Here's a bunch of pix of my project R170, which was bought as a standard V6 SLK320 .....












More pics posted below .....................

 

The rest of the pix ....













Mechanically and electronically it is all finished (for now) and driving superbly, very very quick as the humble 5.0 is tuned and pushing almost the same numbers as an N/A 5.4 now. I would have used a bigger Motor, but in UK 55K motors are unobtainium within my budget, and same story with 5.4 N/A to a degree
Future plans are 7G Tronic Trans, full Body and Paint resto, it's pretty good right now, but I want to do a proper bare metal job sooner rather that later, and after all that work is completed, I'll be saving up for a full leather interior, probably also use R171 Seats with Air Scarf.

Since I have many other Building and Vehicle projects on the go none of that will be any time soon, I'm just enjoying the Car atm when the suns out, I expect the first thing to be finished next on this Car will be the 7GTronic, as currently I'm running a tuned 5 speed auto V8 box with 2.87 diff, but I've gone as far as I can with that one and 7G it isn't. I expect the 7G to take a whole second off the 0 - 100 MPH time. The Car would seriously benefit from an LSD !!

Cheers for now

 

Worldwide collaboration for the 7G project spoiler alert ....

So, whilst my 7G hasn't actually been bolted into the Car, I built a "Dave Patented Umbilical Wiring Harness", and have had the Trans plugged into the Car, it has been Virgined and then Initial Started, a special "Dave Shifter" built from an R170 Shifter Chassis with electronics from another MB model and I have shortened a front half Propshaft

There has been hours upon hours of SCN Coding and SDS Data collection which culminated in suggesting that myself and the 3 other guys involved in our 7 speed project are now 99% certain the conversion will work based upon all this.
I could not have got this far without their help, 2 guys in USA and one in Australia, you know who you are guys, so if you read this a huuuuuge thank you for all that help !!

If it should have a glitch or 2 as well as the four of us already involved, there is also another Russian buddy who can come on board and do even more advanced wizardry via Team Viewer to get rid of any as yet un found glitches, again a big thank you to the professor, for his recent inputs.

One of the USA guys will probably have his 7 speed installed before me, and we are very confident it will work

A couple of pictures and one of my awful "Dave" Videos from an el cheapo phone







I Hope this is a helpful and interesting contribution to the new Forum section

 

Way beyond me ! two questions pop up Is there not a low gear ratio differential available? Have you strengthened the transmission with larger spline contacts anywhere and are there trust washers in there or is everything already torrington bearings? Hope you find that LSD seems Quaife should be able to help you out.
VERY IMPRESSIVE!

 

Thanks for the reply.

If anything, when I go to 7G 722.9 Trans I may need a Higher / Taller Diff ratio than the (non standard) 2.87 which I have in the car right now.
Initially I will leave the 2.87 and see what I think of it if I find that the 7G's lower 1st Cog ratio is useless then I'll likely have to drop to something around 2.65, but bearing in mind this is a Sports Car not a Tourer I will have to carefully consider once I've driven it with a 7G / 2.87 combo
It does have 18" Wheels, can't really get anything larger under the R170's rear Inner Wheel-arches due to the Vario Roof mechanism constraints upon the Wheel Tubs, I did look at the feasibilty of "tubbing" an R170 when I fitted new Rear Wheelarches and rebuilt the inners on my other Silver V6 SLK320 car.

Diff wise, the factory SLK 320 comes with a 3.27 ratio, which is way too low geared for the V8 Motor, the factory V8 cars came with a much larger cased 2.82 diff, which won't fit R170 platform rear Subframes.
My easiest option was either a 3.07 (SLK 32 AMG / Crossfire SRT - 6) Diff, which proved to be un-obtanium in UK, so I used a 2.87 Diff from an earlier pre facelift Diesel W203 C Class, that again is a straight swap into an R170 / Crossfire Subframe. The 2.87 proved to be a perfect guesstimate with this Car / Engine and Trans Combo.
The main reason I didn't buy LSD yet is in case I need to swap to another Diff, (which would likely be a bigger Casing and CWP), so couldn't then be swapped over.

Transmission wise I'm currently using the (higher) Torque Rated 722.6 (5 speed) V8 & V12 Transmission that came from the same Donor car (2002 W220 S500) that the V8 Engine and the Brake Calipers came from.

The 7G Tronic Trans I have is a 722.901 which was originally fitted to V8 W220 S class / V8 R230 SL / V8 W211 E Class 5.0 Cars.
My 722.901 originally came from an R230 SL500, and is fitted with a VGS 2 Plate (TCU is internal on a 7G), but as mentioned above it has a customised SCN altered to suit the Cars Diff, Tyre Sizes, all 4 Modes and AMG Shift programming.

