Have you guys ever heard of the guy who traded a little red paper clip for a house? So basically The Story Goes this guy started with a little red paper clip. he traded it in for a pen and then a doorknob and then I think a can of propane, a generator and then 15 trades later this turned into a house and this story has inspired many to see how far they can go trading up and so I want to try something similar with my Turbo Honda swapped Mercedes I Bought my Honda powered Mercedes C240 out of New Jersey for only six thousand dollars and after a few auto parts store parking lot repairs, it made it 800 miles back home to Chicago without any issues. The Mirada Katies is a super cool and unique build as it was converted from all-wheel drive to rear-wheel drive with a six-speed manual transmission, uses a very powerful Hondata ECU and digital screen and put down over 400 wheel horsepower with its turbocharged K24 engine. The car straight rips and runs well, but I did discover some shortcomings in the Swap and it needs some love to make it a hundred percent and to be honest, I've simply lost interest.

This was definitely an Impulse buy and it's not a swap that I would have thought to do myself. so it's time to move on and try out this little experiment to see how far I can take trading engine swapped cars. right now, my end goal is to eventually trade up to a thirty thousand dollar car and I have no clue if this will actually work, but it all starts now with trying to trade for another engine swapped Mercedes Push button start. there's our Lambo cluster six-speed manual and then check this out.

Second gear. This is a four-cylinder mind you, it just rips in 600 feet. Turn left. we're almost there.

about to go check out this. LS swapped Mercedes So excited! This car looks pretty clean! I Do think it's worth more than this car so I have to bring some cash to the table but we'll see if we can work out your destination is. Oh there it is there. It is awesome! Love the monoblock! Wheels Can't wait to check this out.

Let's do it all right. We're waiting for the owner to come out, but this is a 1991 124 chassis Mercedes E-Class So this is a 300D It started off Life as a diesel and now it has a 5.3 liter LS that we're going to take a look at in a moment. Oh this is really cool. Still has the badging for the diesel engine.

Wow! I Gotta say, right off the bat, the body looks really nice. looks a little bit better than mine. So about a week ago I put up a post on Facebook Instagram and YouTube that I wanted to trade my Turbo Honda swapped Mercedes for anything that's swapped. So the prerequisites here were pretty basic.

It had to be a car that ran and drove and that had an engine swap done. So I Got a bunch of emails and this one was only about 45 minutes away. and it's a Mercedes with an LS and supposedly the AC works so it might be kind of a nice car. This definitely fits the bill.

What in the world? Look at this a Mondeo owner of the motorcycle shop I Saw pictures online but this is insane. Hey hey, good night Dance for you guys! Oh nice, sweet. All right. So Stan owns Moto and motor? Yes and we're in.

Northbrook Illinois Dude, this is insane. How long have you been in business? uh since 2009? Professional. All right. So you answered my my calling that I wanted to trade my Honda kswapped Mercedes correct or another swap vehicle.

Can you show us the uh the 120? Yeah. Take a look. Okay Stan I Gotta I gotta ask. Right off the bat.

okay I did not notice this I literally just did a walk around the car. What in the world is going on right here? So the nipple was installed in order to clear the throttle body motor and this was done a long time ago. I Believe now you can buy them. they're more compact.

Okay, um, there was really no plan. Originally was just a hole and then my buddy had uh, years ago put like a cap on here and welded it so it's enclosed. So your friend built this car right? A friend of his built the car Okay, sorry, a friend of his built the car I Gotta say it it. Blends In well because I did not catch that.

Did any of you guys seriously catch that when? I just showed the car a minute ago I didn't see it. So how many? how many miles have you driven this thing? Uh, you think maybe a thousand? Okay, how many? how long have you owned it? Uh, it's been at least a couple of years. I Honestly don't remember now. Okay, it's been at least a couple years.

Oh, the gauges are really cool. Very nice fitment. This is amazing. They house them all inside of the original cluster.

all right, low carbon fiber wrap accents and this is a 4l60 so it is an automatic. I Know I'm trading a six-speed manual car for an automatic, but who knows. maybe maybe it'll work out. I Don't know.

We gotta look around the 124 chassis. Mercedes is a tank. The interior is actually held up pretty well. look at this, dashes and cracked at all.

This driver's seat. yeah, a little something here, no biggie and it's definitely got that old Mercedes smell. If you guys know, you know what I'm talking about. Wow.

Really nice back seats. Do you know how many miles are on the body? I would say a couple hundred thousand? Okay, yeah, where is it from? It's not rusted out. it looks like no, it was a fairly well-kept car. I got it out of Missouri where it came from prior to that I Don't know.

Okay, so all right, we got to get to the good stuff right away. What do we got going on here? Okay now I Can see? Yeah, yeah, oh man. look at that. I I Haven't seen a throttle body like this in a long time.

All right. and here's the famous cap nipple. We're gonna call that the nip the nip the nipple cap Stan It's already getting nicknames for parts that are welded to the hood. I Don't know if that's good or bad.

