Mercedes Engine Swap King Matt Kwiek

Summary

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The Smoking Tire Podcast

Episode: Mercedes Engine Swap King Matt Kwiek

Date: June 25, 2026
Hosts: Matt Farah, Zack Klapman
Guest: Matt Quick (Quick Classics, Mercedes resto-mod and engine swap specialist)

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, Matt Farah visits Nashville to sit down with Matt Quick of Quick Classics—widely considered the "Mercedes Engine Swap King." The discussion is centered around Farah's own Mercedes E320 cabriolet project, Mercedes’ unique suitability for modernized powertrain swaps, and Quick’s journey from self-taught enthusiast to a leading name in Mercedes resto-modding. The conversation spans the technical, historical, and philosophical aspects of giving classic Mercedes new life, along with tangents into industry trends, swap challenges, and best practices.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Matt Quick’s Origin Story & Approach

• Background:
  • Matt Quick's family ran a truck repair shop in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Despite attempts to steer him away from cars, he became self-taught after fixing his first Mercedes 190E out of necessity.
  • “I’m autistic…so once I get interested in something, I’ll figure it out.” (05:36)
• Unique Path:
  • No formal automotive training—credited his success to obsession, self-learning, and a lack of fear for breaking traditional rules.
  • Early resistance in the Mercedes community to swapping engines: “Anyone who was formally trained was told, you don't change anything...because I didn’t have anyone to tell me that, I just started doing it.” (06:32)
• Business Evolution:
  • Hobby turned serious in 2015 after quitting a tech job. Gained visibility during COVID as demand for high-quality Mercedes swaps rose.
  • “By the time you get done [with a customer build], you’ll have more people.” (18:13)

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2. Why Classic Mercedes Make Great Restomods

• Engineering Strengths:

  • Classic Mercedes (60s–80s) were “engineered to last forever. They built the stuff strong…it will stand up to basically anything you can throw at them.” (21:42)
  • Suspension and chassis are robust and make an ideal platform for modern powertrains when paired with upgraded brakes and subtle suspension tweaks.

• Comparisons to Other Marques:

  • Noted the difference between restomodding a Mercedes (which has "good bones") versus other classics like DeLoreans or Jeeps, which often require unboxing and re-engineering from the ground up.
  • “It’s not that it’s easy. It’s just easier, conceptually and structurally.” (22:20)

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3. The Swap Process: What Works and Why

• Swapping Philosophy:

  • Marrying the “golden era” of Mercedes chassis with the “golden era” of their engine technology (mid-2000s, particularly the naturally aspirated M113 V8).
  • “400 horsepower in a 60s to 90s Mercedes is ample. I promise you, you don’t need more than that.” (37:10)

• Powertrain Compatibility:

  • Use of factory Mercedes parts wherever possible—including gearboxes (especially the improved 6-speed models available new from Europe).
  • “I just buy them new from Europe so you can…new gearbox in a crate…got four of them on the shelf.” (32:31)

• Manual Swaps:

  • Most swaps can use factory Mercedes components, making it possible to achieve OE reliability and feel.
  • Software/coding obstacles manageable with the right tools (Star Diagnostic system or modern equivalents). “If you have an old-school Mercedes Star diagnostic system...you can do it.” (42:16)

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4. Parts, Sourcing, and Technical Solutions

• Parts Market Realities:

  • Some Mercedes classic parts have become scarce (especially fuel injection components from the 80s).
  • Durability can be a double-edged sword: “They’ll run poorly forever…decline slowly, hit a floor of ‘kind of works.’” (10:20)

• Popular Upgrades:

  • Most common: brakes (S-Class 220 four-piston Brembos), suspension refresh with Bilstein B8s and H&R springs, limited slip differential (“probably the biggest improvement…makes a massive difference,” 46:08).
  • Anti-recommendations: Avoid poly bushings in critical locations—use OE rubber except for specific subframe mounting solutions.
  • “I use poly bushings in exactly one place…and that’s the rear subframe.” (25:22)

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5. Swap Variants & Customer Choices

• Popular Donor Engines:

  • M113 NA V8: Most recommended, cost-effective, reliable, and easy to support.
  • M113k Supercharged V8: Considerably more expensive and “not actually more fun” unless burnouts are the goal. “Burnouts on demand—that’s what you’re paying for.” (45:36)
  • M156 6.2L V8 (63 AMG): Requires much more work and expense, best reserved for special cases.
  • Some diesels (OM606, etc.) and even the legendary M120 V12 are possible but impractical for most.

• Coolest/Weirdest Swaps:

  • Manual G55, OM606-powered 70s Ford F250, and multiple Falcon/Mercedes diesel mashups.
  • “I had a thing where every spring I would buy some 60s Ford and do something dumb with it and then sell it in the fall.” (51:41)

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6. Driving Experience & Philosophy

• Why It’s Worth It:

  • Manual-swapped Mercedes deliver engaging drives with a factory feel: “It feels like it should be there.” (35:38)
  • Significant value proposition: Well-built, robust, engaging, daily-drivable, and unique.
  • “To get that experience in any other marque, you’re going to spend a lot more money.” (35:38)

• Matt Quick’s Favorite Platform:

  • Strong bias for the 190E: “Think of everything good about an E30 M3 and everything bad about one, and the 190E does it well.” (69:46)
  • “It is the best car—it really is.” (69:40)

• Usability:

  • Even big swaps are daily-drivable—a point of pride for Quick and his customers.
  • “You can drive it, it’s out there,” Quick offers on letting Farah try one of his favorite 190E creations. (71:13)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Mercedes Engineering:
  • “Classic Mercedes were truly engineered to last forever.” – Matt Quick (21:42)
• On Resto-Mod Purity:
  • “People treat these as sacred, but they’re just made by humans. They’re made of parts!” – Matt Farah (07:52)
• On Manual Swaps and Driving Joy:
  • “It’s remarkable how much more instantly fun those cars get.” – Matt Farah, on Mercedes manual conversions (33:44)
• On Customer Expectations:
  • “If you want something just to drive, just use the naturally aspirated engine. It works great, it’s awesome.” – Matt Quick (45:50)
• On Overbuilding and Danger:
  • “If you lose control [in a modestly-tired car], you’re doing a manageable speed. If I had 255s, 200 treadwear tires…by the time you lose control, you’re dead.” – Matt Quick (65:33)

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Notable Technical Details

• Manual Gearbox Source:
  • Later Mercedes 6-speeds (used in Europe up to 2015) are robust and can now be purchased new in crate for swaps. (32:05)
• Brake Upgrades:
  • W220 S-Class four-piston calipers and rotors are the go-to, fit under 17” wheels, and offer modern stopping power. (63:23)
• Electronic/Software Integration:
  • Use of custom/factory modules for engine/trans communication, retaining ABS and climate functions while bypassing traction control as needed. (74:17)
• Suspension Overhaul:
  • Focus on fresh rubber, factory geometry, and select sway bar upgrades for balance—eschewing over-firm poly bushings except for specific high-HP applications. (24:18, 25:22)
• Cost Structure:
  • Turnkey M113 swap: ~$70k (car supplied by customer). Supercharged/6.2 AMG swaps add $15–20k per step.
    (Approx. 80:02–80:40)

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Fun Anecdotes & Podcast Highlights

• Coffee Talk:
  • The “Aunt Liz” Mercedes project (Farah’s car) has Hollywood roots—his wife’s aunt inspired SNL’s "Coffee Talk." (03:15)
• Junkyard Education:
  • Quick’s entire mechanical education came “from junkyards.” (19:49)
• Dirtbag School of Car Building:
  • Multiple engine/chassis swaps over the years, perpetually moving the drivetrain as chassis rusted out—a “dirtbag school of car fabricating.” (19:16)
• Quirky Swaps:
  • Multiple Ford Falcons with Mercedes diesels, and a bulletproof OM606 diesel F250 tow rig. (50:41, 51:53)
• Customer Swap Value:
  • Example: "A nice CLK55, 120k miles for six grand. Manual swapped it in a weekend. It’s his daily driver now.” (35:02)

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Essential Timestamps for Reference

• Quick’s Backstory: 04:31–06:58
• Why Mercedes Restomods Work: 21:14–23:31
• The Value and Philosophy of Swapping: 34:55–35:38
• Parts Sourcing and Compatibility: 31:17–33:02
• Swap Cost Breakdown: 80:00–80:40
• 190E Bias—Best Classic: 69:40–69:55
• Farah’s Car—Project Details: 52:17–58:37, 73:03–75:22

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Closing Thoughts

Matt Farah and Matt Quick’s conversation is a treasure trove for classic Mercedes enthusiasts, addressing historical context, technical challenges, value calculations, and the future of “old car, new heart” builds. The tone is accessible, equal parts gearhead deep dive and friendly banter.

