Feel that I am getting closer, but still no working backlighting in the steering wheel. All of this would be elementary, if I had a later model MB car sitting in my garage to work with.

 

Get a 2017 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG and forget about the swap

 

Hahahahah, I'd love to just push that button, but: a. Out of my price range; b. What fun is it to just buy something, when you can spend 3x as much, all of your time, and be frustrated to achieve the same thing?

 

Good point, except I'm too old and too lazy.

 

OK! Lots of success this evening. ALL of the buttons and the backlighting (amber) are working on all three wheels, which have now been identified as being W204, W205 and a W213, by part number. The W205 and the W213 wheel look almost identical, but the buttons give different outputs. Anyway, unsure which wheel I will use, but leaning towards the W213 wheel, as it uses silver stitching, vice the red stitching of the other two wheels. It looks like the silver will match the other interior aesthetics the best. AFAIK, no one has reverse engineered the LIN bus in these for a purpose like this. Very excited!

 

.


AMAZING! What a following your going to have (If not already!)


.

 

16 January 2022
It's been a few months since I have posted up. There's still stuff happening. Some good, some not so good. Regular and non-routine maintenance came around at the beginning of December. Simple stuff, like change the oil, and while the oil is out, change the faulty oil level sensor. Fix some minor stuff in the engine bay, and general look over of things. Simple enough. Work was accomplished, and the car was driven about 100 miles, with seemingly no issues, until the next day. Went to go to work, started up normally, backed out of the garage, went to close the door, and noticed a great big puddle of oil on the ground. Shut the car down, open the hood look around, and it would appear that the oil cooler gaskets gave up the ghost. Order gaskets and a thin wall 48mm socket to pull it all apart. That's when the fun began.

Replacing the oil cooler gaskets was straight forward enough. Put the -10AN lines for the oil cooler back on, started the car, steady stream of oil from the top -10AN fitting. GRRRRR..... Take it apart, notice that the fitting has a nick in it. Order a new fitting, replace it, check for leaks, all good. Degrease the engine bay. Long day at work, plus hours of this, I pulled out of the shop, and put the car in the garage. Good night.

The next day, Donna decides to drive the car, takes it on about a 10 mile run. Brings it home, and I happen to be in the garage when she gets back. As she pulls in, I see oil dripping at a good clip under the car. Ughhhh.... Pull it back out to the shop, oil pan is leaking. Park the car. Christmas goes by. New Year's arrives, and then work re-commenced. Pull the pan down, see where it was leaking in the straight RTV gasket. As I am looking at the pan, it seems that the shape is familiar. On the shelf is a lower oil pan gasket for a M112/M112K V6. Inspecting the gasket, it is determined to be the right size/shape for the M113K. Since this is a far better option than straight RTV, the surfaces are re-cleaned, and the new gasket added. Change the oil again, and no leaks. Perfect. Let's not stop. For the next two weeks. So what all happened?

Time to fix an old annoyance at the bolted down front header panel. To remove/replace this panel, there are two small brackets running to the top of the radiator that 'hook' around the top of the header panel, and bolt through the fan assembly brackets and to the radiator. The brackets sandwich together, securing the radiator and fan to the header panel. The problem is that running the two 6mm bolts through those brackets, and lining it all up, and tightening them was a royal pain in the rear! Sometimes it would take 45 minutes just to line up those two bolts. Also, the two -10AN oil cooler lines had to be removed. Easy enough, but the lower one would dump oil all over the belts. So, after much measuring, and about 6 failed sets of brackets, a solution was made.

Next, I noticed that the fan was rubbing on the upper radiator hose. Actually, it had worn a pinhole through it, and it was now leaking. Time to fix that more permanently. With a piece of 36mm aluminum pipe, a saw, and some patience, the thermostat housing was cut, sectioned, and this pipe added. The pipe was smaller diameter than the rubber hose, and it also fit against the engine tighter. This eliminated the rubbing, and some of the rubber hose that had to be cobbled together to fit this wild routing.