Whoa. This exhaust is very, very interesting. What in the world? Well, I'll tell you one thing. Sam it's got head studs so that's a good sign that at some point they wanted to boost this.

or maybe it was boosted I'm not sure, but yeah, this is very interesting. just like how interesting it's been watching my kid learn how to code with Codemonkey.com Code Monkey is an award-winning site that helps kids learn to code and kids love it because it's game based and fun. Look at that! Nona My son loves Code Monkey So right now he's working on a challenge and he's coding right now and what he's trying to accomplish is making this. Beaver Finish the damn.

So he's typing in the codes here, presses play and we're gonna find out if he did this right and if this beaver will be successful. Nice. He got another one. All right.

Challenge: 20 completed. That's out of four but the way he's just kind glued to this computer, he'll be done with this challenge in no time. Good job dude. It looks nighttime.

One, two, three four. Okay, so don't tell him right now. he's not even listening to me right now. He's so in his own.

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so check it out down below. Now let's get back to the show. So this is an Iron block 5'3 You can see the black here is kind of rusted aluminum. LS Cylinder Heads This is is your pretty typical kind of budget swap as far as LS engine.

nothing wrong with it, but these are pretty inexpensive. They came in a bajillion. Silverados Vans pickup trucks. All sorts of stuff.

Uh, but okay. yeah, it fits in here. like like a glove. All right.

So we have the original 124 AC fans. It looks like there an aftermarket fan here. Uh, this does have power steering and it has an AC compressor that is awesome. First start of my maybe next new car I Don't know.

Foreign little bell squeal. No biggie, we could fix that. Oh yeah, look at that belt. she's wobbling around.

might be the wrong size or the tensioner's bad. It's been sitting for about a year in storage so we just pulled it out yesterday. Oh, these gauges are so cool. Oh that felt squeals.

not cool. Whoa. Oh did you hear that? This thing sounds Wicked What in the world I Was not expecting this. a 300D To those who don't know.

What Lies Beneath the capped Hood Okay, Stan's letting me take this thing out for a little test drive. It hasn't been driven in about a year and I haven't been in a 124 chassis in a long long time. as I look around for manual seed buttons. This is luxurious.

We'll mess with the AC later that window. Works Um wow. this is intense. Whoa.

Okay, that's a lot of steps to get into drive, but wow the pedal. This is so weird. The accelerator pedal is like a lot higher than the brake pedal so when you're on your brakes, you got to kind of like lift your leg up a little. That's weird.

Look what's pulling in. Oh, that guy was checking the car out. Oh it is peppy. I Gotta say, this has to be a stock torque converter because it just goes right off the line.

It's not. It's not mushy. you're not waiting for anything to rev up. I wonder how this thing is geared? Oh my gosh.

I Have to like learn how to drive this thing. Just a little bit of throttle. it just goes nuts. Definitely has a shift kit or something in the tune.

This thing shifts nicely though. like very firm, kind of hard. probably chirps them into like every gear. All right.

it is like 100 degrees out. Let's see if this AC works. It's got automatic climate control All right. This is something I don't remember which which one is just bent.

Send it to the vents. Yeah. I Think the AC needs to charge. it is coming out of the vent.

at least one of them. Whoa. It moves. It moves pretty good.

I Don't think much is done to this 5-3 Uh, it is naturally aspirated obviously, but it moves okay. It handles pretty well. I Think he said he put some Bilstein shocks and lowering springs, but it's tight. Like the steering suspension is in good shape.

It rides nice too. Good stance. Brakes are decent, chirping all the time. Not necessarily something I'm super into, but kind of cool just considering what type of car this is I Love the belt squeak though.

that's that's my favorite I Know this is probably a steering wheel repair, but it's kind of like one of those little lines they put at the top of the steering wheel. It's kind of a race car thing. It's kind of like that. All right, a little grip here.

Okay I think that started in second. All right, let's see what it does off the line. Okay, you know I Gotta say I think the uh, the turbo Honda Mercedes might be faster I mean obviously this is way heavier and it's naturally aspirated I did not even do that on purpose. That was like an eighth throttle.

It's weird. right off the it's got one of those like Pedal Commanders it feels like it is so so touchy and this is definitely an open diff. Okay, no, it feels good. It feels it feels like a stockish 5.3 liter.

and there's a possibility that maybe they even lowered the compression because we saw those head studs. we saw those exhaust manifolds it looks like they were maybe getting ready for. Boost Um, so this could be like a, you know, a 300 ish horsepower. LS That's pretty much what it feels like and it's kind of a heavier car.

Sounds so cool, except for the belt squeak I don't know guys. what do you think should I trade Stan my Honda Katie's Mercedes thing. whatever we ended up calling that I don't know I mean I know I want to do it, that's for sure. It's just going to depend how much cash I got to throw on top of it if it makes any sense and we gotta find out if he even wants it.