For anyone eyeing a Mercedes restomod or curious about engine swapping at the highest level, few episodes will leave you better informed—or more entertained.

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Transcript

[Matt Farah]

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[Matt Quick]

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[Matt Farah]

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[Matt Quick]

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[Matt Farah]

That's offtherecord.comtst. all right, folks, on this episode of the show, I have taken a flight to Nashville, Tennessee to visit Quick Classics and talk to Matt Quick, who is doing the powertrain swap on my Mercedes E320 project. This is a really interesting show because I believe these Mercedes are a hidden value when it comes to resto modding a classic design to drive in the modern era. Matt Quick is on the Smoking Tire podcast. Guys, the Smoking Tire is giving away a 992.1 Turbo S. In partnership with Dream Giveaways, we are giving away a $275,000 car with some slick choice. The proceeds benefit charity and you don't have to buy any merch. It's a straightforward entry process. So hit the link in the show notes and get entered to win today.

[Matt Quick]

Thank you for making the time not just for me, but for my somewhat fairly heirloom car.

Yeah.

Do you know the story of this car?

I have heard that it is your wife's aunt's car.

That is correct. Is now ours. I have signed the title, but my wife's aunt Liz is a legendary Hollywood publicist. She was Cher's publicist, Madonna's publicist, Michael Buble. Like a lot of artists from the 80s and 90s, Aunt Liz, Liz Rosenberg was huge. And do you remember, like, did you ever watch Saturday Night Live? Nope. Do you know anything about Saturday Night Live?

I know of it.

Well, there is. There is a legendary sketch that I will not reenact from the 80s or 90s with Mike Myers in it called Coffee Talk, where he plays, like, an old Jewish woman. So even people who don't know fucking Saturday Night Live know Coffee Talk.

I know Coffee Talk.

Coffee Talk. The characters were based on Aunt Liz, whose car that was.

Amazing.

And when Madonna was on Coffee Talk, she. She called her character Rose Rosenberg, which is Hannah's grandmother's name, my wife's grandmother. So there's, like, she's all over Hollywood in that era. And so this is our car, and it was a real publicist's car.

95 red Mercedes 124 cab.

Yeah, absolutely. But, yeah, so I. You know, when they gave it to me, I was like, well, we have to keep this car alive and do something awesome with it. Right? So here we go. Yeah. And you came. You know, when I talked to Shant at cms, who was my neighbor. Yeah. And. And one of the great bodywork guys for this Mark, he was like, look, there's a couple ways we can do this. The way we're like. We figure it out, like. Or we just send it to Matt.

Yeah.

And I was like, who is this Matt guy? And why would we go this. And he was like, he. Because he's just the guy.

Yeah.

And so I want to know how. How you became the guy. So who the fuck is. Who is Matt? Quick. What is Quick? Classics.

All right. So, man, I guess I should go back. Yeah.

What is your background?

My grandpa owned a truck repair shop. My mom did the books. So when I was little, I grew up in the shop. Here in the office? No, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I'm from Grand Rapids, Michigan. In that shop, there were a bunch of mechanics that were gruff and vulgar and smoked a lot of cigarettes. And one of them was her brother. And she didn't want me to end up like those guys. So my parents actually tried to keep me away from cars as long as.

Nice job, Mom.

Yeah. So I didn't even get my driver's license until I was literally going out of state for school and needed a form of identification. And so I went to school in Chicago for sound engineering, of all things. They dropped the program, and I was like, okay, well, if I can't.

While you were there.

While I was there in the first semester. And so I was like, all right, cool.

Bye.

So I went home and I got a job for Apple because I'd gotten An Apple certificate at one point.

Okay.

And so I was working for Apple Care. So I was working from home and had decent money and working for AppleCare,

like repairing computers or like, like phone support on the phone. Okay, yeah, phone support. Okay, yeah.

So fun fact, I'm autistic and I could not talk to people. But then I spent five years on the phone for eight hours a day and that's how I learned how to talk to people.

Yeah, you seem just fine at it. How about that? Yeah, I know they call that on the job training.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

That's crazy. Okay, yeah, you seem fine at it now.

So problem solved in that time, right. I bought my first car. It was a 190E. It broke down the day after I bought it. And this was before I worked for Apple and I had to get to my job, but I hadn't even gotten a paycheck yet. So it was like, all right, I guess I'm gonna learn how to fix it. So I started with that and within a year I'd replaced the engine, the transmission, the suspension, the brakes, basically everything and just kept going. The better I got at it, the more fun it was. The more fun it was, the more I wanted to do it and so on and so forth.

Sure.

And the thing was, I have no formal training in any of this. I'm entirely self taught. But because of that.

Yeah, you're autistic. That's like having formal training. No, I'm just. No, it works, it works. I'm obsessed, studying.

Yeah. If I'm actually interested in it, I'll figure it out. And yeah, so during that period, this was like 2011 or so resto mons. Doing anything like this with Mercedes was not accepted. Right. So anybody who was formally trained was told, you don't change anything, you don't take the engine out, you don't do any of this. And because I didn't have anyone to tell me that, I just started doing it.

Why do you think that was? Because it's not like Mercedes at that time, 2010. It's not like people were modding brand new Mercedes all over the place. I mean, there's two dozen tuners that would give you 800 horsepower in your five and a half liter bi turbo cls, whatever from that period. So like what's the big goddamn problem?

Something about the classics. Yeah. There was just so much respect for a classic Mercedes and so much of this mentality that they built them to be perfect, cost was no object. Yeah. They already designed the perfect. We can't change anything.

Remember they used to say that about Porsche.

No.

And then Singer was like, actually I can charge three and a half million dollars for one of these things. That's so much better than what Porsche is actually selling.

Yeah.

You know, so.

Yeah, I mean that's kind of the thing is I got so it's kind

of a cute attitude, isn't it?

Yeah.

You know, to be like, oh no, this, this car that is made of parts that are not, you know, were designed by humans is to a price is somehow you know, sacred.

They didn't really, that's the one thing about Mercedes is they didn't really design it to a price back in the day.

That's actually quite a good argument, isn't it? That that's why it's so good is that it wasn't designed to a price point.

And that's where they fell.

Yeah.

When you know, Daimler Chrysler merger, you know, the accountants came in and started, started telling them how to do things.

You know what, I'm not just gonna concede this. I think I, I think they were a business to make money and they

[Matt Farah]

were,

[Matt Quick]

they were just interested for a long time about long term durability and serviceability as more of a virtue and less padding of the cars with profitable things that weren't going to last a long time. Which happened later. Come on.

And that happened.

Every industry, the 124 was built to a price. It was just a price higher than today's industry would probably bear.

That's right.

You know.

Oh yeah, for sure. And obviously I had to stay under the S class too. So just like the varying levels of Porsches.

Right?

Yeah. No, but the, the other thing is in during that era they were using the technology that they had the best that they had at the time, which turns out wasn't that good and really doesn't hold up that long. So all of those cis kjet, all that stuff from the 80s like that's it's all failing now and you can't get those parts anymore.

Is it really that hard to find parts? Because with Porsche, with Ferrari, with Lamborghini, you can get those parts actually. Is it this weird uncanny valley of the cars aren't quite valuable enough where it's worth someone supplying those parts.

Absolutely.

It's weird because there's a lot of them. I mean think about how, where I live in Los Angeles. Yeah. The number of SL roadsters 70s and 80s all the way through, you know, 2003. Like pick your 109 or 129. Dude. They're everywhere. They're everywhere. They're driven by old people, they're driven by young people, they're driven all over the place. Like, though it seems like it just. My vibe is there's got to be

a market for this. There is, but the. What kind of. What happens is those cars, because they were built so well, they will run poorly forever.

That's a good point.

You can just keep driving.

It will slowly decline.

Yeah.

And then hit a floor of like, kind of works. Yeah. That's when it will become like a cab in Botswana.

Yeah.

You know, there's like. I used to think there was a life cycle of the Mercedes 300 class, and it was like, luxury car in Paris, taxi in Paris. You know, luxury car in Cairo, taxi in Cairo. And then it was just taxi further and further down the continent where there's still taxis today.

And then they go to Mauritania and they live forever. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

That's more or less the LS400 is the next one of that.

Yeah.

When I went to. It was. This was now 10 years ago, but my friend just went back, we went to Oman in 2016 and like 50% of all cars on the road were like 1993 to 2003 Lexuses.

Oh, shit.

Like, 50% of all cars.

Wow.

Like, the number of Lexus LS's and LX's that are just rolling in the Middle East.

Yeah.

Is. Yeah. It's crazy.

I mean, you're a testament to that.

Yeah. It's a very durable car. Cost me a goddamn fortune to keep that thing running. But it was a very good. But I mean, if you don't let it get that bad. Right. That bad. So. So, okay, so it's a good place to jump in. So you. When did your hobby flip into. I think this is a business.

