The journey to building the fastest old Merc (W107) in the world.
I purchased the vehicle from a friend in Sydney in 2003 as a weekend cruiser. Whilst i had owned many European and Japanese go fast road cars this was the first Merc i had owned.
It attracted me as a very elegant car that had “old school” character and a great car to cart blondes and Malamutes around in. I also used the vehicle as a commuter for soft days to the office and back and hardly ever put the roof up. The Australia weather offered magnificent motoring opportunities and it was an instant hit with friends and colleagues. During this time i decided to upgrade the 3.8 litre engine to a 5.6 litre that came from the backstreets of Germany. This was the factory derived high compression 225kw motor.
In 2006 on the basis on its superior engineering and style i also purchased an R230 to replace it in its commuting role as i had moved to Melbourne and needed all the creature comforts associated with suit wearing behaviour. Of course i had to get matching colour and wheels. The W107 became a weekender only as well as a dog taxi, the rear parcel shelf was the perfect size to sit a 50kg malamute in. Its usage decreased and was mostly garage bound in winters.
Having a shack in the bush in Tasmania meant an opportunity to trailer it to the frontier and to wiz around on the endless windy roads in the local area. There is also a large tarmac rally called Targa Tasmania that ran close to my place.
I assisted with roadside controls for a few years and then was invited to do a road control car which meant running with road cars that paid to run on closed roads but were not FIA safety equipment certified. This was typically the exotic supercar club that were not racers. After doing this for a few years and continually having to restrain the old girl and realising that maybe i am mot that old yet, i decided to enter the entry level rookie rally. This fundamentally meant mainly safety equipment, some suspension work and limited race equipment. Alas it turned out to be an engineering disaster with the engine breaking 3 times during the race, though we did solder through and finish the race. However as the navigator was driving the car back to the boat it finally let go. You can see the old girl struggling to get home here Mercedes SL Targa09 @ Longford - YouTube
The next year we spent much more time on the engineering side and ran the full event and also finished well. We were also highlighted in the award ceremony with our exuberant driving from the official photographer who took this picture. Some footage from one of the street sections can be seen here
There was a lot of positive feedback from the crowds who i believe have become bored with watching a whole lot of modern boring them with their “tyre strategies” and all that internal motorsport stuff that doesn’t translate well to anything entertaining. A lot of people enjoyed seeing an exotic classic being operated in such an irreverent mode. I think it is something about the “Top Gear” flippant approach that the fans seem to find exciting. Much of the modern road racers take themselves far too seriously and their personas are not very popular with crowds. It seems to me that the classic cars represent an era before computers and polished egos sapped all the joy from the street based races.
Alas not long after this yet another engine let go and this caused a dramatic rethink as the budget was well and truely blown. After much soul searching we decided to run 2 motors, an authentic one for large events and a Chevy LS3 as a track engine. The philosophy behind this was to preserve the 5.6 motor for events were factory conformance was critical and flog the track engine night and day. This was borne of extensive research on the engine metallurgy and discussion with Silver Arrows racing in Belguim. It appears that the first alloy engines had a serious flaw with the levels of silica in the metals. Coupled with this and the very tight engine bay fit the engine was getting wildly hot, pinging and eventually causing catastrophic failure.
The exercise in fitting the engine was an engineering epic. Taking several months of staring at an engine bay we finally got the new engine to fit. I had researched others who had gone through the same conversion process but found all of them had really just kept the shell and made major modifications to the entire car. There is a particularly fine example of how to pimp my ride built by a guy in a wheelchair in western Australia.
However our design principles were to make the operation completely reversible so that we could retrofit a new M117 engine. Much of the conversion issues revolved around engine placement as the bay is actually quite small and the steering arm is exactly in the way. Most people rip it out and after that they own a drag car not a racer. Our fit out can be unwired, unplumbed and unbolted and the original engine fits back in without any modifications, though we need different tailshafts and gearbox mounts.
In the end the clearances were very close with 4mm clearance where it was tight and 5mm where there was plenty of room . In fact it is so seamless that the non aficionados can’t actually tell it isn’t the factory engine. Of course the fitout design was highly problematic but, we believe unique for anywhere in the world, in the sense we want to go fast point to point. To this end horsepower is not that relevant as the chassis can really only cope with circa 450 horsepower which is 100 horsepower more than the factory ever got to.