I really like this solution, as it should eliminate all future issues surrounding the upper radiator hose. It also eliminates two short sections of rubber hose (with two curves) and a piece of metal pipe joining them. It clears all of the belts and the power steering puller neatly. Time to fix the next problem of a similar type. As stated in the thread earlier, a mid-term future project is adding a LCD based digital instrument cluster, and it will add sensors like a wideband O2, fuel pressure and an oil pressure sensor. Tapping the oil pressure port out to 1/4" NPT, and then adapting to the 1/8" NPT of the sensor worked find, but the sensor is right in the middle of the belts, and while the sensor is safe, the wiring to it would be in the way all the time, and in mortal danger, if the belt ever broke. To fix this, the sensor was simply relocated, with the use of a couple of fittings, and a 12" run of -3AN hose. (Forgive the oil and dirt all over the place. The engine was in need of degreasing again, which happened later on.)





So, the maintenance was complete, and a few long standing weak spots were addressed. Shall we stop? Nah! Took very few pictures, but there was a pile of high performance parts waiting, that needed installed:
- Needswings stainless steel downpipes
- Bosch 630cc fuel injectors
- 82mm Throttle Body (and VRP adapter plate)
- LM21 supercharger scatter shield
- Eurocharged 77mm Supercharger Pulley
- Creative Steel Belt Wrap Kit

The downpipes went on in about an hour, with no major issues, although there is some rubbing of the right side pipe. I will address that in a few weeks, when the next round commences. More on that later. My ignorance hit on the throttle body. When I jumped into this, the intention was the throttle body only, at this time. The rest would wait. Naively, the thought was, remove the supercharger snout, port it with a hand grinder (carbide bit) and then put it together, the rest of the mods later. Instead, I was educated.

The snout cannot come off with the intercooler in place. The whole supercharger has to come out. Good grief! OK. It looked like an awful job, but it was actually pretty easy. In fact, it was way easier than removing the four (of five) bolts I managed to get off of the snout with it all in the car. I also offered an opportunity to look at the "V" of the engine, and clean out all of the leaves, dirt and other junk accumulated in there.



The supercharger separated from the intercooler with some minor persuasion. Porting of the throttle body snout took all of 20 minutes. And I did not manage to grab a pic. The main bolt of the supercharger pulley required heat from a propane torch to break down the thread locker. Once off, the pulley was swapped. Shimming seems to be the same between the stock pulley and the Eurocharged, as it turns out. Reinstalled the supercharger onto the engine, and buttoned all of that up. Swapped the injectors on the fuel rail, reinstalled that. No drama. Found that the belt wrap kit (BWK) was the next item, and there was drama. Clearance at the front of the engine is about nil, anyway. With the BWK, the fan blades would hit the hardware for it, and would rub on the cross brace. I marked on the fan where it was hitting, and after a bit of trial and error, and some work with the carbide cutter, notches were cut into the back sides of the fan blades to clear the hardware. The hardware was also ground down for clearance. Upon reassembly, and tightening everything up, the outer hub of the fan barely rubbed on one of the BWK bolts. The right side fan/radiator/header panel bracket was reworked a bit to push the top of the radiator forward slightly, and now there is nearly 1/2" clearance. In this car, 1/2" is a lot!

Buttoned it all up, with the LM21 shield in place, and then degreased the engine. Here it is complete, but still wet from the bath.




A new tune was applied to properly take advantage of the pulley and injectors. Idled well, but noticed a new rattle that seems to be the exhaust rubbing somewhere. The exhaust does not quite fit right in the rear, as the bracket that holds up the SRT-6 exhaust resonator is in the wrong location on this car. On the SRT-6, this bracket bolts to the rear subframe, but the 04 subframe had no provision. During the initial build, a best guess was taken, and the bracket was welded to the subframe - in the wrong place. Now, the exhaust rubs and rattles.

