So I finally got a 190E... HELP!!!!

[mkodama]

So after many years I finally got around to getting a 190E of my own, and a grey market 2.3 16-valve at that.

Just a few hours ago I got the car registered, and now I'm starting on maintenance, and in the near future it also needs a smog check. The car has been sitting for years, and I know it starts up, but that's about it.

Any general maintenance items missing from these two lists, or is anything incorrect?

from AutohausAZ


from Amazon

[2.3euro190]

arent the platinum spark plugs resistor plugs? if so, you will want to trade those plugs for some bosch coppers.

[Turnpike]

don't use those plugs...you'll regret it

if your going to run full synthetic oil, i'd highly recommend doing 2 full oil changes 1 to clean out the left over grim before you add the new stuff

[mkodama]

Thank you for the replies gents! Another thing I didn't get was a new distributor cap and rotor, which apparently there are two part numbers for the rotor so I need to check what I currently have.

Originally Posted by 2.3euro190

arent the platinum spark plugs resistor plugs? if so, you will want to trade those plugs for some bosch coppers.

Hmm, yeah, I should have checked into that part a little more. Autohaus AZ and Bosch US both recommend that 4458 part number Bosch plug for a 16 valve, so I'm hoping they are both correct... Guess I need to do some more searching.

EDIT: I've come across a few things saying the lower compression NAm cars use different plugs than the higher compression ECE cars?

Originally Posted by Turnpike

don't use those plugs...you'll regret it

if your going to run full synthetic oil, i'd highly recommend doing 2 full oil changes 1 to clean out the left over grim before you add the new stuff

This day and age, I don't see why anybody would run anything other than synthetic, but yes, the first oil change interval will be very short.

[mkodama]

Ok, so I'm going to do some experimenting with the spark plugs and spark plug wires.

I'm going to do all the other maintenance excluding ignition. Then I'll drive the car around, get a baseline feeling for how everything performs, then I've got a few setups I want to try.

1. Stock plugs, stock wires
2. Stock plugs, Magnecor wires
3. Bosch plugs, Magnecor wires
4. Bosch plugs, stock wires

The Magnecor wires have no separate resistors in them and rely on their inductance to reduce EMI/RFI instead of the resistor in the spark plug wire boot(as I've read). I'm very much hoping the Bosch resistor plugs and Magnecor wires work out. That means no more expensive OEM resistor spark plug wires to wear out, and more commonly available spark plugs.

[mkodama]

Well, guess I'll be returning the serpentine belt. I was looking through the owner's manual of the car, and it had a different belt routing drawn in with a red pen, and a shorter length belt. The pulley that it skipped is the AC pulley. I guess my car has no AC!

[benz190vault]

5w-30 is a little light on the oil for a 16v, unless you live in an extremely cold climate and I would at least flush it out a few times with regular oil before you put the expensive stuff in. And I second that +4's are junk :)

[mkodama]

Thanks for the responses so far. :)

Originally Posted by benz190vault

5w-30 is a little light on the oil for a 16v, unless you live in an extremely cold climate and I would at least flush it out a few times with regular oil before you put the expensive stuff in. And I second that +4's are junk :)

Here's my reasoning behind that 5W-30 I picked:
-It's a quality oil with the same approvals that BMW, Mercedes, and other use in their current cars which go 15,000 miles between oil change intervals.
-It was cheap
-It's not going to be in the engine all that long, since this first change is going to be mainly for flushing things out, checking for leaks, etc...
-Modern day synthetics are significantly different than conventional oils used 25 years ago and hold up quite a bit better to high temperatures and shearing resistance.
-My next oil change will be soon and it'll be with a 40 weight, and see how oil temperature and pressures are. There is the remote possibility that a 30 weight will run significantly cooler than a 40 or 50 weight, and as a result will have the same viscosity of a thicker oil that is at a higher temperature.
-Temperatures in my area don't get much above 90F and I don't have any plan on tracking the car just yet.

About those Bosch +4 plugs, from quick measurement, they have over twice the resistance of a stock spark plug wire with built in resistor. Hopefully if I use some wires without the built in resistors, they might be usable.