So let's go back. We'll show Stan around the Honda KDs He's seen all the videos and all that, so he knows generally what's wrong with it. but I'm just going to kind of go over everything with him once more just so he fully understands that that car does still need some work where you know this one does too. But I think I think my car's got a beat in the sense that it needs it needs more love.

Like it I like it I like it man. the throttle response is intense right off the bat. It's like yeah, it throws you back. It's like this yeah, but then it.

but then after that it kind of just feels like your stockish five three LS you know it's it runs good though. it shifts good, it handles. um yeah. I think it's I think it's pretty solid.

You wanna check out mine? Let's check that out. All right. Stan As you saw in the videos, this is a K24 Honda engine in a C240 This is a 2004. It was a 4matic all-wheel drive car, but now it's all rear-wheel drive.

Um, it's got a turbo. It's got a water to air intercooler system, a nice fuel system, a really nice and expensive Honda computer with a digital uh Dash So we added some stuff up here and I think that there's about twelve thousand dollars worth of parts and car involved here. Um, something like that. but like I was saying, it's still a project.

like it needs a little. It needs little odds and ends. It made it here. Yeah, yeah, no, it drives great.

The most notable issue with this car is the transmission, not the transmission itself. But if you watch the last video on this car, it's it's kind of notchy. It's It's a six-speed manual out of a Chevy Colorado but it's a good transmission. What I think is wrong? Here are the Hydraulics So well yeah it's it's I think it needs more pressure because when you're trying to shift it at y wide open throttle, it's hard to like bang gears.

I Think the whole hydraulic system needs to be kind of rethought of maybe or just a bigger master. and then also you guys saw this in the last video the adapter plate from the K24 to this Chevy Colorado transmission. it was cut out of plastic. it was like 3D printed and it it offers a little bit of flex so when you push the clutch in, you can actually see this thing flexing a little.

and I think if it's not the Hydraulics if it doesn't need a master cylinder, it just needs that to be made out of aluminum. Yeah, other than that it runs beautifully. It was Dyno Tuned 402 wheel horsepower and then everything else you saw in the video that it needs like obviously the bumper. Yeah my plan was to go C230 sport compressor uh, bumpers or C55 bumpers something like that.

You want to go for a ride? Sure, let's take it for a spoon. Cool all right. So you just turn the key to position two like this and then it's got push button start. This is one of my favorite parts.

It's got this cool Digital dash and it boots up and you can change. You can change this up but right now it has the Lamborghini instrument cluster layout. Check it out, that's awesome Isn't that cool. All right.

So it takes a little bit of getting used to on the clutch. It's not hard or anything. No, no, just no, just a quick release. Yeah, so here, take that clutch pedal and just give it a little pump.

There you go. Now push it down. There you go. Yeah, it's I think right now that that plate is flexing a little.

Okay, so if you thought the throttle response was pretty awesome on on your V8 one feel, just a little throttle and how quick the spool isn't that awesome. Quick. sounds pretty good right? Yeah, it does. Sounds great.

This is one of those silly cars that just puts a smile on your face Jen's got it. Stan's got it too it. just it's like what are we doing here? we're in the Mercedes and it's making all sorts of Honda noises but in a really good way. like a lot of Hondas kind of have that bark can kind of sound and this one doesn't.

it's it's kind of deeper and nice. It's got a nice cooling sound. Yeah, what's cool From what you guys told me with the Hondata computer, you can make this thing do like a no lift shift which I think would be beneficial. you know with any four cylinder with the turbo but with the hydraulic system for the clutch so you just can't bang gears.

All right? What do you think I think it's really quick and looks like it's a fun car. There's no doubt about it. it's definitely different and it comes on Boost it's just insane for you're you're thinking you're sitting in a performance car like uh you know 911 Turbo but it's not. it's a C240 so we had a bunch of loose bolts.

yeah and it's that that's made of plastic they 3D printed I know you watch the videos but I just I want to show you everything so the back bumper, a little bit of paint fade on there. you know little odds and ends but these are real. Mercedes AMG Wheels with really good tires so those are quite valuable, but overall there's no rust on this car. It's got a little key right there.

someone keyed it and I was also going to do the C230 or the C55 Springs and brakes. I actually have the brake calipers in the trunk so those come with the car, but it'll bring the ride height down a little bit. So I think a little bit of freshening with the bumpers, some brakes, some suspension, and then you said you have the ability to cut the plastic adapter in between the transit engine out of aluminum. Yes, we have capabilities for that.

Oh nice. Okay, yeah. I think that. I Think that's it.

That's pretty much all you need on this thing. What do you think? Well, you want to make a deal. Let's try to make a deal. All right.

What do you think? yours is worth thirteen five? Okay, I think my car's worth about nine thousand dollars I Paid six for it to be fair. I put like about a thousand dollars into it. Sure. But after we got this back and counted up all the parts that went into it I think it's about a nine thousand dollar car that needs a couple thousand dollars worth of miscellaneous to make it nice again, right? Um, so you're at Thirteen five, correct? Okay, that's what I have in the car plus the suspension and the work we've done.

