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+--- Thread: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar (/showthread.php?tid=5354)
300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 02-18-2014
![[Image: ZzC1E5t.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/ZzC1E5t.jpg)
This is my 1979 300SD race car. We run it in LeMons events in the south east. 16x,xxx miles when we got it. The odometer has quit so we've got no idea on the actual mileage.
Currently we've lowered it about 3", 4 new KYB shocks, straight pipe, CAI and new glow plugs. Nothing too exciting really.
After our first two races though we want to go faster. On the track there isn't much slower than us. Our only redeemable features are 4gph and a 22gallon tank which lets us run longer than anybody else on the track. We do pretty well in the corners for a 4000lbs tank but coming out of the turns our ~50hp/ton really hurts us. There is even a diesel chevette that blows our doors off.
So we would love to gain a little bit of power, but within our LeMons budget. For our next race we know we're doing a valve adjustment and new Monark Nozzles. We know that won't give us more power but will hopefully get us back closer to stock performance figures.
What we're looking for is a way to make maybe some small gains in power. If we can pick up 10-20hp with more work than money we'll be happy.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - mike-81-240d - 02-18-2014
Sounds like it's time to adjust the injection pump .
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - Simpler=Better - 02-18-2014
Turn up the pump, turn up the boost, lose the ALDA, adjust your valves and timing
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - willbhere4u - 02-18-2014
Find a kkk k26 turbo off a later w126 300sd 84-85 it will spool about 500-750 rpm sooner and make a big difference on corners less turbo lag boost starts at 2k rpm even better if you have non EGR manifolds.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 02-18-2014
From the IP adjustment thread the two things that stick out are remove ALDA as you said(or turn it up) and to "turn up" the rack limiter. I read a lot about people turning up engines and then saying not to go WOT all the time. This car is driven WOT 80% of the time for 9+ hours. Would this be a problem?
If I'm turning up the fuel I know I then want more boost. How much more can I safely get out of my stock turbo? Should be look for a boost gauge? How do I turn up the boost?
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - Simpler=Better - 02-18-2014
If you're a newbie-read the sticky in my sig. You can slap together a cheap EGT and boost gauge, both are highly recommended if you're running it hard.
Stock can take around 12-14psi, EGTs should be under 1250*F.
Way oversimplifying, IIRC, the rack limiter can be setup as a limiter (go figure) so that you don't cook the engine. The torque control nut shifts the fuel delivery curve up and down. Again, not an expert but I *think* that's roughly how it works.
You might also want to look into prechamber mods
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 02-18-2014
Your "cheap tricks" link takes me to a 404 page.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - MFSuper90 - 02-18-2014
EGT gauge is a must. I've pushed mine to upwards of 1400f, and 30 psi and haven't had problems yet. Do I recommend it? No not really. Stock charger can only handle about 15psi safely, anything past that it should be upgraded to reassure reliability. In my opinion, turning up the torque capsule, rack limiter, Alda, and max rpm and the things to look at in the pump. And you might have to adjust the idle after adjustment
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - Simpler=Better - 02-18-2014
doh.
fixed it http://www.superturbodiesel.com/std/Thread-Cheap-Tricks
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - willbhere4u - 02-18-2014
To start with remove the ALDA it doesn't add more fuel so you don't have to worry about cooking anything it will not increase power on the top end. Its purpose is to limit fuel to keep smoke down until boost is made. Removing this will net you more fuel from take off! And help the turbo spool up a tad faster. It's an easy mod that will be immediately noticeable for free with no gauges or fancy stuff.
It might smoke a little more from a dead stop with this mod but not much
Disconnect the sensor and line from it and cap them or run it to a boost gauge
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - w123love - 02-18-2014
Shed some weight maybe? Steel wheels could help.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 02-18-2014
We've stripped about all the metal we can. It was down to 3500 from 4000 before it got caged, but this cage is very very heavy. Finding a steel wheel that fits has been tough. We'd like a 15 just for wheel choices but it's hard to get a good size with a low enough offset to clear the suspension.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - Simpler=Better - 02-18-2014
My w123 weighed in at 3600# at the local scales as a DD....
