both engines can be stroked out to 3.6 using the 350 turbo desil crank. it will fit in both 103 and 104 engines, but chickens teeth are more common!
the brabus engine you are showing is a 103.


i think the brabus engine you have shown will be more powerfull than the amg one because the 3.6 amg 104, that was in the e36, was not a true amg modded engine, what i mean by that is that the e36 was a production car made by mercedes to selibrate the union of the companys, and for a while after that, amg's lost the edge, brabus was far in front at this point, because they were still building specials at massive extra cost.
both are ultra cool, but i think the brabus is much rarer, hopefully someone with more info will post the next stage for you.

 

Ive had a manual Brabus 3.6 m103 and it was quick but the engines are very unreliable, I personally know of 2 people in the UK with the brabus m103 engine and neither of them are running correctly. Ive now got 2 e36's, and they are slightly faster, and hvae much better low end response.

 

In the Georgia 1991 W124 coupe 3.6 brabus cost 4000$
here it is





it runs very well
how do you like price ?

 

price is ok, genadswali

but the brabus engines are very delicate because of the big bore:

bore 92,0 x stroke 90,0
245 HP @ 5750
360 Nm @ 4300

And iwhen you get problems with the cylinder head gasket
- you can take only brabus - which costs about 800€
and problems are preprogrammed!

This engine is an old 12V M103 engine.
It is slower as 24V M104 AMG.
And the torque is not that high and not in that wide rpm-range.
but is has more power than usual 320CE.




@nick.ged:

WTF? The M104 E36 was a full AMG engine.
There were done a lot of changes to the usual M104.
It was a big success.

bore 91 x stroke 92,4

And with a M104 E36 AMG you have very nice power:
272 HP @ 5750
300 Nm up from 1500 rpm!
350 Nm between 2800-5300 rpm!
385 Nm @ 3750-4500

The Brabus engines were really bad at the time.
The only good aftermarket modifications were done by Oettinger and Carlsson.

 

Head gasket

price is ok, genadswali

but the brabus engines are very delicate because of the big bore:

And iwhen you get problems with the cylinder head gasket
- you can take only brabus - which costs about 800€
and problems are preprogrammed!

Hi again :thumbsup:
I had never had any problems like I said with the big bore of this brabus.
But I had to get to the bottom of an oil cunsuming problem of my engine
So I toke it apart and found all the 2nd pistons rings to be broken into about 10-15 pieces on ALL 6 pistons, but all the other pistons rings were fine, so there was nothing to see on the compresion test.

But anyway I was wondering what could have caused this 2nd pistons rings falure leaving the oil hanging on the cylinder wall upon piston movements, again leaving the oil to be burned away under detonation.

But the pison rings lands was also realy bad on the Kolben Schmith pistons that brabus used at the time.

So I had to go with new pitons and raise the engine bore a bit.
But sp far the original engine bore at 92,25mm wich is the original bore has been no problem at all, but I think that the piston ring falure was due to the former owner using low octane fuels that made the engine knocking, damaging the pistons rings.

So did the whole thing, new engine bore at 92,35mm the stroke is measured to 90,00mm and I had no other visual problems in the engine at all else.
The cylinder wall was acturely also very finde but looked like rehoned at some point, maybee becuase the piton rings had been changed once before but with bad piston ring land they ofcause will brake again.
My theory at least.

So I have now the Rebored M103 Block brabus used for the M104 3.6-24 to 92,35mm. and redone the head with new valve seats and all the other work usual done at the engineer shop.

I ordered forged JE pistons with forged performance H conrods as I also see the standart mercedes rods to be very heavy for the rpm´s and the long stroke this angine has.
So the engine could defently need all the help in the world to make the rotating mass lighter.

But to my main question.