Okay, so total, so total Thirteen five is total total what you have. Okay, so I think mine's worth nine? You think yours is worth thirteen five. What if I give you this car and three thousand dollars cash? That's something we could make happen I'd like to be a little bit higher than that kind of trade difference? Where's Ed Where's Vin Wiki Ed the Shrew negotiator when you need them I'm so bad at this stuff. All right.

What do you? Both of us have put a lot of effort into everything? There's no doubt about it. Well, I haven't put much effort into this car to be honest with you. I haven't done all that much to it well and then your friend or someone built that thing as well. So right.

So there's a lot of effort. There's a lot of things going on. I think trade difference and number wise is obviously 4 500. uh, I would say 4 000 would probably make me comfortable.

Okay to do the deal. Okay, so that's that would be more than enough to get this thing up up to up to Snuff right? You know, with bumpers and and stuff like that. All right guys. I'm gonna I'm just gonna do this I like the 124, it's cool and now you know what though now I'm like a little worried that I'm gonna end up keeping that thing.

So the whole point I I wanted like I told you is I want to trade for swapped vehicles and see how far I can get this to go right? Who knows? Maybe I swap into some supercharged LS Lamborghini or something I have no idea now I really like your car or my car I might enjoy it. You might enjoy it all right? Uh I Gotta go get some cash and we'll make the deal well here. All right here. So I did.

Thanks Dan thank you thank you. It's just so silly. I'm Gonna Miss This car. but obviously I'm not that into it because I'm trading in a way for a 124 chassis LS swap 300D I didn't think this was gonna happen I got a lot of really interesting emails from you guys and messages on social media and cars that I should trade for.

Although some of them weren't swapped at all, they were just like totally normal cars. but anyway I landed on this one. It ended up being local I did want a little bit of an adventure? we're gonna go in the bank. Um, so this isn't that big of an adventure and I think the 124 is going to make it, but after we make this deal, we're gonna bring it back to legit.

Street quarters, lift it up in the air and and see what we find underneath. Hopefully there's no surprises, but Stan seems like a straight up guy. so I think it's going to be okay. All right.

here is a clean title for a C240 Mercedes Okay and four thousand dollars cash? Okay, there you go and a key. Yes, it has a Band-Aid key tag. I didn't do that. All right, That's how it came.

um and then other to keep yours are in it. Yes. I got my binder? You got everything I think whatever accessories or parts are in the trunk, they're in the trunks. Okay, cool and uh, that's it.

All right. All right, Thanks, Thank you. Good to meet you likewise. and I'm going to bring you some go-kart rims with new tires I Need? That's okay? Yeah, any time.

All right. good deal. All right. All right, we're heading back to Legit.

Three cars. We'll see what we we really got ourselves into here. Goodbye Honda Katie's and hello LS Swapped 124. 300 D Look at these monoblocks.

Oh look at these tires. These tires are pretty much shot and they're kind of old too. Hang on, we gotta see what's in the trunk here. This thing sound weird to you guys? Is it missing? I don't know.

It's got really old gas in it so that could be something. we'll have to look into it. Hey look at this. We got some Bilstein shocks and H R Springs I Know this.

this has different Springs on it. Oh yeah, these are just the old ones and then we have new new parts in here. Lamp water. What do we got? Oh no, these are the old ball joints they saved.

All right. Oh and then he told me there were some gauges in here that used to be in the car. a boost gauge, an EGT gauge, and an exhaust pressure gauge. Okay, at first I was like wait a minute this was boosted.

but then I'm like yeah it was. It was a boosted turbo diesel. Okay, so I'm trying to get the AC to work. He did say there was a button that I have to press I don't know what this screen does.

There's a button here that doesn't seem to do anything. I'm just kind of feeling around for an AC button. I'll have to ask him and see where this button is for the AC I'm gonna go do that now. it's hot, All right.

Stan's gonna show us the button. the switch right here. Oh, that turns on the compressor. supposed to turn the compressor on.

Yeah, it's been sitting for a year, but uh, you might have to check pressure just in case. Okay, but the switch is located right here. Okay, cool. Okay, thanks.

Dan No problem. All right there it is. Would have taken me a while to find that. Okay, SEC definitely does not work.

It's hot. it does chirp them into. Second, it runs good. It runs good.

I Think that's just how the exhaust sounds at idle. It's not missing it. It runs really nice. It's smooth, it doesn't shake the car vibrate or anything, and this transmission is spot on.

I Can't wait to go check out these receipts. That is typically something you do before you buy a car or trade for a car. I'll do this in a very traditional way. If you haven't noticed in my videos, it's either sight unseen or a big mystery, but that's that's the fun.

One thing I noticed here is this oil pressure gauge is going nuts right now. It's pegged at 80, which usually just indicates that the sensor is bad. Hold on a second though. Oh yeah, then look at this.

It just goes wild. Sometimes it gets really low. Okay, it's like right when I let off. Yep, Yep, Yep, it's going down.

down, down down down down down down. And then look at that nine. PSI it's flashing and then it goes back up. Okay, all right.