Oh, man. So probably about 2015 is when I quit working for Apple and was like, everybody's told me not to go into automotive full time. And I said, screw it. I'm going to try it. I'm going to see if I actually end up hating it. If I do it full time as well as. As a hobby. And I didn't. And then.

But was it like. Was it like, did you have a friend that saw your car and was like, hey, will you build me a thing for money?

So that was later.

All right. So it wasn't. That was. That's kind of a lot of people I talked to is like my hobby became a business. The first time someone offered me Money for my hobby.

Yeah, no, that happened in Covid.

Okay, so you were consciously of. I'm gonna. I'm gonna make this a business.

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[Matt Quick]

Yeah, I had worked for myself a little bit before COVID and then I moved out to Seattle. I worked at an Alpha race shop and that's where I learned to like fabricate and all that stuff. Came back to Michigan early. Covid built a car, built another car, but a shop in Atlanta had Convinced me to close down my shop. I just had a little repair shop in Grand Rapids and then moved down to Atlanta to work for them. And when I made that move is when people started finding out about those cars that I had built.

What was the shop in Atlanta doing necessarily? Have to plug them.

But this is pre merger AMG stuff.

Okay. Yeah. Cool.

Yeah. So, yeah, and then when I was there, people started finding out about the cars that I had built. And people started coming to me asking me if I could. And I'd say, well, you could talk to the shop owner, but you know, that's probably not his focus. And then when things went downhill there, my neighbor here is actually, he was one of my customers. I built him one of those cars and he said, come up to Nashville, build me another car. I'm sure by the time you get done, you'll have more people. And that's exactly what happened.

That's pretty cool. I like that. But now your customer base comes. I mean, I ship to car here from California. I imagine a lot of people aren't doing that. But are people sending cars in from all over?

Yeah. No, like only one of the cars out in the shops. Local.

Yeah. How many cars did it take you to become the guy that people call? Because you said you've done like what, 40.

So we are finishing up 21 and 22 and 23 through 26 or 27 are in progress in the shop right now.

And when you give numbers to these cars, you're talking about full powertrain swap type cars. And what came first? That or manuals, Are they just hand in hand?

I mean, I've been doing manual swaps since my very first car, the 190.

You did a manual swap? Yep.

That was a 2.6, then it was a 3 liter, then it was a 3 liter dogleg, then it was a 3.66 speed. And then it rusted out because Michigan. And then the drivetrain went into a 124 wagon, and then that was a 3.6 and then that was a 5.4 and then that rusted out. So the drivetrain went into a CP3.

This is the fucking dirtbag school of car building for sure. Yeah, this reminds me. Shout out to my homie Fellow who I used to call the E36 whisperer, who had two E36 chassis, excuse me, three E36 chassis and two powertrains. And he would swap them around dependent on his plans for that weekend. Like shout out, shout out to fellow. He's out there somewhere drifting an E36. But that's what this sounds like. This is the dirtbag school of car fabricating.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean I grew up poor in Michigan. Right. Like we didn't have a lot. I didn't ever even think I would own a Mercedes until I found that cheap 190. And then I like my entire education comes from junkyards.

Yeah. So wait, what was the time period between purchasing that 190 and having like the third powertrain in the second car, the wagon? By the time you got to like the third powertrain in the wagon, how much time had elapsed?

So I bought that car in 2011. 2012, I did the first swap. 2013, I did the second swap. 2015, I put the AMG motor in it and did standalone EFI. 2016, it went into the wagon and then I did 120,000 miles.

Okay, and then when did you open this shop? 2021.

I started in Michigan in 2020 and then closed down in 2021. So you had like here in 22.

So like nine years of practicing.

Yeah.

There's your 10,000 hours.

Probably more than that.

Yeah, yeah, yep. Okay. 10 years of practicing before you had brick and mortar business with like real customers sending their good. So that's, that's fucking real. Yeah, that's our hard knocks practice. That's fucking cool. All right, so what you, you obviously have 20, 20 over 20 of these powertrain swaps. Mine is what, 20, 21, 22, whatever

you said it'll be 25.

Oh my, you're not counting progress. You've, you're only counted finished ones. Okay, so what is it that, that Mercedes gets really right that allows you to do this? Let's start with that. Before you can list all the things they up that you have to fix. But, but what, what do they get right that gives you a great base on which to do put 400 horsepower into a car that's 30 or 40 or 50 years old.

Yeah. Cars from the 60s through the 80s from Mercedes were truly engineered to last forever. Right. They were not engineered to break after 100,000 miles. They were engineered to just keep going. Yeah, they built the stuff strong. They built it very well. Yeah. It's just the chassis will stand up to basically anything you can throw at them. Even the 60s cars that look like they would be flimsy, they're not, they're super strong.

This is why I think, you know, there are so many companies that can successfully rest them on 911s. It's, it's not that that's an easy thing to do.

It's.

It's an easy thing to kind of conceptualize and a hard thing to nail. But it's much easier to do a 911 than to do a DeLorean, you know, or a Lotus or a Jeep Wrangler or a Chevy, a fucking Bronco or a Scout, you know, or something where you have to truly, what I say, unbox, you know, something. That's way harder than making something just go fast.

[Matt Farah]

Right?

[Matt Quick]

Yeah, yeah.

No, these cars are. The bones are already there.

Yeah.

They're built remarkably well. And the issues they have are really just that the powertrains have not held up to the test of time.

Right.

So we're taking the golden era of Mercedes chassis engineering, where if you give the suspension and the brakes and everything a little bit of tweaking, upgrade it here and there, they drive fantastic. They'll keep up with modern cars on a track. And then you just put. What we're using is kind of the golden era of Mercedes engine engineering.

Right.

The mid aughts when they really figured it out, but before all of the emissions bullshit came in and choked it and made it super finicky and unreliable.

Yeah. And I want to, at the end, I have a lot more background. We'll end with. With why we did with my car what we did.

Yeah.

And that's a pretty good example for the business as a whole. But so aside from the powertrains not necessarily aging well. Is there anything where it's like, ugh, we have to do this other thing in every car we do.

I mean, we upgrade the brakes. It's mostly honestly just maintenance. Everything that's rubber, everything hasn't been touched over all these years. Everything gets replaced and. Or upgraded.

But it's amazing how many people think they have an old car. Yeah. And they go, I need like motorsport bushings because this car is so soft and they don't realize that they actually have no bushings. What they really need are just bushings. Just any bushings will be fine and the car will feel like, incredible. Yeah, yeah.

Right. Like, that's one of the things I really enjoy is setting up 190es because. Right. That's where I started. And I did so much with my first one and now I've got four of them. But everybody's like, oh, I'm going to put poly bushings on them. But like, the way they engineer poly bushings now is different from the way they engineered the original bushings, which actually were spherical joints. So if you put a standard poly bushing in the 5 link in the back of like a 201 or 124 or any of that, it won't articulate correctly and you'll end up snapping the control arms.

Yeah, yeah, that sounds bad.

Yeah.

I put poly bushings in one car when I was younger and I immediately regretted it and I said, I am absolutely never doing this again. And anytime a friend tells me they're going to do it, I tell them not to. And anytime a friend tells me they have done it, I go, how you like it now?

And they're like, you're gonna take it back out.

Yeah, it's not good actually. Yeah, just like new bushings are like. Oh, you know, it's like seeing the light.

I use poly bushings in exactly one place and that is the rear subframe on all of these cars. Because the rear subframe mounts, the factory bushings are hydraulic and they have enough give in it that when you put 400 horsepower in it, you introduce rear steer. So you replace those with poly. It drives a lot better.

Yeah, that's. Well, that's a, that's an engineering solution to a specific issue brought up by the powertrain swap. That's, that's not a failure of Mercedes.

Oh, absolutely.

Or a poor choice thing.

If I could use the factory bushings, I absolutely.

Sure, sure, sure. What are there, are there, you know, a lot of people, particularly in the Ferrari community, we're talking about manual swaps who, you know, you can't get factory parts anymore, so it's who makes the best parts. I imagine Mercedes parts are not so limited, but can you do a powertrain swap and, or a manual swap? And you can feel free to separate these questions using factory Mercedes parts.

[Matt Farah]

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[Matt Quick]

Can you do a powertrain swap and, or a manual swap? And you can feel free to separate these questions using factory Mercedes parts. Yeah, fully.

Almost.

Almost. So what? And you don't have to, you know, you know, give away the formula entirely. But, but, but where, where are we getting gearboxes if we're doing a manual from Mercedes? And what is that gearbox?

So Mercedes, a lot of people will say, oh, we use the crossfire gearbox. But that's.

I've heard that before. I drove one before like that.

Yeah. So that's the early six speed that Mercedes developed. And like, it's fine. It's a strong gearbox. I put one behind a 600 horsepower supercharged V8 and did 20,000 miles track abuse, everything. It was totally fine.