What head gasket to use with this brabus engine M104.980
I know brabus make them if you drop 800Euro but thats insane

The former dealer that had to change the head gakset and rings at some point told me that he just went to use an AMG head gasket with the same 92mm. diameter, and I have measured this old head gasket and it IS realy 92mm. but could this realy be a AMG head gasket then becuase this is far more cheap than bying the brabus one with the preprogrammed problems :surrender:
I was informed by Mercedes here that deals with brabus that the order number for the brabus 3.6-24 Valve head gasket is 00062444 I gues that is the brabus order number

What to do here, please advice :bowdown:

 

i was under the impression that prior to 1994, all amg engines were merc engines removed from the supplied cars and rebuilt by amg, in germany at there specialised engine shop. after 1994 mercedes built the amg engines along side there std engines and production rules applied, where as brabus still built bespoke engines? that made MORE POWER wich was what the original question was about? if not then i appologise, that was just the impression i had. i wasnt aware that the 3.6 was overbored above std, sorry for the mistake.

however;

common knowledge is that high tuned engines are usuly delicate and neded careful, regular servises.

the headgasket on my car is amg, it was £300 std 103 gaskets are £40.

i also wouldnt be supprised if the two 3.6 engines that dont run right are due to kjet problems or incorrect servising!
dont forget the later 104 has a much better fule delivery system, and better ignition timeing wich is where power is made and lost..........

103 is stronger than 104, ask pumpish, he doesnt use 104 in his 800bhp turbos...

and brabus 3.6 only makes 245? if thats correct i was way off, because the 103 12v 320ce made exactaly 245 from 103 engine with "just" 104 crank, upped compression ratio and head and cam modds, so brabus were rubbish, unless they, like amg at the time, charged for everything seperatly and the person that had the engine you state, only did half a job?

 

1988 Mercedes-Benz 300 CE 3.6 Coupe Customized by Brabus

this link shows 1988 3.6 brabus with claimed 300+ bhp

as i said bespoke brabus at the time were more powerfull than amg.

http://videos.streetfire.net/comments/BRABUS.htm

hears brabus vertion of hammer, again more POWER!

 

Brabus 3.6 m103 motor ke-jetronic fuel system 12 valve good performance car

 

The M103 E32 AMG had this specs:

90,0 x 84,0
compression ratio: 9,2
234 HP @ 5750
305 @ 4500





The 300CE 36 Brabus doesnt have 300 hp
"the last owner claimed 300 hp, though we haven't verified that on a dynomometer"



And you compare an M117 Hammer with a Brabus,
which was built some years later on a M119 engine?
that's kindergarten...



believe it or not
the brabus M103 and M104 (285hp @ 6300 rpm) engines were not perfect.
too big bore, normal stroke.
they ate headgaskets like hell.

I have a E36AMG with 210.000 Miles!
Without any engine failure...

And remember, we do not speak about supercharged 800hp cars.

naturally aspirated engines - M104 is better than M103

 

The M103 E32 AMG had this specs:

90,0 x 84,0
compression ratio: 9,2
234 HP @ 5750
305 @ 4500





The 300CE 36 Brabus doesnt have 300 hp
"the last owner claimed 300 hp, though we haven't verified that on a dynomometer"



And you compare an M117 Hammer with a Brabus,
which was built some years later on a M119 engine?
that's kindergarten...



believe it or not
the brabus M103 and M104 (285hp @ 6300 rpm) engines were not perfect.
too big bore, normal stroke.
they ate headgaskets like hell.

I have a E36AMG with 210.000 Miles!
Without any engine failure...

And remember, we do not speak about supercharged 800hp cars.

naturally aspirated engines - M104 is better than M103

For the engine to host a longer stroke than stock, did Mercedes do any block work to fit the longer Con rod??

 

the compressinon ratio in my 320ce widebody was deffinatly 10.5 to 1, i had it checked with a pippette. the bhp stated in the press on relece was 245. i think the 234 was from 1988 in the 190e 3.2

check post 29 on this thread, fourth photocopyed page down

http://forum.mbworld.org/forums/mercedes-vehicles/254355-1987-300e-3-2-amg.html

1987 300E 3.2 AMG - MBWorld.org Forums

it has a photocopy of an original mercedes text book with the specs for the 124 engine modds, you will plainly see stage 3 is 320 with245 bhp.

enought he said, she said. boring.

 

ah, ok you have a stage 3 tuned M103.

such tuning was very rare

thought we spoke about "common" tunings



but anyway, the Brabus M103 3.6 offered "only" 245hp, too.
but due to the longer stroke the engine has much more torque.

and as a german engineer said:
"with horsepowers you can sell a car,
with torque you win a race"

 

and the biggest advantage of the M104 3.6 AMG is the big and wide torque at low rpm

 

Having owned both, the Brabus was a lot of fun as it was manual. The Brabus I had was rated as 285 bhp, but back to back I found the E36 quicker. Ive driven 3 E36's and all 3 of them drive different to each other, the first one felt so slow it was the same as my e320, so I walked away disappointed. But the 2 which I have now go like stink.
Im glad i sold the brabus when I did, a friend of mine has had 3 head gaskets in less than 2000 miles on his. The difference for me is that I could use the E36 daily and not have to worry about things going wrong. The E36 coupe is rated at 7 seconds, but its quicker than my Porsche BoxsterS which is rated at 6.3 seconds.