[2.3euro190]

yes. the reason you want to use the resistorless plugs is because the stock wires have resistors built in. so when using newer plugs (which usually have resistors built in) the spark isnt strong enough and you will foul up your plugs very quickly.

using aftermarket wires without built in resistors will correct this problem for the most part. but there are alot of more subtle things that matter with plugs as well. the combination of resistor wires and bosch coppers sparks hot and high enough for our engines. you can find an aftermarket replacement that suits the 16v, and certainly whatever you use will keep the motor running, but expect to play aroung with different brands ect before finding what works best for you.
sorry to go on so much about it.

as for full synth, i only use full synth except for the first few oil changes after a rebuild because the piston rings will seat alot easier using conventional. but you will want to do a oil flush after a couple hundred miles if the car wasnt already using full synthetic.. I live in a fairly temperate climate but i usually run 10w20 in the summer, saving the 5w30 for winter. just a recommendation, but other people on here are certainly more knowledgeable than i am and may tell you different...

[mkodama]

Originally Posted by 2.3euro190

yes. the reason you want to use the resistorless plugs is because the stock wires have resistors built in. so when using newer plugs (which usually have resistors built in) the spark isnt strong enough and you will foul up your plugs very quickly.

using aftermarket wires without built in resistors will correct this problem for the most part. but there are alot of more subtle things that matter with plugs as well. the combination of resistor wires and bosch coppers sparks hot and high enough for our engines. you can find an aftermarket replacement that suits the 16v, and certainly whatever you use will keep the motor running, but expect to play aroung with different brands ect before finding what works best for you.
sorry to go on so much about it.

as for full synth, i only use full synth except for the first few oil changes after a rebuild because the piston rings will seat alot easier using conventional. but you will want to do a oil flush after a couple hundred miles if the car wasnt already using full synthetic.. I live in a fairly temperate climate but i usually run 10w20 in the summer, saving the 5w30 for winter. just a recommendation, but other people on here are certainly more knowledgeable than i am and may tell you different...

Thanks for the response.

As for the spark plugs, I'm experimenting with a bunch of different plugs and wires, and from what I'm seeing so far is that the resistance varies so much between one product to another, that it is probably not the resistance of anything that causes problems. I'm starting to think that spark plug gap or something else may be the variable that is throwing off the sensitive 190E ignition systems when people use things like the Bosch Platinum +4.

As for the oil thing, I mean to be informative and not rude, but a few hundred miles is barely enough to even flush out an engine, and you seem to have your oil weights mixed up. 10w-20 is a thinner oil than 5w-30, and with hotter summer temperatures that 20 weight will get even thinner, and that oil will shear down quicker. 20 weights are mainly for economy cars that aren't driven hard, or max performance race cars with very short oil change intervals and usually oil coolers. With newer multigrade synthetics, you really should be getting 0w or 5w for summer and definitely for winter for better startup protection, since a 10w, 15w, or 20w will pump worse when the engine hasn't warmed up.

[2.3euro190]

oh yes, you are right about the oil weights. i must have gotten confused after not driving my car for so long... :( (literally havent driven it in 2010 yet)
and with the spark plugs, yes, gap spacing, etc can come into play as well, and you arent necessarily looking for the same resistance as the stock plugs and wires provide, just similar spark power. some plug/wire combos may have lower or higher resistance but due to materials and engineering may have just as powerful a spark.
i was using autolite plugs in my car for a while with stock wires though, and it ran well, i just had to remember to pull them out every so often to brush them down.
if the spark isnt powerful enough, you wont burn everything in the cylinder and your plugs, valves, exhaust, etc, will get gunked up. if the spark is too powerful, the car will run hot (so moar power is the lesser of the 2 evils)

but i will be going through the same thing soon enough bc i'm switching over to coil on plugs and will need to find a plug that will work for my motor. but with something like that its alot easier than finding something to work with the stock setup.

[mkodama]

Good luck with the coil-on-plug conversion and I'd be happy to hear how it turns out!