Okay, that's good.

They changed it, they modified it, they updated it in about 2005 and the newer version is considerably better. So that's what we use. They're available in a few models in the US and they actually kept using them up until 2015 or so in Europe. So at this point I just buy them new from Europe so you can,

you can buy a new. Is it New OS or is it new?

New.

It's new, it's new, yeah. So a new gearbox in a crate just showing up?

Yeah, I've got four of them on the shelf.

And then what are we using for clutches? Just the same OEM stuff that would go with the C class. What do we need for that?

Depends on the power. Right. If you're under, say 300 horsepower.

Sure.

If you're over 300 horsepower, you're going to have a hard time with the stock stuff because they just never meant it for that.

Right.

So I worked with Uniqlotch out of Australia a while back and put together a package to work with the factory flywheel so that it will hold 6,800 horsepower and still feel like factory.

Oh, that's pretty cool.

And so we've done 10, 6.2 manual swaps now and that's what we've used in all of them.

And that's what you would use in like the Black series, right? Like. Yeah, yeah. We have one at my store, silver one.

Which one? We've done five silver ones.

I'm not going to tell you the vin, but it's, it's one you did and it's a silver one and it, I, I haven't driven it, driven it, but I've driven it around and the clutch feel and the gearbox feel are very nice. Yeah. The manual swapped early 2000s Mercedes are. It is remarkable how much more instantly fun those cars get.

Absolutely.

I mean because the stock gearbox was such a shit pile, I mean it holds power and for a cruiser it's fine. But in terms of fun, it's just trash. And you've got these beautiful cars. They ride and handle great, they're built well, they're fast, they sound good. And then they have this slushy garbage gearbox and you just go, God, even a half assed manual would be an improvement. And I drove one, the Crossfire one. It was kind of a half assed manual. I drove a CLK430, a 4i1.

Beautiful car, 208 chassis. Yeah.

Stock engine, 4.3 with a manual. Lovely.

Yeah.

Made a nice sound. I mean it was engaging to drive. And I drove a SL55 that was

[Matt Farah]

kick ass, like a 03 04.

[Matt Quick]

Good times. This really wakes up the fucking cars.

Absolutely.

Is there a ton, from the consumer perspective, is there a ton of value in finding a decent car or a great one? Because what is a great 04 SL55? 25 grand? 30 grand?

I mean those cars are miserable. Honestly, they've got so many other issues to deal with.

With.

But yeah, I mean, I wouldn't do it to one of those. But like a CLK55. Right. One of my guys picked up a nice CLK55, 120,000 miles for six grand. Manual, swapped it in a weekend. And that's his daily driver.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So would you say that there is an enormous amount of value in those cars?

I mean, in terms of experience? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you want a car that is comfortable, quiet, bulletproof, fast, and also you can put a manual in it and it's not going to feel like something that's hacked together, like it's all factory parts. It feels like it should be there.

Yeah.

Then, yeah, absolutely. It's a fantastic daily driver. And to get that experience in any other mark, you're going to spend a lot more money.

What do you have to do software wise to make that setup work in a. In an early 2000s car?

So it depends on it. Depends. There's. There's a few different. Right. So like there's. Mercedes used one generation of ECU up to 2001, 2002. Those ones are impossible to get into, but you don't really have to as long as you don't mind a check engine light. Then the like 2001 to 2008 or so. Those ones are super easy. I can just go in and tell it it's a manual. There are a few tricks, the AMG ones.

So you just like use your old Pentium processor to log in and go click for man.

Yeah.

And it's just.

That's it, basically. I mean, you've got reverse lights in the clutch switch.

Yeah. But like it's pretty if you know what you're doing. Let's just say plug and play and not. Not a challenge to overcome as long

as it's naturally aspirated.

Aha. Because. Well, we'll circle back. There was a bunch of people who were like, well, why didn't you get the supercharged engine? And you and Shawn were kind of

like, we don't really fuck with them. Oh, no, I do, I do a bunch of them. The problem is, it's just the thing I tell everyone is you don't actually want the supercharged engine. You don't want 500 and some horsepower in these cars. They're small, they're light. It's not like a modern car. If you put 400 horsepower in a 60s to 90s Mercedes, it is ample. I promise you, you don't need more than that.

It is a lot. No, I mean, when my car was built, it came with, like, 206 horsepower, and the S600 with the V12 was like 370.

Yep.

Like, so we're gonna. We're gonna have more than that. Yeah. I didn't personally think I needed the supercharged engine anyway. I wouldn't have asked for it. I certainly wouldn't have paid extra for it. It gives me nothing that I need. But I imagine if you're gonna spend the money swapping, a lot of people will say, if I could spend 18,000 bucks and have 400 horsepower or 22,000 bucks and have 500 horsepower, I'll just pay the difference just to say I have it. But there are reasons not to do that.

Yeah. And. Yeah, no, I have a lot of people that say, I want to do the 113k, and I always tell them, you don't really want to do that. And. But every once in a while, I get someone who says, yes, no, I do really want to do that. And then we do it.

It.

And.

Because when it goes. They get an erection. That's why.

Well, did you see Sean's black sec That I did. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, I was driving that on Angeles Crest. That's one of my. That's like my loaner car when I go out there. And. And I was coming through that tunnel, coming back from good vibes, and I was like, I'm just gonna floor it through the tunnel and just to hear the exhaust, but it just lit the tires up all the way through the tunnel and like, great. Now I just heard the tires.

There are people. I agree. There are people, myself sometimes included, that think too much is enough. I'm not against too much. I just usually won't pay extra for it for myself. But, like. Like, I used. I used to have a. A replica Cobra that had a NASCAR engine in it. Like, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not holier than thou when it comes to too much.

So that's basically the Pagoda.

It's just that I been there.

Yeah.

Yeah. A Pagoda with an M113. And it is effectively a Sunbeam Tiger. Is.

We did that. Yeah, It's. It's actually going up on. Bring a trailer probably this week. Yeah, it had the 5.46 speed, five link rear end. Yeah. No, I put 6,000 miles on that car.

I bet. That's nasty, though.

It was fantastic.

Really.

I loved it. I like, I don't want to sell it, but, like, you know, we got to move on to new things.

Is it here?

It's out in California. Oh, damn. OTS is selling it for me. Okay. So they. Yeah, I shipped it out to them, but before that, I took it on the Overcrest Rally. I took it on Breakfast Club Rally. I took it down to Amelia. Like, I just drove it everywhere. And there are companies in Germany that will do basically that conversion, but they only use the 4.3 or the 5.0.

They don't buy electronic cars. There's one in LA that's owned by a pretty famous collector who I saw park it in a handicap space at a coffee shop. Yelled at by a cop. It was sort of a loser move, actually. But, but, but the car was nice. It was, it was a very clean, clean car. It was, it was a 500 engine.

Yeah. But now I understand why they didn't use the 55 in it. Because you don't need that.

Yeah, well, if you, I mean, if you.

[Matt Farah]

There are.

[Matt Quick]

I've driven a lot of cars where I go, you can't sell this to people. You're gonna fucking kill people with this.

[Matt Farah]

And they go,

[Matt Quick]

they never listen. I've said it to four or five people right up until the CEO of McLaren. I told the CEO of McLaren, like, it's irresponsible to sell this car to people. You have to make them do driving school or something. And he said, have you ever asked a billionaire there to do anything? Especially when they're writing you a check? Like, no, they won't. They just won't do it. So, yeah, anyway, the. But, but you said your, your, your buddy. Oh, no. Oh, no, my camera mount. My camera. Oh, hang on. Stop down one second. Holding for fixing camera mount. That's what I get for choosing such an unstable face as a hipster ass bicycle like this. That's what I get. This is what I get. But it's okay.

Change up this shot.

A little more stability.

It's all good.

Make a note to tell Zach that at 31 minutes, the bike fell over.

[Matt Farah]

At 31 minutes, our shot got messed up.

[Matt Quick]

Slate 2. It's okay, you know, we'll do it. Put in ads there. And then you come back, people don't even notice. But people. You just said that your buddy, who presumably had some kind of mechanical ability, was able to do a manual swap in that clk over the weekend. So I, I and my friend Vinnie did. In a Ferrari 360 over the. Over a weekend. Did one himself as well. Yeah, so.

So that was one of my employees.

It was one of your employees. So it's not something that is just totally straightforward and people can be doing at home. Or is it?

If you are adventurous, it really comes down to whether or not you have the ability to code the ecu. Right. Like if you have an old school Mercedes Star diagnostic system or they make cheap knockoffs nowadays, that will do it. Like, yeah, you can do it. I know plenty of people that have. I know a guy in Atlanta that's done, I think four of them now. Yeah, just in his garage.

Okay, so it is. I drove one in LA where a guy did it himself. Yeah, I, I drove another one from Vegas that someone, someone who was more of a professional did. And they were both fine. Actually, the crossfire one, the shifter feel wasn't quite exactly what I wanted.