So next came the obligatory test drive. Normal driving seems pretty well the same, except that the car feels more 'anxious' to take off. Perhaps the larger throttle body, or the tuning is responsible. It's not hard to drive. Well, until wide open throttle (WOT). OK, driving with traction control off is no longer a possibility. The car lurches forward, burning the tires wildly, straight through 4th gear! Like catching a tiger by the tail, the car is very hard to keep moving in a straight line. Like, *very* hard. Good grief! I think we have finally reached a level of performance that matches the Neon SRT-4 I last built. And it is just as wild a ride to control. Rolling back past where I made my first WOT attempt, I see a single very thick black line on the ground, followed by a pair of lighter marks further down the road. Launch was obviously a horrible 'one wheel peel' and then it sort of caught up in 2nd. Not going to work. Honestly, while the power is a huge thrill, the car drove better with less power. So, do I put the stock pulley back on? Heck no!

So now, the next big project will finally be that HAG215 differential and the limited slip differential (LSD). I'm on 3.06 gears right now, and am seriously contemplating dropping to 2.82 or 2.62. The car certainly does not need any more low end "go". On the bright side, I will be switching to a 2005 SRT-6 rear subframe, which will allow that misplaced exhaust mounting bracket to finally be in the correct spot, and maybe the exhaust won't rattle anymore.

 

Neil,
I too found that the two subframes were different and the only apparent difference was the bracket (same issue you had)
I drilled the frame and bolted the bracket where it was required.

it was a 5 min addition

 

I welded mine, but got it either in the wrong place, or wrong angle. In either case, I will be moving to the SRT6 subframe, once I figure out how I am going to get this larger differential in there.

 

01 February 2022
Real small update. Still working on plans for the differential update. In the meantime, I have tried to drive the car on good weather days. Started having a problem at WOT where the power would just fall off hard, and the car would struggle to make it to the 4th gear shift point. Once it would shift, it would hit hard again, until it got back to high RPMs, and just hang back, like the engine was being limited. After blaming the tune and a bunch of other items, the simplest solution became the winner. To the point, the silicone tubes running from the airboxes to the front of the car were now collapsing under boost. This effectively choked the engine off, and made all the fun stop. Well not all. Suddenly though, the C7 Corvette we had a contest with became a contender (he still lost). Way too close! Can not have that! So now we will look towards a DCAI solution from @NeedsWings to clean up this aspect of the engine bay.

In the meantime, work has been progressing on the digital dash conversion. Preliminary firmware is working on the bench for the RealDash Interface v2.0 board that was designed in November, but has been collecting dust the last 5-6 weeks. I have pictures of it, but not handy, so I will add them later on. The steering wheel is fully interfaced, and the controls on it will now communicate via two separate CAN busses to the car. One CAN bus will go directly to the double DIN Android radio, to run it. This will be done by the right hand side buttons. The shift paddles will send messages to the CAN-C bus in the car, and after some fiddling, the expectation is that they work as if the car came with them. Lastly, the R170 does not put every shred of information about the car onto the CAN bus, like later model cars of virtually all makes do. Instead, it interfaces discrete signals, such as door ajar, headlamp settings, turn signals, etc by dedicated wires. Most of these do make their way to the instrument cluster. Some of these the instrument cluster is responsible for encoding, and putting onto the CAN bus, but most don't need the signals to go any further than a light bulb in the cluster, so that's where they stop. My current game plan will be to tap directly into the wiring harness to pick up these signals. My prototype in the pictures above incorporates an Arduino based board inside the cluster, piggy-backing on the original cluster board. This is a neat and tidy way of integrating. However, with the addition of the W205 steering wheel, there are now multiple functions relying on that interface board. By tapping into the wiring harness instead, the RealDash Interface v2.0 board will stay inside the car, separate from the cluster. This will allow a stock cluster to work, until a new replacement is constructed. This more modular approach will allow me to fully work out the bugs of the steering wheel interface, before piling on problems with the digital cluster. I expect to drive around with the new steering wheel and the old analog cluster for a few months, until the comfort level is there that the RD Interface board is working at 100%. ie, one set of problems at a time. I will add pics of some of this later on.

 

Now that is really far into the future!!!!