As for the modifications on the amg engine:
A CNC'd cyclinder head was used in place of the forged one on the stock engine
CNC's pistons
350 SDL crankshaft
Different Cams

Its a shame the con rods were not uprated, would have been good to have H section rods. Ive looked into getting custom rods made up for a twin turbo conversion. The only thing is my compression ratio is 11:1, and Im told it should be around 9:1 for turbo charging. But in doing this Ill be losing a fair amount of torque, hence my dilema.

 

and there are some more modifications on the E36 to E320:

-piston-oilcooling
-bigger intake tube
-amg head gasket

and as I know
the con rods were modified, too

and only the inlet-camshaft were different from stock E320

that is my knowledge


BTW: Was the Brabus with a stock manual gearbox?

 

i would imagine the manual box in the brabus was the getrag dogleg box, long input shaft type. commonly foud in 190e cosworth 2.3 and 2.5 16v.

i had short input twin mass flywheel on mine to begin with, and the 245 bhp killed it (or was it my driving???). sinse turbo convertion ive fitted getrag and single mass flywheel.

 

on the subject of h beam rods, i had a set made, thats why i had the comp ratio mesured, so we could work out what lenght to make them. if you tell me how long you want them, i may be able to get another set. and also, turbo technics used to machine the std rods to shorten them to lower the comp ratio, you could look at that option also. the piston design, with short skirts makes piston mods undesirable to achive the same aim by the way.

 

The Brabus was a dogleg box, and from what I understand it was like this when it left brabus.

Back to the rods, I did look into modifying the rods, but IMO they are not the best design, the oil feed runnning through the centre of the rod is the reason they snap. Yes I too looked at taking a little off the top of the piston and again, there is not enough material there.

Here are some photos of my project, it was a donor car, the plan was to rebuild the engine, fit the turbos and retro fit the 5sp auto box to my other e320:

After doing all that I found a chap breaking a E36 w124. I managed to get all the wiring with the engine, gerabox, brakes, diff and prop. And typically after the conversion was done I found a 1 owner w124 e36 for sale and had to have that too.

The plan is to twin turbo the converted one, as its a car that Ill keep forever. Ive got one of the Hughes kits for the m104 3.2 tucked away in a safe place.

Here is the car the turbos are destined for:

 

nice. you are uk then?

 

@CLK320s:

Was that engine running?
I have same brown incrustation on the headcover in one of my E36, which I just bought.
I want to find the reason for it...

 

my engine was exactly the same colour inside when i split it at 125000 miles the cylinder head and the oilpan oil pump, everything was the same colour.

 

my AMG with 130.000 miles has this incrustation - was driven with shell helix 5W30

my second AMG with 210.000 miles looks like new, although it was driven with 15W40

 

Soo.... I have a line on a 350SDL crank, and I have a spare M103.


I want to build the 3.6. What is needed other than the 350 crank? I rad somewhere that the stock M103 pistons will work, but I will need C36 rods. Can anyone confirm this?

 

that sounds about right, you will need to have the cylinder head reworked, or get on off an e/c36 to get propper power gains,plus cams and fuleing mods too!
sure wish i could find such a crank.

the displacement will be 3.4 with this crank and std pistons in the 103, i realised this today on the way to work thinking about the various amg modded cars i had hurd of.

that will explain why brabus rebored to make there 103s 3.6!!

 

im trying mobil1 at the moment, i think it 0w40 or 0w30 not sure wich, but it conserns me that it seems to have a small ammount of vaporisation when i remove the filler cap after running it, no crud build up or anything, not loosing coolant or any other dodgey evidence, just a tiny wisp of what could be described as smoke when the cap is removed.

 

You should use Mobil1 5W50.
That is better than 0W40 for higher temperatures - as I understood u have a turbocharged M103 3.2?

 

I think to swap 3.6 liter m104 AMG engine in my w124
can I swap engine from C36?
the ecu must be only for w124? or can be used ecu from C