The big thing with the crossfire box is it does not have an internal reverse lockout. The reverse lockout is built into the shifter and those shifters are garbage. So when you go to the newer style one, the reverse lockout is built into the transmission then. So you can run any shifter you want. So you can get a nice aftermarket short shifter. And there are companies that sell them that bolt into the older Mercedes chassis.

Yeah, that's a good move. Yeah. Is there, what is. What is a car where if a customer calls you or someone calls you from off the street and says, hey, I want you to do a powertrain swap up and into this car, is there a car you just go, oh, God, please, God, no. Or where you have to charge a pain in the ass tax for doing it.

So there, there are two. The one that I say no to is the 114, 115 chassis.

I'm not quite as nerdy as you, but go.

Yeah. Late 60s to mid 70s Mercedes E class.

Okay.

The. They're 300Ds or 220Ds. You would know them as the precursor to the 123 that everybody thinks of as the early E Class. Those cars underneath, it's the same as a 107SL, you know, 72 to 89, but the frame rails in the engine bay are narrower, so you can't fit a V8 in it. It just doesn't fit.

Okay, so it's not a problem. Where this is a structurally unsound car. It's literally just, just, sorry, bro. You want to put an engine in there that doesn't fit.

Right.

What can people do with 3 6? An inline six? Yeah, if that's what they want.

Totally. Or an OM606 if you don't mind a diesel, right? Like I've done a bunch of those.

A modern, A more modern diesel swap.

Yeah. Or yeah, you can even go up to the OM648, the common rail one from knots. Those are fantastic engines.

The CDI. That's a CD320 CDI.

Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Okay. So. All right, so. So you, you could still work with it. It's just not. You're not going to get the V8. What is when you're doing a project like this? Me as a customer, you know, I got some. I had some choices to make. Not, not a ton. It was pretty, pretty much like you're gonna do the thing. But like clearly based on the cars that are out there, people do have some kind of choice. What is the biggest waste of money that customers ask you to do that? Would you say that using the K, the supercharged engine is the biggest waste of money a customer could request in a project like this?

Probably, yeah.

Like least return for investment.

The return for investment is burnouts on demand.

Sure. Well, yeah, no, that could be a desirable thing.

Yeah. If you just want something to drive that is going to be your daily driver or road trip or whatever.

Yeah.

Just use the naturally aspirated engine. It works great. It's awesome.

So that's the biggest waste. What's the best thing? That's kind of expensive to do while you're in there and you kind of have to convince people to do it. But that it really is important.

Limited slip. Yep. Because I mean we do end up probably 70% of the cars get a quaif limited slip and it just makes it that much more useful.

Yeah, that makes sense. It's surprising. I mean on the one hand it's surprising how many of these rear wheel drive sedans don't have them. On the other hand, 200 horsepower fucking mommy car. Like whatever.

Well, yeah, Mercedes put limited slips in three cars up until like 2000ish. Really? You've got the 450sel 6.9, you've got the 192.3. 16 Cosworth and you've got the 500e was available with a limited slit, but most of them didn't have it.

What about the R129?

No, none of those got limited slits.

None of the R129 SLs had limited slip.

I've never seen or heard of one with a limited slip from the factory.

I guess I. No, I guess I just assumed it had it. I never would have occurred to me that they Wouldn't have.

Some of them have asd, which is a hydraulically actuated limited slip disc.

Is that brake vectoring?

No, it's an actual clutch style LSD that uses wheel speed sensors and then a hydraulic system to actuate it. So like, that was much more common in Europe than it was here. It's super hard to find here in anything. But over in Europe, they figured out a way to hack those so that you can use like a drift handle to actuate the diff to lock it up.

Yeah. Like the new Mustang has.

I have no idea about that.

Yeah, the current. The new Mustang has a drift electronic drift handbrake. Like when you put the car into drift mode, the handle that is normally the parking brake and it's an electronic handle handle. It's not. It's a joystick. Becomes the drift brake.

But it works.

It does work. It's. I mean, it's like I almost said it's gimmicky, but, like, it isn't. It does. It does exactly the thing they say it does. Like, it's not gimmicky. It works. Gimmicky is like the. All the hatchbacks that have a drift mode. Yeah, the all like the Focus RS and the Golf R and shit. Because it can. It's more like a donut mode than actual drift mode mode. If you like lift a little bit off the floorboard. Like you can't like modulate a slide. It's just, you know. Anyway. Yeah.

Cars newer than like 2005 just don't exist to me.

Yeah, that's really funny. Yeah.

The newest vehicle I own is that 2003 G55.

Yeah. I roll up outside, he's got a manual swapped G55, which is actually pretty sweet.

I bought it right. It was dirt cheap with a blown engine engine. And I had another engine sitting there. And when I pulled the engine transmission out, the other engine had a manual bolted to it. So I was like, do the transfer

cases still work and stuff?

Well, it's a divorce transfer case. So.

Yeah.

Oh, I just have to get along the back.

You just did a different drive shaft and it knows no difference.

So the hard part was actually the pedals and the shifter because they redesigned the chassis and the cab on those in 2002, and they very obviously designed it in such a way that it would never have a clutch pedal or a manual shifter again. So I had to go in and take the whole dash out and modify the firewall to mount the clutch pedal. And the same with the center console to mount the shifter. But like. Oh, yeah, it wasn't.

But.

But now that it works, you have

a manual G wagon and the transfer cases work, which is really cool.

Yeah. And you know, the lockers work and everything. I've put a ton of miles on it. I took it up in Michigan in February and went out in the snow on the seasonal road roads. Yeah.

That's pretty sweet actually. Same gearbox? Yeah, that's the same. The same. So the fact that you're now using it for off roading in a heavy ass, no problem.

I had one of those behind an OM606 in my 73F250 high boy. And that was my tow rig for 50,000 miles. I went wheeling with it. I towed all across the country.

Wait, you put one of these Mercedes gearboxes in your truck to tow with

it with an OM606 trans turbo diesel.

What is an OM606?

Okay, so the OM606 motor or something? No. Oh, what is it? 99E300 turbo diesel.

Oh.

Twin cam, six cylinder, indirect injected. Okay. You can. They have electronically controlled injection pumps like a P pump for a Cummins, and you can back date it to the mechanical injection pump.

Okay.

And they're just absolutely bulletproof.

And what truck did you put that in?

A 73F250 Hydro boy.

You still use that truck still?

It's up in Michigan.

Oh, wow. That's pretty rad.

Friend of mine has it and. Yeah, no, he still uses it.

There are probably not many Mercedes Diesel powertrain swapped 73 F250s out there.

That's not that.

I know. That has to be.

There are at least two Mercedes diesel swapped Ford Falcons still running around that I did like 15 years ago. Like.

Yeah, you did more than one?

I did three of them.

What who sees a Ford Falcon is like, I need a Mercedes diesel.

My second car was a Ford Falcon.

Okay.

And God, I don't know why. So I think this was all spurred on by the Roadkill takes America trip back in 2015.

Okay.

I found a 67 Falcon wagon in Oklahoma, drove it back to Michigan, pulled it out of a bar and got it running, drove it to Michigan. Michigan. Ripped the six cylinder out, took a junkyard Mercedes OM 606, bolted a dogleg five speed to it and stuck it in there and did the whole trip in it.

That was like Roadkill's power tour, right? Yeah, I have a vague recollection of that being a thing. It was fun and yet. And you sold fucking Falcons off of that?

No, I mean, I Just did these for shits and grins.

That's crazy.

I had a thing for a long time where every spring I would buy some 60s Ford and do something dumb with it and then sell it in the fall. And two of three of them were Mercedes diesel swaps.

All right. All right, cool. I've seen. It's not that I haven't seen cool diesel swaps before, although I guess during this period that would have been 2015. That would have been. Well, 2014 was Diesel Gate, but that was around peak fever pitch for diesels. 2012, 13 diesel, real hot shit. That was going to be a clean diesel. Was going to be it.

Oh, I mean these are not 80s 90s.

No, these are very dirty. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. But rolling coal.

Yeah. So let's talk about my car for a minute. We've talked about where it comes from. The concept, of course, is to build something that is. Is was like a 500E that Mercedes never did in a cabriolet, which they probably should have. That would have been sweet. Yeah. We everyone in my comments it's why aren't we using the M119? I didn't see a single M119 out here in your shop. You are not necessarily about the M119.

M119 is a fantastic engine, but like everything else that Mercedes did through the last century, it was at the forefront of what they were able to do at the time, which meant that it was kind of inherently flawless quad. When I first got into doing this, I started with the M113 because you can bolt a manual to it. The M119 does not have a manual that bolts to it. Now there are adapters available now, but then you also run into the issues of it's wider, it doesn't fit in the engine bay. The 400E and 500E have a different engine bay than your car does.