 

Interesting take on the differential ratio. Many here looking for faster 1/4 mile drag times, even with the V8 installed into a Crossfire are going to lower rear ends (3.9 vice 3.03 or 3.27). For sure the lower differential takes away top end speed and reduces fuel mileage, but I often thought that given the weight of the car and power of the engine whether a lower differential was a positive move given the V8 engine. I use 17" rims at the drag strip with Micky Thompson slick: Doubt the rims are still available. Guess it really comes down to ones priorities. I've rebuilt several old Ford C6 transmissions, but have never seen the inside of the Mercedes.
Thanks for the interesting reply.

 

Yeah, I'd run a lower FD Ratio if I was Drag Racing, but the V8 R170 is a mile munching road car and I do the odd track days with it

I did the 1/4 mile stuff 25 years ago at Avon Park and Santa Pod, actually got into the 9's with an Alky Hemi powered Charger

Good old days for sure

 

Glad you started this thread over here, Dave! I know you have been tied up on other projects, but looking forward to seeing progress on your SLK(s). Members, @Dave2302 is a madman and evil genius! Crossfires in the UK are cheap, cheap next to the US. We need him to make that leap, next!

 

Thanks Neil

I am planning on getting back into a (UK) fairly cheap form of Motorsport, so a 3,2 manual trans Crossfire Coupe, bare minimum road legal, stripped out interior, geometry mods, LSD on a 3.27 (stock diff) full roll cage, Stack Dash, ABS / ESP gone etc is on the cards, most likely next year, I will turn it into a monster V8 drift car, I just gotta finish my Silver SLK and sell that first to create some space

 

 

Wow Dave!! I lost track of this thread maybe a year and a half ago and the car is awesome!! Truly artwork and I was following it so close there for awhile and loved the starter move/mod!! Thanks for all the pictures and update.

TechieChick

 

Lovely to c'ya here Lisa

 

Thanks Dave!
I'm looking forward to contributing when I can.

Techichick

 

I’ve followed your thread over on the SLK forum for a couple of years now. Thoroughly an entertaining thread. The steering wheel upgrade is what I’ve always thought is great and have wanted to do. I just haven’t finished the more pressing matters to do the research into achieving the mod. Neil aren’t you in the process of building something similar for your car?

 

My Steering Wheel has the switches modified to work as resistance based to earth, as opposed to how they originally worked, which is CAN Bus on the C Class / R171 that the Wheel came from

2 reasons for that .................

The main one is that Crossfires and R170's don't have a Body CAN Bus, and my Android head unit can use either CAN or Resistance based, so at that time it was easy to get a C Class Clock Spring (for extra cores) and then mod it's Switches to work "resistance to earth based", horn is direct to earth mods to the Steering Wheels Micro Switches, and the Paddle Shifts work the same (direct to earth) connected to the Shifter as per the connections that @latemodel21 uses, but using a D Enable Module instead of his Paddle Module.

@nemiro 's system will be CAN Bus as per factory, may even be LIN Bus as I do remember him mention using a later model / design Steering Wheel

Mine will eventually get CAN on the Steering Wheel once the 7G is installed and sorted, because a particular and necessary part of the 7G Conversion gives us the facility to add Body CAN easily via a CGW (Central Gate-Way)

My Car also has, through the Android, Reverse Camera and TPMS which are both very very useful

HTH

 

Sorry so late with the reply. The late model steering wheels all speak LIN bus. I have fully decoded the W204, W205 and W213 steering wheels. My plan is to use a W203 (?) clock spring, which has some extra pins for the dual stage airbag, and use those to carry power and LIN data back to an Arduino based module, which I have already built. This will take the LIN bus, and break out the button functions into CAN-C messages for the paddles (for upcoming transmission fun stuff) and CAN-B for the Android radio controls. It will also put some button functions on a USB port to the RealDash setup that I am forever working on, similar to what @rbracy10406 has in his car. Way overkill for most folks, but the later steering wheels are so nice, that's for sure.

 

Considering all the stuff you (and I) are currently working on, including all the hassle caused by a certain few folks on a n other Forum I don't think you were late

I will have to use a B CAN on my R170 V8 because that is what the Android needs to work with if going that route. Also easier for my electronics blind brain to set up too, or I may just leave the car as is, just fit the 7G and full shoot paintwork !! Too many projects not enough time ....................

Now when I get my Crossfire may well decide to "phone a friend" LIN Bus and Real Dash wise

 

A little converter to go from LIN to CAN is a piece of cake.