Many 190E (W201) carriers will fit and they ranged from 2.87 to 3.27. The 16v 190E's have limited-slip 3.27 gears which would be best for performance. This 3.67 gear I mentioned is probably from a 300SE, W140, but I'm not positive. Check the ratios on the diesel W124 cars, I'm sure someone here has this info. Diesels generally have shorter gears since they are slow starters.
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Mike
Old School AMG Junkee
W126C- 6.0L AMG 32v- SOLD!!!
W163
W124
3000 to 3500 revs. is not high by any means. My older 89' 300e with the 4 speed will run at 4600 to 5100 revs. with about 600 revs. to spare for long distances and never break a sweat (run hot) This translates to 115 to 125 mph. The only negative is increased oil consumption. In Europe and other parts of the world, these cars are are routinely driven flat out for long distances. Americans are used to driving lazy V8's and get excited when revs exceed 4,000 rpms or more than 100 mph. These are not Buicks yall.
That's as fast as I dared to go tonight with the increased patrol presence on Saudi roads these days. The last four speeds are illegal on Saudi roads (maximum legal speed is 110km/h.)
In theory, you can fit any 124 differential on any other 124 - it's a bolt-off, bolt-on affair. If you get a differential from, say, a 200E, it will perfectly fit on a 300E. But the 200E's differential has a shorter ratio, which means snappier acceleration, but less (actual) speed (that is, with the same transmission.)
And by "actual" I mean your real speed as opposed to what the speedo indicates. In the case of this scenario, the speedo could be indicating, say, 115 km/h, but you could only actually be going at 100 km/h (your actual speed on the road.)
Tire size is another story. my car is riding on 205/65R15 94V tires, which are aproximately 1.3mm larger in diameter than the stock 195/65R15 tires. This means that my actual speed on the road is 1-2 percent higher that indicated by my speedo, so when my speedo is cruising at 100km/h, i'm actually doing 101 or 102km/h. In comparison to the 215/60R15 tires I had before, I did notice a slight "sluggishness" in acceleration, but I also got slightly better gas mileage on long(er) trips. Otherwise, the slightly taller tires have no effect whatsoever on gear ratios.
Thanks Shady and Redwood for your thoughts! Good reading. Redwood, great analogy on people in America not going over 100mph w/ their cars. How much oil consumption (crankcase) were you experiencing and was it with synthetic oils or conventional? bc
Shady...Your passion for MB cars shines through in every way!![:D] Thanks for the info.
p.s. does your speedo have us units in mph as well?
km/hr is confusing to some of us here in the states.
Linear Mode