Well, that's something else we got to look into. We have the belt squeak, the AC the oil pressure that's going wild. Hopefully that's just a gauge slash sensor issue. It's going down to zero.

Okay, that can't be real, right? A Lot of these older Ls's had sending unit issues. This could just be a junkyard by three, but the original Little Center unit. Okay, we're good. We're good.

Fingers crossed. we only have to go 45 minutes This time. Okay, I've driven way way sketch of your cars, way longer distances. All right, let's try opening up the sunroof.

It works. This is also something you don't do usually until you get back to your house and it might rain. So now let's see the Moment of Truth. Does it close? Yes, it does.

Oh, almost okay. There we go. Yay! Thank you Close! That is some 124 quality right there. These things are so solid and this one's even more solid than I.

Remember, they were very, very floaty, especially the 300D model, but with the lowering springs and different shocks or whatever they did under there, it feels so good. This is. this is like a 500e. really? We're almost at legit three quarters going 70 miles an hour straight as an arrow.

I'm making a turn right now. Okay, but it's straight as an arrow. normally. The handling is really nice on this car.

There's no slopping it whatsoever. this is just it's nicely balanced. Like this. Had a big heavy diesel engine and these came with V8s So having the Ls in there, it just fits right at home.

It's really nice guys, as long as the oil pressure issue isn't a real issue. we fixed the belt squeak, we got to charge up the AC and then who knows what else we find right now during the inspection. I Think this is a good deal. I Had about 7 000 into the other car I paid a four so I'm at 11 000 into this.

but if we can fix everything and it has working AC and we buff it out, it just kind of sort any other little issues. I Think it's worth way more than that. Let me know in the comments section what you guys think this car is worth Fully sorted. Yes, this thing sounds so crazy.

It's basically a 500e. If you guys aren't too familiar, this is a 500e. It was a very limited production run 124 chassis E-class It was their high performance version so it got the 5 liter V8 from the 129 chassis. SL It got the SL brakes.

It got special seats inside which this doesn't have. Unfortunately it was slightly lowered like this one. It had different Wheels as well. It was kind of like the E55 before the E55 came out.

Really cool car. Very sought after. Super expensive now and this in a lot of ways is better. Like performance wise not Rarity or anything cool like that but this has a more powerful engine.

It also has a four-speed automatic transmission like the 500e and it's lowered. It handles well. so did I just get like a really really budget 500e I think I kind of got a fake one. Let's dive into this madness right here.

See what we can find out about this build. Hopefully we can kind of gauge how much was put into this build. Okay Dakota Digital Okay, that's probably what the cluster is. Tires done in 2007 probably doesn't apply anymore.

Factory Mercedes Books wiring schematic for a 2005 Silverado with a 5.3 that's most likely what the engine came out of. More wiring schematics. Okay Lt1swap.com instructions for the gauge cluster. Lots of wiring schematics.

We had a receipt for a belt tension or lever. Okay, camshaft installation procedures. Does this have a little cam? Doesn't sound like it, but it could be a little boost cam trick flow. Specialties Does this have heads on it too? No way.

This might have an aftermarket Cam and cylinder heads. We are definitely borescoping. I Want to see if it's got different Pistons too. Okay, we got a lot of receipts from I Believe before the swap so a lot of this stuff kind of doesn't matter.

Yeah, this is definitely for money. Was a diesel. They got a bunch of fuel injection lines and then I think it's a three owner vehicle it came with. This isn't a Carfax I Don't know what this is, but no accidents, nothing.

Yeah, here we go. It's an auto check. Last odometer reading 109 000. it'd be like the lowest 124 diesel ever.

All right. Well, not much for adding up what it costs to build this thing. A lot of these receipts are from when it had a diesel engine, so it was at least maintained back then. I Guess that's cool.

Okay, I gotta figure out if we have heads and any internal engine work. Oh, let's see what we have for. Cylinder Heads Here there's usually a stamping here from the factory. What does that say that is not? Factory TFS LS1 1X I Believe is what that says Tsf LS1 Oh there we go.

Get out of here. We have trick flow heads on this thing. There's 1300 each. Wow! CNC Ported 64 CC chamber Yeah they work with the four eight, five, three, five, seven, Six zero.

Nice. We got trick flow heads 2600 worth of trick flow heads ARP head studs I'm sure this thing has a cam in it right? We got to figure out the compression ratio. although I need to know what Pistons are in this thing this had to have been set up for Boost We are going to find little tidbits of boost stuff going on here: I I think I hope I don't know why I hope that I'm supposed to just trade this for another swap vehicle but now I'm getting excited. Okay now how bad is it to get to the oil level sender here? Oh, it's not bad at all.

on a lot of the trucks. you have to take the intake manifold off. it's right there. Look at our red transmission too.

red valve covers and they did a coil bracket relocation sort of. This part's a little odd because normally the coils just sit directly on the valve covers I Wonder if they did this though so they can make custom spark plug wires to fit around these headers? That's got to be why they did this and you know what with that coming up, it would have hit the coil pack probably or come really close. They went through a lot of effort to get this exhaust system to work on here and I want to know why? Why fake 500e? Why I Want to pull the plugs and start borescoping but it is really hot under here so while this cools off, let's lift her up guys. look at this.