To cope with the excess power the list of suspension and brake modifications got more serious. Though none of the original suspension geometry was modified, merely springs and shocks upgraded. This has happened 4 times during the life of the car and now front sporing rates are a ridiculous 1250 lbs, about the same as a light truck. However the handling is superb even though it is a still loose on the road as you can see from this video at the local track in Tasmania.
The shocks are all custom built gas Bilsteins as the car was originally lowered 3 inches but then raised nearly an inch to counter for the extreme travel needed in tarmac rallying. The rear brakes are standard but have to be basically rebuilt after each race whilst the front brakes are similar to specifications to the Australian V8 supercar specs. They have never faded but do shudder dramatically whilst they are warming up. The roll cage was like most of the modifications were custom made and much analysis took place to ensure the modifications were both effective and modified aspects of the car were minimised. Looking from the car externally it is hard to tell that it is not factory, apart from safety equipment and standard performance upgrades the engine is the main aspect of the car that would make the aficionados cringe.
The next project is to attempt to get a high performance original engine. To this end i have been in discussions with Silver Arrows Racing in Belguim home | Silver Arrows who run the authentic cars in Europe. Alas the options to buy from European engine builders are expensive and there is virtually no expertise in Australia to install and maintain them, let alone tune high performance options. As such without any sponsors this option is currently on hold and i will run club events that do not require strict factory specifications conformance. Should there be any readers of this article that are interested in getting involved i would obviously more than interested in talking to them.
To promote the brand and keep the “old school traditions” alive i have developed a poster that can be given out to spectators. This shows the car in various extreme postures from various races that it has been in as well as some of the engineering aspects.
Another type of racing i am contemplating is more serious track events. The Tasmanian Super Sprint series which has 3 classes of vehicles ranging from million dollar Lamborginis and Godzillas down to cars of a similar performance of Der Panzervagen. This is a more serious race event as opposed to track days or club events. This runs like LeMans where the cars with dramatic speed variation are all on the track at the same time but a scored on class times. It differs from a normal club event where i am in the right lane overtaking to being a little fish in a big pond. I imagine i would spend a lot of the day in the mirrors trying to keep a clean nose.
tubeface channel with all the action is at TargaMerc - YouTube
I purchased the vehicle from a friend in Sydney in 2003 as a weekend cruiser. Whilst i had owned many European and Japanese go fast road cars this was the first Merc i had owned.
It attracted me as a very elegant car that had “old school” character and a great car to cart blondes and Malamutes around in. I also used the vehicle as a commuter for soft days to the office and back and hardly ever put the roof up. The Australia weather offered magnificent motoring opportunities and it was an instant hit with friends and colleagues. During this time i decided to upgrade the 3.8 litre engine to a 5.6 litre that came from the backstreets of Germany. This was the factory derived high compression 225kw motor.
In 2006 on the basis on its superior engineering and style i also purchased an R230 to replace it in its commuting role as i had moved to Melbourne and needed all the creature comforts associated with suit wearing behaviour. Of course i had to get matching colour and wheels. The W107 became a weekender only as well as a dog taxi, the rear parcel shelf was the perfect size to sit a 50kg malamute in. Its usage decreased and was mostly garage bound in winters.
Having a shack in the bush in Tasmania meant an opportunity to trailer it to the frontier and to wiz around on the endless windy roads in the local area. There is also a large tarmac rally called Targa Tasmania that ran close to my place.
I assisted with roadside controls for a few years and then was invited to do a road control car which meant running with road cars that paid to run on closed roads but were not FIA safety equipment certified. This was typically the exotic supercar club that were not racers. After doing this for a few years and continually having to restrain the old girl and realising that maybe i am mot that old yet, i decided to enter the entry level rookie rally. This fundamentally meant mainly safety equipment, some suspension work and limited race equipment. Alas it turned out to be an engineering disaster with the engine breaking 3 times during the race, though we did solder through and finish the race. However as the navigator was driving the car back to the boat it finally let go. You can see the old girl struggling to get home here Mercedes SL Targa09 @ Longford - YouTube
The next year we spent much more time on the engineering side and ran the full event and also finished well. We were also highlighted in the award ceremony with our exuberant driving from the official photographer who took this picture. Some footage from one of the street sections can be seen here
There was a lot of positive feedback from the crowds who i believe have become bored with watching a whole lot of modern boring them with their “tyre strategies” and all that internal motorsport stuff that doesn’t translate well to anything entertaining. A lot of people enjoyed seeing an exotic classic being operated in such an irreverent mode. I think it is something about the “Top Gear” flippant approach that the fans seem to find exciting. Much of the modern road racers take themselves far too seriously and their personas are not very popular with crowds. It seems to me that the classic cars represent an era before computers and polished egos sapped all the joy from the street based races.