Mustang V6 15" rims will fit properly with wobble bolts, or will fit sketchily with regular bolts(how I did it). They're noticeably lighter-my truck slowed down when I swapped back to 15" truck rims.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 02-19-2014
I'm not sure how I feel about racing on wobble bolts. Maybe if we can get some hub centric rings to space everything back out correctly. I'll throw the idea to the team though and see what they say. That would be nice though to have some 15s. Our 75 profile tire is really hurting our cornering performance.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - willbhere4u - 02-19-2014
pick and pull some alloys off a later w126 the Mercedes steels wheels weight a ton some factory 15inch alloys are cheap and fairly light in comparison
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - Simpler=Better - 02-19-2014
It's the bolt pattern that hurts-IIRC the ford is like 2mm off from the merc pattern. I was able to fit mine just fine, even if the bolts didn't theoretically seat 100%
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - mike-81-240d - 02-21-2014
16x7 CLK320 wheels are popular wheels to race on. They are forged aluminum and weigh 12.6 pounds each.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - tjts1 - 02-21-2014
Swap in a 4spd manual off a 240d. That will both save weight and get more power to the ground. Got anymore pics of the car? Engine bay interior etc? Great Lemons racer
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - 300SD_KY - 02-21-2014
Buzz, you are living the dream ;-)
I found 4 vintage AMG 8x16 for $50 each on StanceWorks. I run Z-rated tires on my 79 300 SD.
Invest in a Bosch 044 or Walpro electric fuel pump. Kent over at Mercedes source.com has a complete set up.
See if you can't get Gail Banks to donate a Doubleshot methanol system… He may love the free publicity ... the kit comes with everything including some of the gauges mentioned here. You can use your existing windshield wiper fluid container.
Run at least 20% biodiesel. North Carolina is ground zero for Biodiesel… Go over to Piedmont Biofuels or one of the other B100% makers…
Make sure your injectors are spec+
Find a better turbo and fab up some headers.
Getting burned by a diesel Chevette ... O the effluent indignity ;-)
Can you get rid of the heavy systems that you don't need? Power steering, AC, radio windshield wipers…
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - willbhere4u - 02-21-2014
seats in those cars weigh a ton find a cheap racing seat and ditch the whole interior door panels carpet headliner trunk mat and all
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 02-21-2014
KY, that's a beautiful SD you've got.
She's stripped as far as we can get. No HVAC but we're keeping PS as the car is still road driven. I've got to find a set of those wheels. They're killer.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - sassparilla_kid - 02-21-2014
Another thing I would consider would be to upgrade the brakes, early w126 rotors and calipers will fit, and later ones will too but you need 15" wheels. I think they're considered a safety related upgrade so they shouldn't detract from the budget, but I bet they could save precious seconds in the corners
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - willbhere4u - 02-21-2014
That and some Bilstein HD shocks make a difference 2nd the later w126 87+ brakes with 15 or larger wheels
the W116 brakes are the same as early w126 so no improvement there
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - JB3 - 02-21-2014
(02-21-2014, 02:11 AM)tjts1 Swap in a 4spd manual off a 240d. That will both save weight and get more power to the ground. Got anymore pics of the car? Engine bay interior etc? Great Lemons racer
x2 to this plan. The benz 4-speed weighs about 70lbs. Its a one arm transmission. The automatic is more than twice as heavy and has a ton of engine crapola hooked up to it as part of making it work properly, all that can go as well, add in the better application of power, and you can't lose with that mod.
Huge driving difference. I believe winmutt has a thread here on a 123 300D he put in lemons where they did the 4-speed swap immediately before.
EDIT- Also I love the futurama theme, awesome car
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - 300SD_KY - 02-21-2014
Craigslist or on StanceWorks may help you find 8x16 wheels = high speed rated tires and better brakes http://www.stanceworks.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=90
in a past life, i owned a track-specific Subaru STi ...
on the Subaru owners' forum, there are a few gearheads to managed to strip 700+ pounds off of a 3,400 lb Japanese car ... not easy to do.
philosophy: if the item didn't help the car go lighter, then it was deleted or replaced
eg ... no carpeting, no headliner, wiring, no paint ... lots of "drilling" = lightening
Given how heavy the steel body panels are, i wonder if you took punched vents in the bodywork, spaced every X" inches ... lighter, better?
