Oh, this is Awesome! Mercedes are my second 'passion' (what normal people would call a sickness) after terrible GM crap. The M112 V6 and M113 V8 are really, really great engines - really common to see 300k+ on them on the street and, with Mercedes, street reliability actually tends to translate to track reliability (from what I've noticed, anyway). They're extremely modular too - my S430 ate its serpentine belt, and I wasn't sure why so I didn't want to spend literally dozens of $ on a new one, so I decided to look up commonality, thinking maybe an S500 and an E500 would use the same one. Nope, every M112 and M113, from a C240 right on up to an S55, use the same serpentine belt. I don't know what prompted them to do it, but, this engine family was designed to be used, abused, and not cared for, fixed with a sledgehammer, and they just don't quit. There's a 5.0 V8 with 29k miles near me, pulled out of an SL500, for sale for $400, because there is just no demand for them - in fairness, the rest of the cars do tend to be terribly needy, but, not the engines. I've really, really wanted to M113 swap something, but, the Volvo 240 is the project now, and, I"m pretty sure they're just way too wide to fit without getting into major work that I don't want to do.
Fun Crossfire fact - mechanically, pretty much the only thing that is Not Mercedes on that car is the transmission. For whatever reason, Mercedes decided that the Crossfire should not get their 6 speed manual, so Chrysler just settled for one from a Jeep Liberty or some crap. Why? Who knows! (Other than Mercedes being giant dicks to Chrysler about everything). But, weird. Also, the only non-Mercedes DCX vehicle to get a Mercedes engine (other than the handful of WK1 Grand Cherokees with the OM642 diesel).
Keep us posted, really excited to see how this one turns out!
Semi-Sentient Centenarians
1996 Buick Century - we upgraded our crappy GM sedan with parts from a crappy GM minivan.
"It's got a van motor, a 220 cubic inch plant, it's got van tires, van suspension, van shocks. It's a model with the catalytic converters ripped out so
it'll run good on regular gas. What do you say, is it a racecar or what?" - Blues Brothers, Probably