All of these Factory plastic mounting points are intact. You know it's a good old. Mercedes When you see that a lot of times these are missing and then the Rockers all crushed in and crusty looking. This looks so good and we're going to keep it that way here.

We go here. we go things on the body of this car as we go along. Did you guys see this on the fender? What is going on right here That is not a factory? Yeah, the driver's side doesn't have it. Guys, let me know.

Is that a factory option on something? I Mean it looks like it would be helpful for cold air induction? Uh yeah. I mean that's that's definitely what they were using it for. Look at that. They have a circle cut out perfectly and that looks like fiberglass in there.

There's no way this is stock. Kind of cool though, especially looking at this car. It's it's kind of a sleeper. if it's not running, it just looks like a normal one.

But if you see this, you know something's up. Let me know in the comments. Is this a 300D thing? Is this an aftermarket thing? It's a 500e thing? I I Don't know I doubt it. Okay, hang on.

this is killing me here. Here's a 91 500e so the regular one. Nothing. Let's look up the: 300D Is this a diesel? Oh it is totally the diesel.

No way. that is so cool. Look at that. That's where the factory intake goes I knew it looked too good.

Yeah, look it on the inside. This is too nice and too. Factory that is cool. but man, what a missed opportunity to not simply use that I would put the air filter right here.

I mean I guess this is technically colder, especially with that right there. but that's that's way too cool. I Love this. Oh man.

I Like this car even more now. I'm getting attached here. We go here we go people. We've been here many, many times.

We've seen lots of crusty vehicles on this rack. but I think this is going to be different because of this. This is the first part of the underneath I've seen and it is. It's gorgeous.

It is gorgeous I Know people throw this around a lot. You could eat off this surface blah blah blah. The surface is actually you know, dirty but it's so nice compared to what I work on I would I would eat off this I would put a sandwich on it. it would get a little dirty and I would eat the dirt.

That's how happy I am about seeing that right now. Oh wait a minute. hold on. This is weird though.

Not happy about this. Oh okay, all right, no big deal. I thought for a second that the spring had like busted through the lower control arm which you know wouldn't be a big deal. we just put a new one on but something definitely hit right here.

Uh okay. here is our inline fuel pump and there is the filter. All right, you know, not bad, a little cracking in this hose. I'll have to fix that and we might want to just get a new filter.

This just looks like a standard filter we can get from the auto parts store. This is clean guys. This is clean I think it's spent most of its life in Missouri and then Illinois but definitely not driven in the salt and it's really low mileage honestly for a 1991. but I mean we have nuts that would actually come loose without heat? that is.

That is a big big deal. Uh, this is an open diff. It is a factory Mercedes differential. What do we got going on for the drive shaft? They definitely did something here.

We have a Pem, a Pem racing drive shaft cool And here is a four-speed GM transmission and I'm assuming this is a 4L60E Yeah, that's definitely what this is. my 1000 horsepower turbo. Trans Am has a built 4L60E so they can be built up properly to hold a ton of power. and what this engine is producing now is not a lot of power.

So this Trans Mission will last pretty much forever. We got a little bit of oil leakage going on and some gigantic oil fittings. Wow, that's crazy. That's a little bit of JB Weld Maybe that's why it's leaking I don't know.

these are the trans cooler lines. They're right up on the exhaust so we'll just have to move those out of the way. Uh, looks like it has brand new Bilsteins, brand new ball joints tie rods. so they stuck with the factory gearbox system.

No rack and pinion. Um, is it missing the steering shock though? I Thought these all had a steering shock? Maybe not. and this is something I've never seen before. The pitman arm has been welded together and modified or bent or something I haven't seen that I don't know.

let me know. Have you guys ever seen that? That's weird. It looks very oddly specific though. like I don't think it was a repair I think they they did that for a reason.

Not sure what the reason is though. Whoa. All right. Well, this is something.

This may be why the AC doesn't work. This belt is off. So I mean this isn't the belt squeal, that's that. Might be this tensioner here, but this is something we're gonna have to figure out why this flew off.

Hopefully it's no big deal and the AC actually does work. Man, we can get really lucky with that. Does this? just need a couple tensioners and belts? We've really gone full circle here. This has a Ford Motorcraft oil filter.

That's what those gigantic lines are for. So they've done an oil filter relocation and that's likely because of all the steering stuff in this area. This is where the factory oil filter would have been, so that makes sense. And then this is an aftermarket oil pan.

You can see the sticker right there so everything clears and these are the pedestals that were welded to the factory subframe and done really nice. CX Racing makes that little adapter plate right there. And what's awesome is these aren't solid. These are urethane mounts.