Alas not long after this yet another engine let go and this caused a dramatic rethink as the budget was well and truely blown. After much soul searching we decided to run 2 motors, an authentic one for large events and a Chevy LS3 as a track engine. The philosophy behind this was to preserve the 5.6 motor for events were factory conformance was critical and flog the track engine night and day. This was borne of extensive research on the engine metallurgy and discussion with Silver Arrows racing in Belguim. It appears that the first alloy engines had a serious flaw with the levels of silica in the metals. Coupled with this and the very tight engine bay fit the engine was getting wildly hot, pinging and eventually causing catastrophic failure.
The exercise in fitting the engine was an engineering epic. Taking several months of staring at an engine bay we finally got the new engine to fit. I had researched others who had gone through the same conversion process but found all of them had really just kept the shell and made major modifications to the entire car. There is a particularly fine example of how to pimp my ride built by a guy in a wheelchair in western Australia.
However our design principles were to make the operation completely reversible so that we could retrofit a new M117 engine. Much of the conversion issues revolved around engine placement as the bay is actually quite small and the steering arm is exactly in the way. Most people rip it out and after that they own a drag car not a racer. Our fit out can be unwired, unplumbed and unbolted and the original engine fits back in without any modifications, though we need different tailshafts and gearbox mounts.
In the end the clearances were very close with 4mm clearance where it was tight and 5mm where there was plenty of room . In fact it is so seamless that the non aficionados can’t actually tell it isn’t the factory engine. Of course the fitout design was highly problematic but, we believe unique for anywhere in the world, in the sense we want to go fast point to point. To this end horsepower is not that relevant as the chassis can really only cope with circa 450 horsepower which is 100 horsepower more than the factory ever got to.
To cope with the excess power the list of suspension and brake modifications got more serious. Though none of the original suspension geometry was modified, merely springs and shocks upgraded. This has happened 4 times during the life of the car and now front sporing rates are a ridiculous 1250 lbs, about the same as a light truck. However the handling is superb even though it is a still loose on the road as you can see from this video at the local track in Tasmania.
The shocks are all custom built gas Bilsteins as the car was originally lowered 3 inches but then raised nearly an inch to counter for the extreme travel needed in tarmac rallying. The rear brakes are standard but have to be basically rebuilt after each race whilst the front brakes are similar to specifications to the Australian V8 supercar specs. They have never faded but do shudder dramatically whilst they are warming up. The roll cage was like most of the modifications were custom made and much analysis took place to ensure the modifications were both effective and modified aspects of the car were minimised. Looking from the car externally it is hard to tell that it is not factory, apart from safety equipment and standard performance upgrades the engine is the main aspect of the car that would make the aficionados cringe.
The next project is to attempt to get a high performance original engine. To this end i have been in discussions with Silver Arrows Racing in Belguim home | Silver Arrows who run the authentic cars in Europe. Alas the options to buy from European engine builders are expensive and there is virtually no expertise in Australia to install and maintain them, let alone tune high performance options. As such without any sponsors this option is currently on hold and i will run club events that do not require strict factory specifications conformance. Should there be any readers of this article that are interested in getting involved i would obviously more than interested in talking to them.
To promote the brand and keep the “old school traditions” alive i have developed a poster that can be given out to spectators. This shows the car in various extreme postures from various races that it has been in as well as some of the engineering aspects.
Another type of racing i am contemplating is more serious track events. The Tasmanian Super Sprint series which has 3 classes of vehicles ranging from million dollar Lamborginis and Godzillas down to cars of a similar performance of Der Panzervagen. This is a more serious race event as opposed to track days or club events. This runs like LeMans where the cars with dramatic speed variation are all on the track at the same time but a scored on class times. It differs from a normal club event where i am in the right lane overtaking to being a little fish in a big pond. I imagine i would spend a lot of the day in the mirrors trying to keep a clean nose.
tubeface channel with all the action is at TargaMerc - YouTube