Yeah, yeah.

And so we would have to change the firewall. We would have to change the cross member underneath, underneath. Like why it's not worth it.

What have you driven, just out of curiosity. An M119 which has a manual to it on it. Okay, so we don't. So that's still. I mean it exists somewhere, but that's as of. It's an unknown. What it feels like, how it works.

So like my 500e, the one out front, that one I got it supposedly running and driving. It didn't. And 565,000 miles on it. So I ripped the M119 out and I put the M156 in it because it feels like the spiritual successor. It's the next quad cam V8 that came out of Mercedes, even though it was actually AMG. So I took that 6.2, put a manual in it, put it in the 500e. That thing was fantastic. That same drivetrain is in my wagon now. But again, it's like, man, this is, this is too much. I don't need something that revs to 7,000 rpm in my daily driver.

Yeah, well, I mean that's, that's for me. I have a crazy sports car, my Spider. It's as fast as I ever need to go. I have a bunch of little niches. But what's interesting is as I get older and partially because of where I live, which is in the middle of la, I'm starting to care more about having a garage full of cars that I can use in my, like everyday life.

Yeah.

You know, like, I don't need a whole bunch of 600 horsepower manual gearbox sports cars. I. Those are for me to have fun on the weekends. If I try to drive those in my errand running, I would blow my brains out. Like, it's just, it would be miserable. And I. Okay, why do that? So I have this little dumb Myers Manx with the airplane engine in it. It. That is like an amazing city run around when it's nice out. And I'm like, I think we need a, a dope cruiser. And so it's going to be automatic. Right? We have a, we have the five speed. Yep. And did you, did we, did you rebuild that or did you have to do anything to it? Service it.

You service it.

Just fluids and whatever and it's fine.

Conductor plate.

Right.

That's what always fails on those.

What. I don't even know what a conductor plate is. What is a conductor plate?

So this is when they went from hydraulically controlled transmissions to electronically controlled transmissions. They did that by. You still have a valve body, but on top of the valve body is a plate with solenoids and sensors and stuff on it and it has a plug that goes into the side of the transmission. And what happens to that is the speed sensors crack and fail and then it doesn't have a speed signal from the output turbine and then you, then, then it just stops working. You get stuck in second. So fairly common. It totaled a lot of Mercedes 20 years ago, but now, you know, it's a few hundred bucks in parts. Takes a few hours. Not a big deal.

Cool. Okay, so. And actually we saw the new Shifter is installed, which is from the E55. It's not.

It's not.

Oh, I thought it was.

The E55 shifter is too tall. It would stick out of the center console. Oh, so we use one from a 202. Well, actually a 208 shift chassis. The CLK.

The 4R CLK one.

Yeah. Oh, okay. So that's the right height. And then we have an adapter so we can mount it so that it sits correctly with all the wood and it matches.

Oh, that's neat. And the only way, I mean, that you can tell is, is it's got a little, the little plus minus bit at the bottom. So if you have to do a little manual control, you can sort of side slap it. Yeah. Do they have, or have you ever done an aftermarket paddle shifter solution or updated a steering wheel to include one that had paddle buttons on it?

I did in Seattle about six years ago.

Did it work?

It did.

Did you use a newer OEM wheel or did you get aftermarket paddle shifts?

It was an aftermarket wheel, just like a standard Momo with, with paddle shifts with the bolt behind it. Really?

Yep. It's kind of did it. And it did work.

It worked. Yeah. Yeah. It's from the same guy who we get the kit from that controls the transmission. Transmission.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's, it's not something I want for my car, but like, it, that would be cool. Yeah. I mean, it would, it would. So like, certainly you can't shift fast, but for a car from the 90s, it would be way better than whatever you had.

We did a 124 wagon for a local guy that takes it on a lot of rallies. And when we first talked about it, he was like, I want it to be a manual. And then I found him, the green over tan wagon up in Rhode Island. He flew up, he drove it back down, and he gets back and he's like, what if we kept it automatic? And so we changed the whole plan. We put the automatic in it and like he does, he takes on rallies. He took it on my rally. He uses the Tiptronic, but, you know, here we are eight months later and we have a manual sitting out back.

Now he wants, now he wants a manual. Yeah, well, you know, learn by doing. Yep. I, I, it's not, you know, a five speed Mercedes slush box with paddle shifters is not ideal, but it's, it's better than the side slap and the side slap's better than nothing. So my car is for cruising around. Yeah, but you Know, with this engine, we do have to do suspension, we do have to do brakes. So what is the plan there?

Suspension. We've basically just gone through the whole thing. H and r is Bilstein B8s for your shocks and springs. You're getting an upgraded front sway bar just because it makes a massive difference in handling.

Okay. Is this suspension basically what you would do if you were just refreshing a tired E500? Are the geometries the same as the E500?

Yeah, they are. Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The suspension on basically all 124s is the same. There's a little variance in the hubs and there's an early control arm and a late control arm for the front. And obviously springs and shocks are different between different models. Models. But the whole Idea that the 500e is some bespoke special Porsche whatever. No, it's just a Mercedes that got built in the Porsche factory.

It was assembled by Porsche. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They, they. I like the lore, but they get a little more credit for the actual engineering of the car than they did right this. And plus, you know, if you're around enough cars, you know, cars aren't sacred. They're made of parts. Some of the body panels are prettier than others, but they're. They're all just made of parts. Yeah, but so when you're doubling roughly the power output of a two plus two or a four seater cabriolet, do I need to be concerned about structural issues? I mean, I'm not going to be doing drag launches or, or really ripping on it. It's a cruiser.

But you're gonna have cow shake.

I'm gonna have cow shake.

Those cars had cow shake from the factory.

Yeah, but like, not, not more than I had.

Right?

Yeah, yeah. Is there any kind of. If I had more money reinforcement that you could or would do? Have you done it before or is this. Is it literally just. It is what it is, man. Live with it.

I mean, so I've never had to. Right. Because everything else has been so stout that it's just never even been a concern. With the 124 cab, that might be a concern, but like, nobody's ever asked me to before, so I've never really looked into it. Yours is the first one we're doing.

Oh, mine's the first cab you've done?

Yep.

Oh, well, happy to be the first. Yeah. I mean, shant, because I asked him the same question. He said absolutely not. He said these cars, the cabs in particular were handmade cars that had that were structurally over engineered. Yeah. He said there isn't any way around the cowl shake.

Yep.

If you got it. Honestly, if you got a 2018 Bentley GT, it would have cow shake.

Okay.

Seriously, if you got a. If you get a Mercedes BMW 8 Series Cabriolet, it has cowshake. The only four seat convertibles I've ever driven that don't are the Rolls Royce Phantom Drop head and dawn, the 911. And that's a 2 plus 2, not a 4 for the current generation Bentley GT.

Okay.

And even then, only the soft ones, not the sporty ones.

Yeah. Well, in that case. Yeah. There's nothing to worry about.

Yeah. It just is what it is. Yeah, it is what it is.

Yeah.

But. But it's not like you're gonna twist the thing like a pretzel. Yeah.

Nope.

Do we. I mean, and I assume because is there like airflow or cooling issues or anything with doing this swap it just

all 113s run super cool.

Okay.

And we use the modern fans as well. Yeah. So any aftermarket fan you can get usually flows between like 3 and 5000 cfm. Whereas a factory Mercedes fan will flow like 13,000 cfm, fully variable PWM controlled from nothing all the way up to 100. And I control it using a different module so I can create a nice ramp angle. So you never even know it's there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cool, cool. And is it difficult to make the engines work with old school gauge clusters and stuff like that? How does that process sort of shake out?

I get a lot of questions about that. It's like how do you, how do you keep all the factory gauges? What are you doing to them? Are you modified? No, I'm not. I'm just giving them what they want to. Right.

Like so the quote modifications happen somewhere else in the wiring harness. It gets. The signal gets converted or something.

Generally the signal gets converted.

Okay.

There will be a signal converter that lives behind the gauge cluster that converts the signal. There is a speedo drive box that will take the electronic speed signal from the transmission computer and then spin the cable that spins the speedo.

Got it. And what is your recommended upgrade for brakes? When you've got One of these V8s,

the cheap and easy go to is W220s class. Like 2002ish. Pick a model. Right. They've all basically got the same brakes. They're big four piston Brembos, 330 millimeter rotors.

Yeah. For a 3200 pound car, that's fine. Yeah, yeah. And then if you want to spend a little more, we would do 600 stuff. Stuff from a 600.

Well, the 600 stuff is the same as the 430 stuff. I just say 600 because it sounds fancier.

That's hilarious.

Really? Yeah.

I thought the 600. I guess the 129S had bigger brakes.

Not bigger than these, the later S class.

And this would be the 2001-2006 S class.

Yes. 220 chassis.

Okay.