[mkodama]

Ok, so one thing led to another today, and now I have a large amount of cracked rubber hoses out of the engine bay, with plans to get them all replaced with either OEM or aftermarket.

I'm actually thinking very much so of deleting the section of hose that sends coolant through the crank case exhaust gasses. Sure, it probably does a pretty good job of preventing vapors from condensing and building up on the way to the intake, but it's also pretty damn complex, and a major source for vacuum leaks, and from experience with other cars, the germans loved using this setup in the 80's and 90's, but those same companies no longer use that feature in modern cars.



What I pretty much want to do is eliminate the teal loop which is a coolant line that is integrated with the crankcase vent tube that connects at the back top of the valve cover. That means:
-getting rid of the teal line(coolant), and capping off the little port at the front of the engine,
-replacing the blue line(coolant) with two 90° elbows and a coupler to join them,
-replacing the orange line(air) with just a straight section of hose.

The 190E idle air system is so weird, because from what I can see in the actual pieces and the supplemental manual, the pink line that connects to the valve cover acts like a small vacuum leak. There is apparently a 1.6mm diameter restrictor in the valve cover nipple that the pink line connects to, but the valve cover gets a constant supply of fresh air from the orange line that connects to the air filter box.

[2.3euro190]

the valve cover isnt really getting a fresh supply of air from the orange hose, the orange hose flows from the valve cover to the airbox. its just to vent out pressure, and those gasses then get put through the engine, most likely in an effort to be kind to the environment. just saying, not that the direction of the flow matters much, just that that hose needs to be connected. as for removing the teal line, i'm sure it can be done as the ms crowd w/ custom plenums and such, usually block those off.
but there may be a specific way of doing it to reduce problems, im nt exactly sure

[mkodama]

No, it really does take in fresh air under some conditions. The direction of air changes depending on the situation.

From Mercedes's 102.983 supplemental manual: "Simultaneously, additional clean air is drawn from air cleaner via hose line [orange line] and fed to the combustion chambers via the oil separator together blow-by gases."

[Turnpike]

Originally Posted by mkodama

No, it really does take in fresh air under some conditions. The direction of air changes depending on the situation.

From Mercedes's 102.983 supplemental manual: "Simultaneously, additional clean air is drawn from air cleaner via hose line [orange line] and fed to the combustion chambers via the oil separator together blow-by gases."

ok i have to give credit where it's due, i'm shocked to see a new member ACTUALLY using the tech service manual. and before asking lots of redundant questions

[mkodama]

Haha, thanks!

I've actually been around here for a while just kinda lurking. A few years back I helped someone who was once a high school friend, ppetracca on these forums, convert his 2.6 to EFI with megasquirt. Then after that was done, he kinda screwed me over and I haven't wanted anything to do with 190E's since. Then about a month ago, someone gave me the option of buying of a grey market 16-valve in running condition from them at a really good price so long as I don't sell it. Now I'm having to relearn everything I once new.

And previously I have spent a lot of time on BMW forums because I had a 2001 330i. And those guys over there will give you sooooooo much shit if you ask a question that's already been asked, haha.

[2.3euro190]

yes, i have been proven wrong. and props on the manual quote.
it just seems to me that, while running, the valve cover would always have positive pressure. just because of all the stuff going on in there.
but i just put a breather on mine and totally disconnected the rubber hose that went to the airbox. i dont care about the environment and i wanted my car to run better with more air and no venting gasses/oil. but its not like its going to make a noticeable difference. i mainly just did it bc my hose was cracked and leaking oil, and i didnt want to get a new one.

[mkodama]

My wallet...

...it hurts. :(





Next week I'm also going to see if the dealer or a mercedes parts importer can get me a better price and definite date than ordering from mileoneparts.com. Right now the order of unique parts is looking to be around $200. Also I'm going to look into getting the valve cover media blasted and either powder coated and painted.

[mkodama]

Idle air circuit has been completely cleaned and reassembled, with all rubber/plastic/gaskets replaced with new parts.

The remaining hoses require me to either buy them or make them, and I still need to get around to re-finishing that valve cover.