That's why it's so smooth. I Mean hydraulic fluid filled engine mounts would be a lot smoother, but when you're in this car, it doesn't shake at all. It's really good. I Have the Poly mounts in the turbo.

Trans Am Same deal. even with an aftermarket camshaft. it feels great in there. I Hate when you get solid mounts and it just shakes you the whole time.

It's like, why, why are you doing that to yourself? Don't don't do that. This car is clean though. I Mean this is nice. Look at these beautiful frame rails.

The upper spring perch isn't rusted out. That was an issue. It is nice. This air filter needs to be cleaned.

Uh, this is a cooler. Oh, this is the transmission cooler. Oh okay. it's got a fan.

Yeah, it's a nice transmission cooler. It's getting air right from these little slits here in the front bumper And a fan. I Mean that That's hardcore. Man, they were not messing around.

This is really dirty and the tire hits it. which means it needs to be relocated to the factory. 300D Air filter location obviously. And here's a big huge spall fan.

Awesome. There we go, That's fixed. So here you can see the madness with this exhaust. so it goes all the way up there.

And here is our crossover tube and it connects right in there. It's kind of hard to see and then here is essentially your downpipe right here and it just goes into a single exhaust all the way back. So I can see that there isn't a lot of room here to run a proper exhaust. Let's say with headers or exhaust manifolds or it would come out here and it would come out here.

All of the steering system is in the way, so it's possible that they didn't have a turbo in mind and that this was just a necessity to just physically fit this. Engine with an exhaust in the car. Yeah, this exhaust is pretty wild. Uh, there we go.

That's the crossover from the other side coming from there and then it comes together with the exhaust that goes all the way around like this. This is crazy and then that's that downpipe right there. Yeah, I guess you could split this off and put a turbo right here. but I don't know if they specifically designed this with a turbo in mind and I have no idea what brand exhaust this is.

Let me know guys, What? What do we have? What? What is going on here? I Can tell you what's going on here though. this tensioner is shut. Oh yeah, this feels horrible. Definitely need a new tensioner.

This is its resting position with no tension. Oh yeah, I want to try and get this? AC belt back on. This tensioner seems okay. The AC compressor seems to be fine.

it spins, the tensioner, pulley is fine, the belt was off. I Don't know why. Let's go see if the AC works. Let's see what this sounds like.

It had belt noise before. Let me, uh. turn on my AC real quick. Oh, it did something idle went up.

it actually fixed the belt squeak. Turning that on, let's see if we get cold air. Yeah, it's still nothing. Still don't get any cold air.

Yeah, the belt's still on, hasn't flown off yet. I Think that sensor is a little shaky. Yeah, the temperature is making a little noise. Could have thrown the belt.

Um, but yeah, this compressor is not actually picking on. Could just be low spinning. Well though, that's good. Oh wait.

the pancakes on. Okay, still. yeah, that's not working. Oh thank you son.

Revving up on its own. that is not kicking in though. It wants to work, it wants to have. AC it's probably just low so we'll have to check that out too.

I'm making a list though people. I'm making a list. We will sort this car out. Yeah, the fans definitely work.

and uh, now that I've heated this engine up, let's uh. let's get our hands in here somehow to pull plugs. This is not. This is not fun.

Oh man, this is horrible to do plugs on. Okay I guess that's swap life for you though. I mean something's got to give right? I Think the easiest plugs to get to are ironically the passenger side because it has the most exhaust tubing going on and I was being very impatient and burned my hand. But I have let it sit and it's good.

It's good. It's fine, a little hot. it's okay. Uh let's see.

can we get can we get a plug out? Oh we can get a wire off. Sweet. Okay, ratchet is on all right Here we go. Do we have colder plugs for Boost Oh no, we just have Factory AC Delco Plugs Okay and they look pretty nice.

little oil here, no biggie, but wow, they look really good. You know what time it is borescope time are we gonna find factory? Pistons or forged ones? Do we have a fully built engine in the 500e? I mean 300D Whatever. Here we go into the depths of this 5.3 liter? Okay, Pistons up quite a bit. Oh, hold on a second though, look at that cylinder.

That is pretty. We got to move this piston down though. that is kind of too far up to really get a good view at it. It kind of looks like a stock one though.

but yeah, the cylinder liner looks good. All right. I'm gonna move this piston I'm just turning the crank right now. normally I would pull another plug, but they're very difficult to get out.

but look at that. look at that cylinder. That thing is sweet. Oh yeah, this is in great shape and there's a little directional dimple there.

Um, yeah, let me know guys in the comments. but these do look like just regular stock. Pistons Uh, carbon buildup is not that bad. Everything looks really good, but yeah, it's probably a stock bottom N53 and they just put the trick flow heads.

Most likely a cam. Maybe new lifters and whatnot. but whoa, this thing is in good shape. that is one of the nicest cylinder walls we've seen on this channel.