99 to 06.

Yeah. 430, 555.

So the 55's got big eight piston calipers and like we've got them laying around because they're. You got to run 18s. Nobody wants to run 18s.

Right.

So.

So this. So that's really your limitation is the 17 inch wheel?

Yep.

Yeah. Okay. So this is the best Mercedes brake that will fit in a 17.

Yeah. And this is. A lot of people will throw too much brakes at a car. A lot of people will throw too much tire at a car. Like you were saying about twisting the chassis. Like you would have to have 300 and some width tires and a limited slip to even worry about that. But I have a. My ethos is like there needs to be a fuse somewhere. Right. You can have the fuse be somewhere in the driveline where it's going to break and it's going to be very expensive. Or you can just run a little bit narrower tire.

Yeah. And then you'll lose traction before anything bad happens. I mean that's a lot of people's philosophy. It's not a terrible philosophy actually. It's probably better than having such wide tires that the diff explodes if you do a launch. Yeah.

And like my Pagoda, there's worse things

in life than burnouts.

The red Pagoda that's going up for sale, that's got 205 tires on it that are like 800 tread wear in

the rear all around. Yeah, it's going to. That's probably loosey goosey.

It's hilarious. It is so much fun. And the thing is, right, if you lose control in that thing, you are doing a manageable speed where you can recover from it easily. If I had 255, 200 treadwear tires on there, by the time you lose control, you're dead.

Yeah, sure. In a pagoda, certainly. That's mad shady. Yeah, Yeah, I know. I mean I kind of agree.

[Matt Farah]

I use.

[Matt Quick]

I'm friends with a guy. Guy who worked on the Ford Raptor. All the generations of Ford Raptor and when they first came out and people started like really like jumping them a lot and they were bending the frames and they were going, well, this is a poorly designed thing because we're bending the frames. And I called my friend who was the chief design engineer to ask about that and he goes, look, first off, if you're jumping the truck that high, you've done something wrong. Okay. But it's got, it's going to fail somewhere.

Yeah.

He goes, if you bend the frame, you can drive the truck home.

Yeah.

And you can actually put it on a frame straightening machine and fix it.

Yeah.

If you make the frame strong enough to withstand that type of impact, you will probably explode at least one, if not more shocks. Yep. And then you're not getting home.

Yep.

You know what I mean? Then you're stranded wherever you are. So we had to make a choice of which thing would go first.

Yeah.

And we decided that the thing that should go first is the thing that you could still get home even if it's broken.

Yeah.

Which is a choice.

Absolutely.

Yeah. You mentioned a bunch of the road rallies. You said you put your own on.

I do.

What's that called?

It depends on the year. It's.

Oh, you just change it just for your customers and stuff.

Just my friends, really. So, like it's usually the quick regional rally or some variant of that. The slow regional rally Valley.

Is it always around here? Smoky Mountains.

Yeah. Kentucky, North Carolina. Yeah.

Good roads.

Kind of hard to go wrong.

Good roads. Yeah. Except right outside your shop, which looks like the road. It looks like Balboni's road. He go his, his test route outside Lamborghini where you test suspension. Because the tarmac is so terrible.

It is. That's exactly what I use it for.

But the. You, I. You just got back from Overcrest Rally, which I have heard of. I've heard it's very good.

It's a lot of fun.

And what car did you bring on that?

So I brought my Rosso, which is a 190 avant garde rosso. It was kind of a like a final edition model that they sold in Europe. Okay. I sold 2,000 of them. They have this crazy Technicolor interior. It's. The pattern is called Arcade, which I haven't shown you yet. So they never sold them here. And I'd always wanted one. So last year I was like, why don't I just import one? So I found one in southern Germany that had air conditioning and I got it over over here and I put a.

It's a 190 Cosworth or just a regular 190 E. Okay.

Yep. And I had imported a 98 C43 wagon a couple years ago. Sean currently has that car. He's putting a dtm.

Oh, I saw. I've seen that car. Yeah.

So I put a 55 motor and a manual in that. So I had the old 43 motor sitting around. So I took that, put a manual behind it and stuffed it in this 190.

That's pretty, pretty cool.

It's. It felt like cheating. The thing is, right, it's 300 horsepower, six speed manual, Quaife, limited slip KW coilovers, good brakes. Right. The. And my handicap was the tires. I had terrible tires on it. And. And it was kind of the perfect combo. It did great.

Where is that rally?

It changes every time. Right. So this time was in Wisconsin, which is. The guys who organize it are from there. But like last year was North Carolina and then Arkansas and, and then Oregon before that. And that was the first one I went on.

You drove there and drove back?

Yep.

Oh, my God.

So that one I did in a 55 swapped 190e because I wanted something that was fast, would fly under the radar, would handle well. So I took a 190E and put a 5.4 in it.

So you're always doing 190Es. Your customers are bringing you your other stuff, but you're always doing 190es. What do you know that the rest of us don't know? Or is it just going back to your first car?

No. Yeah, it really is. I just, I'm in the car. It's not that.

You know that the 190e is actually the best car and the rest of us are just waiting to figure that out.

Oh. I mean, it is, though.

Why is it the best?

I mean, think of everything that's good about an E30M3 and then think of everything that's bad about an E30M3 and the 190E. Does it well?

Well, I mean, okay, I suppose I've driven. I've driven 190 Cosworths.

Yep.

And they are very slow.

I have one of those. It's not slow.

Well, they're slow stock. Yes, they're slow. Like in the same way E30 M3s are slow stock.

Yeah.

But I drove an E30 M3 that has like a S54, like a 2005 M3 and it ripped.

Yeah.

Is that what we're talking about here?

So, like my 16 valve is a euro one. That I've wormed over and hel tech and did all that. It's. It's not slow, and it's very much a momentum car, and you can carry a of lot, lot of speed with it. But, yeah, once you put a V8 in a 190, then, yeah, you're talking swapped.

Yeah.

Yeah. But it's quiet and it's comfortable, and it handles incredibly predictably. And you don't have lift off over steer. You don't have trailing arm issues like you do with an E30. Good air.

Is it worth building one into a race car? Yeah, I would like that. Seems like a pretty sweet race car. Like a 4.3 with a 6 speed. That seems like a pretty bitching, like, champ car.

Absolutely right.

What does that car weigh?

Probably about £3,000. I really need to get that scales.

You should have a set of scales.

Yeah.

I feel like that fucking would rip.

It does. You can drive it. It's out there.

I would like to drive it. Yeah, we should do that.

Yeah.

That's amazing. Okay, so what are. When you took the engine out of the 2002 donor car to put into my car, you sent me a photo of something and you said, we found there's a thing wrong with your engine that's wrong with a bunch of engines. Do you remember what I'm talking about? Do I have to get my phone

out of the text message? There's something with that engine in the front cover.

Okay.

Where the timing cover meets the block. There are two coolant passages to go through there, and they're just rubber. Rubber O rings. And. Yeah. They swell and fail in time. Right. So if you have one of these engines where you're getting coolant in the oil, that's probably what it's from.

Okay. But it didn't cause any, like, catastrophic damage.

No.

Okay.

Oil in the coolant more than.

Yeah. Yeah. But, like, once you took the engine apart and cleaned things and put it back together, like, fine. Right? Yeah. Okay.

No, it hadn't actually failed yet.

It was just, like, the rubber was

swelling and cracking and, like, that's. We're gonna take care of that.

All right, cool. And you didn't find any other, like, terrible surprises in there, like, no rust I didn't know about or anything?

Nope.

Okay. So Shant, who is out of his mind, he says he would like to drive this thing to car week.

Yep.

Which is ing August. And for the record, today is June 22nd.

Yep.

I don't.

Along with two other cars that are.

That are here yes. That are these. We can ship them back together maybe. What, the. The engine is physically in the car? Yes. Gearbox is physically in the car.

Yep.

But that's kind of it. Right now.

The suspension is all done.

Oh, okay. So where, what do we have to do do in the next, I don't know, couple weeks before that car can be sent back.

A whole lot of wiring.

Wiring?

Yeah.

Okay, tell me. I, I, I don't know anything about wiring. I know I don't want to know about wiring. So what do I need, what do I need to know about wiring in order to make a 2002 powertrain work in a 1995 Mercedes?

All right, let's see. We've got the ECU, which did.

I have the biodegradable wiring, by the way, in my car. The original. So you throw all that in the garbage anyway?

Yep.

Okay. Ran one parked, though.

Yeah. No, it's. So the nice thing is in cars that came from mild class climates, the, the biodegradable wiring doesn't fail as quickly. It's really the climates where it's, where it's harsh, where it gets really cold and really hot.

Okay.

And you have engine temperature sub zero. Engine temperature sub zero. Multiple times a day. That's what kills.

Sure. Okay.

So California cars, Florida cars, they usually survive longer.

Okay.