You should chat with this forum's Rudolf Diesel who had a killer 300SD with a M90 Supercharger feeding a GT35 turbo, M-pump fitted with 7.5mm elements = putting out 4 times as much fuel as stock
PS: in NC you can find off-the-charts fabrication talent, if you scratch the surface ... find someone who needs _ _ _ _ _ (beer, babysitting etc) in exchange for their carbon fiber = owwww, to dream ... the first w116 carbon fiber widebody? CF roll-cage? Or if the diesel gods should deem that a new 350diesel needs salvaging-engine transplant, a google alert for as-fast-as-a-6.9-gasser never hurts to think lucky ... or faster like this duramax powered mustang http://www.dieselpowermag.com/features/ford/0901dp_1994_ford_mustang_duramax/
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - MFSuper90 - 02-22-2014
Acid dip the body panels, like they use to the old drag cars
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 02-22-2014
(02-21-2014, 02:11 AM)tjts1 Swap in a 4spd manual off a 240d. That will both save weight and get more power to the ground. Got anymore pics of the car? Engine bay interior etc? Great Lemons racerWe're not too keen on a manual swap. As much as I prefer driving stick on the street, this auto is fantastic on the track. Also, two of our team members don't drive stick well and we don't want to throw them into it. If everybody could heel/toe and rev match it'd be a different story. Also, we'd probably do a Toyota W56 swap...
I don't have many pictures of the interior or engine bay. The car's 4.5 hours away in a friend's garage. All my pictures are racing it.
Here's one of my favorites though, of the day we painted it. Yep, it rained 30 minutes after the paint dried. Good old tractor enamel.
![[Image: 3z1CtlN.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/3z1CtlN.jpg)
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - 300SD_KY - 02-22-2014
Agreed great view
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - JB3 - 02-23-2014
(02-22-2014, 05:59 PM)buzzboy We're not too keen on a manual swap. As much as I prefer driving stick on the street, this auto is fantastic on the track. Also, two of our team members don't drive stick well and we don't want to throw them into it. If everybody could heel/toe and rev match it'd be a different story. Also, we'd probably do a Toyota W56 swap...
I don't have many pictures of the interior or engine bay. The car's 4.5 hours away in a friend's garage. All my pictures are racing it.
Here's one of my favorites though, of the day we painted it. Yep, it rained 30 minutes after the paint dried. Good old tractor enamel.
These two need to shape up or ship out, at least slap em around a little for preventing an easy positive mod. Bet you can smoke that chevette with a 4-speed and no other mods.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 03-18-2014
We took her out for a shakedown run in the mountains of west NC this weekend. Found a few little issues.
Tachometer is sporadic. Mostly it doesn't work, sometimes it flops around, sometimes it works correctly.
Speedometer doesn't work.
The top engine mount shock absorber bushing broke on one side. At idle the engine shakes a lot and was able to move far enough that the fan hit and cracked the fan shroud. Fark.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - willbhere4u - 03-18-2014
Needs new motor mounts and check this super easy fix for the tack amplifier http://articles.mbz.org/electric/300tachamp/
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - MFSuper90 - 03-19-2014
My tach use to do that, I took the top off of the screw on thing, stuffed some paper towels in it to make it tighten tighter and get better connection, and whaa la. Tach works
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 03-19-2014
That tach fix sounds very simple. I like it.
What I don't like are the prices of the engine-mount-shock-absorber-bushing-mount. 150$ for a new one. Sheet.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - capflya - 03-21-2014
Yeah... I usually search out some "good" used ones at the junk yard if I need them. I wonder if you could "rebuild" them with some polyurethane or something like some of the guys have been doing with the trans mounts?
Since this isn't a daily driver car you probably dont even need the engine shocks. I think they're just for comfort purposes anyways.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - willbhere4u - 03-21-2014
I would just replace the rubber motor mounts that will make the biggest difference. I have run with out the motor mount shock absorber before with no problems. It just makes it shake a little more at idle.
They are easy 2 13mm bolts to the body and one 10mm Allen from underneath the car through the access hole! I used a floor jack and a 2x4 on the oil pan and did one at a time! It took me less than 30 min total
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 04-06-2014
New rubber mounts installed and we a homemade mount for the engine-mount-shock. 4 new rotors, front calipers, new brake pads, Falken Azenis RT615K in 195/60/14 and new Monark nozzles.
The new mounts did a little bit to help with the engine shaking. The new nozzles however are a godsend. We lost the at-idle missfire, gained throttle response, lost our exhaust leak and lost some of the idle shake.
And the tach... works perfectly now.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 09-23-2014
Been a while since I've written anything here. We've just finished our 5th race in a year. Made the mistake of building a second car to go along with our w116. It started life as a beat up and rusty w123 with a good drivetrain and suspension. Now it's the indestructible Hilux from Top Gear. It suffered some issues with a gunky old fuel tank and eventually got hit in the rear by a Kia Sephia and bent some suspension parts.
http://i.imgur.com/pn358Hp.jpg
The Planet Express w116 is going very strong. We've not made any power improvements but we did pick up a set of CLK wheels with 225/50/16 Direzza ZIIs. Massive upgrade. No more understeer and full throttle through every turn.
http://i.imgur.com/2OPU3bv.jpg
We'd still like to get a little more power out of this engine than stock. The only issue is that I'm afraid to fark anything up trying to "turn up" the injection pump. I don't know enough to fix anything I do incorrectly.
I also got a confirmation about future engines. If the 617.950 ever truly dies the team is cool with swapping to a more modern and more powerful MB diesel. I'll have to find us an OM606.962
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - Simpler=Better - 09-23-2014
Switch to manual steering, you won't mind it after a day or two. My DD w123 had power steering-convert-to-manual (unhooked belts) and my current DD(Ranger) has a PS rack with the lines looped and the pump removed. Neither is bad, they're both actually easier to steer than my lawnmower.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 09-24-2014
We almost switched to manual steering on accident. While driving at Sebring this summer we popped the hood during a lightning delay. The belt had managed to invert itself http://i.imgur.com/QicYAyE.jpg The pulley has become super warped but we've now put another ~700 race miles on it and it is working fine and hasn't flipped the belt again. Might need to grab another belt for it.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - atypicalguy - 10-14-2014
The KKK turbo lights up faster. It came stock on my 85 300tdt; apparently this was randomly done at the factory. Would be faster out of corners as someone said. Plug the EGR; I think you can just block the vacuum line on the actuator for the valve. You can also crank the wastegate spring up to get about 5 more psi; stock is 9-10 I think. You might want to race with an EGT sensor to be sure it doesn't melt though. Fundamentally you need more fuel to get a lot more power. Modding the injection pump is expensive.
I can't recall if anyone has added propane but it might be a good option; I think there is at least one vid on youtube about it. Not sure what it would take to pass inspection on a track though; somehow I doubt the BBQ cylinder in the back seat is going to do the trick...
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - Simpler=Better - 10-14-2014
advanced timing will get you more torque, and the pump can be adjusted to lower the torque curve.
Timing own't affect the temps too much, but internal pump adjustments will.
If oyu want to play with fire I can turn delivery valves down for you-that will melt pistons in a hurry but give you tons of power.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 10-23-2014
I'll have to look into upping the pump timing slightly. What are the downsides? I do like the sound of a little more torque. Melting pistons however, sounds bad. I have no complaints about being the tortoise in a hare race.
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 01-01-2015
Nothing to exciting lately but I got a stud kit so I can fit the SLK wheels. Instead of working on this car we've been replacing the trailing arm on the w123.
She looks food with these wheels and the Direzzas
http://imgur.com/3APUoF2
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 02-10-2015
Just got back from a race at Barber in AL. With better wheels/tires and better drivers we cut an average of about 13 seconds off per lap which is HUGE.
We picked up a 450SEL 6.9 differential which "should" be LSD. Would the LSD carrier bolt into our 3.07 diff or is it a different size?
RE: 300SD Delivery Ship racecar - buzzboy - 02-10-2015
Just got back from a race at Barber in AL. With better wheels/tires and better drivers we cut an average of about 13 seconds off per lap which is HUGE. I've also weighed the car and found that with a driver and half tank of fuel it weighs 3500lbs.
We took it out for a test 'n tune at the local dragstrip. Our best time was a 19.6 and our best speed was 67mph. Absolutely flying.
We picked up a 450SEL 6.9 differential which "should" be LSD. Would the LSD carrier bolt into our 3.07 diff or is it a different size?