But you don't have to worry about that anymore. We have your engine computer that is getting a module put in. We get them from Europe. It basically we can go in and set up this module so that it acts like the ignition switch, the electronic ignition switch. And then it will take a signal from your physical ignition switch to then emulate the electronic ignition switch and tell the ECU to start. Okay.

Because this car, the O2, has the weird, the chunky key that nobody likes, right?

Yeah. Okay, so we get rid of that and then the transmission. Otherwise the engine computer is factory. The transmission computer is factory. We have another module in there that's like a mil spec module that runs a program that emulates your traction control. Right. So it takes all of the information from the drivetrain that it needs and then gives that to the engine and transmission computer so as to make it think everything is fine. Right. Like it takes your wheel speed and then figures.

But is it traction control?

No.

Okay. So if I lose traction, I don't have traction control?

No, you don't.

Okay, that's fine. I, I'm okay with that. I just want to know.

I figured you would be.

I just want to know what I have.

No, there was a minute There where I was like, what if we took the entire traction control system from the E55 and put it in Matt's.

No, no.

Yeah. No.

Do I have abs? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, all that still works.

Okay.

And.

And like you said, I have full H vac as well.

Yep.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, everything works the way it should.

All right, cool.

And are there.

Okay. So once you figure out this. Not figure out because you've done it before, you know what to do, right? Yeah. Figure out. It's just.

Yeah. We 3D print our own ECU housings and everything that hide back in there make it all look factory. And it holds the ECU, the TCU, the PCs, the K40. We utilize the power distribution relay from the E55 to distribute power to all of the modules and everything. So it's all factory parts.

You were very. When you were showing me around the shop earlier, you were very. You said it a few times that it has to look factory and the outside has to look factory. Factory. Is that. Is that just a you thing?

Yeah.

Why? Why does it. I mean, it's. It's nice that it looks factory, I think. But that's. It's certainly. It's.

[Matt Farah]

It's a.

[Matt Quick]

It's a choice that you. But like it. Have you ever had a desire to go. I could probably do that better

sometimes? Yes. And those things, you know. Yeah, that's what we do.

Have you had it not work, just outright? Have you ever had a model you couldn't make work work?

No.

Okay, well, that's good.

I mean, that's back to the autism, right? Like if I have a problem, I'm gonna work at it. I'm gonna bang my head against the wall until I find a solution. What about if.

Do any of the. Any of the cars have like the fucking LCD screens in the middle? Nothing that new, right?

Nope.

The CLK or anything didn't have that. Yeah.

So I mean like that stuff. We just figure out how to make it work that. Thankfully though, that era of car has the can bus that already talks to all of those models modules. So it's just not really that much of an issue. It's just. It's mostly just coding and are getting.

Or if you're doing a manual, can you just buy a three pedal pedal box from Mercedes and mount that? Are you having to figure out where to put a third pedal?

The only car that we've had to figure out where to put a third pedal in is that G55.

Right.

Apart from that.

Yeah.

You just buy the Pedal set that goes to that chassis which.

And you have have with a G55 you have the benefit of like nobody expects the ergonomics to be good at G55. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's a truck. Like a truck manual gearbox. Like you're not heel towing, like.

Yeah, but also I was still able to buy the pedal bracket from Mercedes that crossed to a different chassis that fit and bolted up. I just had to modify the firewall around it to make room for the pedal. Yeah, but like it still bolted out.

Yeah, yeah. Is that gearbox used in other stuff, not Mercedes or do they make the gearbox? Is it like a getrag or something?

No, it's a Mercedes, it's a Mercedes gearbox.

So. All right, so it's not in anything else. It's not Mercedes. Oh, so you, you, you having it in a Ford truck might be the first person to ever put that thing in a non Mercedes of any kind.

Nah.

Who's putting Mercedes gearboxes in other stuff? I've never. You hear people buying Tremex and get. I've never heard anyone buying that.

Well no, with the Mercedes engine too. But those guys over in Europe are crazy. They'll put anything and anything.

I guess Sweden.

Yeah.

Nothing.

Yeah, Sweden, the Swedish drift scene 20 years ago.

Sure. Yes, they must have. That's true, that's true. Okay, what have what, what do I need to know about any of this that you haven't told me yet? I mean I, I feel pretty educated on the customer side art of the M113 swap business. That, that's pretty much. I mean from what I gather, the M113 swap business is effectively your entire business. It seems like it's like 80%.

80% of my business. Yeah, but like we've got one out there that's getting the M120 quad cam V12 and that one's going to get haltech and it's going to get equal length headers and get a manual and SL600.

Yeah, yeah. Is that worth it?

If you want, want formula one sound. If you want 12 cylinders but from a like cost benefit analysis.

No, I didn't think so.

And then we also do like my wagon has the 6.2 quad cam in it. I'm doing another 6.2 quad cam for another guy in a wide body sec.

That's like the, the modern ish one right. From like 2005.

2000 or 2007.

8789. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The 63 and engine.

Yeah, the actual one before yeah.

So you can put, you can put those in. And what is like the cost difference to do that engine versus like my 113? How much more are we talking about?

So generally the way it shakes out is like if you are doing a 113, it's in today's dollars. Right. This fluctuates a lot with parts available and stuff. But like you're not, you're not quoting

a customer on the podcast.

Range meter out 70 ish for the full everything. Engine, transmission, suspension, brakes. Turnkey. Turnkey. Yeah. You send us a car, you get the car back, everything works. That's for a 113. It's somewhere in the neighborhood of 70. To do a 113k, you're adding 15 to 20 because the engine is considerably more expensive. And then you have coolers and you have lots of coolers and the computers are more expensive and all of that stuff. So that adds just a lot of labor and a lot of extra parts. And then the 6.2 is probably another 15 to 20 on top of that.

Beyond that.

Yeah. Because basically any engine we get, as soon as we get the engine, the first thing we have to do is tear it down and redo the whole thing. Yeah. Head studs.

Right. But that's, I mean, well, it's easier if it's already out of the car. Is it? Is that the servicing of that motor is what adds that. So is it more complicated to swap a6.2 than a supercharged 5.5? Yes, it is. Okay. Because of the wiring and the even

more advanced that moves on to the next generation of engine computers.

Yeah.

And those are finicky.

And you probably can't use the old key anymore. You still can use the original key. Oh, that's cool.

Yeah. No, I'll show you my wagon. It's, you know, turnkey. I've put probably 6,000 ish, 8,000 miles on it with the 6:2. And the reason, like I'm selling that one because I have a four mile commute.

Yeah.

And it never, I never even get the oil up to temp.

I, you know, I have a similar issue. I live very close to my office and I might actually, despite the fact that I live in a big city, my life in that city is quite small and I don't drive far enough. Enough to even turn the old cars on a bunch of the times.

So the great thing about the 113 is I leave the parking lot sideways every day with a cold engine. I don't care. I dare the thing to blow Up. It won't.

Is that, is it just that under stress from the factory, they are that reliable? Was that 113 an all new engine at the time? It was, it was. So they knew that this block and architecture was going to eventually have to withstand substantially more power, I assume.

So they did make a few changes for the supercharged motors, but really just forged internals.

Right, right.

Cool.

Well, I cannot wait to drive this car. Yeah. I am so stoked.

It's gonna be good.

I think it's gonna be great. I'm gonna roll around LA looking like the man making a good sound, the V8, and people are gonna go, hey, wait a minute. That car didn't come like that. Right, but, but, but not right away.

Right.

You need it. You're, you're. It's not going to scream at you that this is different. You're gonna have to go, what is different about that? Yeah, the thinking man's tuner car.

No, I really enjoy that. I have a wide body123 coupe and I saw the Craigslist listing for it once and I was like, oh, hey, it's one of those. And then probably 10 minutes later I like was. Was like, wait, they never made one of those. Yeah, and then I had to go back and find it again. And then I went and bought it and Sean has that car now.

But so somebody, someone made a wide body coupe and. And you're just gonna, you're gonna do basically what you're doing with mine.

Yeah, so that was on the Top Gear video that I did four years ago with the supercharged V8 and a manual. And then somebody hit me because Nashville traffic is terrible and Sean has had it for three years, basically doing the whole thing.

Okay.

Yeah. So hopefully it comes back soon. Cool. I miss it.

Yeah. Well, that's, that's a, that's money. I, I want to try this wagon of yours. Yeah, I also want to try the G. The G wagon.

Yeah, absolutely.

That seems really interesting.

I mean, that's my girlfriend's car at this point. She drives it more than I do.

I love it. Well, look, honestly, my wife is going to be driving this Mercedes probably more than me, but dude, this has been great. I can't wait to see my car. It's really been interesting. Interesting to see what you do down here and. Yeah, I want to go drive something.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks guys, for listening. We're gonna, we're gonna go poke around the garage and see if we can drive something and we'll see you next time.

Bye.