All right, if this is the stock 5.3 out of a 2005 Silverado with these specific trick flow heads I'd have to kind of do a little bit more research, but let me know in the comments if you know I'm curious if this has lower compression than normal because of the cylinder heads and if they were going to boost it I Don't know but either way it's probably like a I don't know 300 ish horsepower little 5.3 LS Done very very nicely to fit into this car and it just it just works. We just need to fix a few things, clean it up and this should be a nice car. Outside of of this, we gotta fix that. I Have hooked up our AC machine to the high and the low side.

It's my first time using this guy I Got it from bendpak and we just filled it up with 134 a refrigerant. Let's open these guys up all right. What do we have? about 50 psi high and low side? Um, that's pretty normal, but let's recover anyway. Cover and there's no start or okay, it's it's a thumbs up there we go.

Foreign is that we don't really know what this is supposed to take so we'll have to fill it based off of pressures provided the AC compressor actually kicks on. The recovery only took a few minutes because it recovered like 0.1 pounds. So we're gonna put it into a vacuum see if we have a leak now. Vacuum.

We don't need it that long. Let's just go 10 minutes. For now, it says press Ok but it's just a thumbs up man. I Like it.

Don't get me wrong I think it's cool. Thumbs up and this is stop Two. One finished. All right.

Cool. So this does an automatic leak test for 10 minutes so you can see here it's at minus 30 and hopefully this doesn't creep back up to zero and it stays exactly where it is. Okay, so we have 10 minutes to go on the vacuum test and this is a crazy coincidence. So I've never owned an LS swapped car.

This is my first and I just got a call from a delivery driver that another German LS swapped car that I bought like a few weeks ago is here. It came all the way from Arizona and it's here I didn't think it was going to be in today. Uh, I'll give you guys like a really tiny sneak peek. it should be pulling up any minute.

All right guys, there's your sneak peek right right there. That's all you're getting as a helicopter goes by. it's LS1 I'm back in from getting the and we're almost done here. Vacuum Finished Vacuum status.

Okay with a question. Mark usually tells you if it passed the test or not, but just from looking at it, these needles haven't moved. It passed. All right.

Well that's good news. It definitely passed the test. Uh so now we can try and charge it back up. So it calls for 2.4 pounds of R12 but this is obviously R134a So we do a little conversion and that means we need two pounds.

This is still using the factory condenser at Imagine the factory evaporator. It just has a different compressor and some lines. but I think two-ish is a good place to start. It's add a little bit of oil here.

We have no idea how much is in the system. Start off with two ounces and it's really slow but you can see that going down. Okay cooler system. give us AC This is cool.

It tells you how long it's taking to charge. Sometimes you have to start the car and use the compressor to suck it in. Um, but most of these machines will get the job done, charge finished. We're good.

All right. let's see if we have AC Oh yeah, it's getting cold right away. There we go look at that compressor working away. we got air conditioning.

That's all that is such a big deal on a swap. Like you want the swap to be complete and and for a car to really be complete, you need air conditioning. I mean I Live in Chicago Happier We don't need it and and we need it. I Would say my biggest pet peeve here is definitely the hood.

We got to get to the bottom of this. I Just don't believe that this is the only way this can be. We got to be able to fix this. Let's get this guy out of the way.

This is a gigantic throttle body. This is really cool, but it can go in any orientation. The engine doesn't care which way it's facing, so can we just move this? We're gonna find out. Okay, so here's our seal ring and I'm just going to pop these bolts out for now.

All right. So ideally we would put it over here where it looks like we have a lot more room with the power steering pump. but okay, it hits this line right here. But I think other than that it would work.

and the harness we'd need to extend that a little is that it is. It's just a power steering line issue that would be so much easier to fix than drilling a hole in your hood and putting a metal cap in and having the paint like flake off. That makes no sense. We got to try this.

I'm going to drain out this power steering fluid. We're going to remove the line, see if this fits. All right. Let's suck this out.

All right. I Think that's most of it? Okay I have a line wrench on here. Foreign rag tripping out. Oh man.

sew. Rings Not in the best of condition? Okay, let's see. it's Gotta fit here. See, these are the threaded holes.

It's not just straight on like that. It barely hits this right here and let me put a one bolt in. I'm gonna get a good idea of where we are here and let's just do another one to locate it exactly where it would need to be. It's not actually hitting the reservoir.

That's not the issue. Wait I see I see what it's hitting right there? It's the throttle body hitting this aluminum spacer. I Think it would clear though so we could grind that spacer down. But before we do, let's just remove the spacer and see if the throttle body fits.

I mean I doubt that works, but why not spacers coming off? and then let's look inside the intake. All right, let's see what we got. What do we got? What do we got? Whoa. That is a super clean intake manifold.

No oil. Wow. that is perfect. Definitely something you want to see.

I Gotta say, so far so good with this engine. Okay, let's try the simplest solution. Yeah, it definitely hits the reservoir right there. and I'm assuming yeah, this one had two.

Let's just run it like this. We'll poke another hole in the hood. Okay, so we do need the spacer. It's okay.

so this is how the spacer was and I just want to see here if we flip it like that if that. does anything for us. All right, this is working. So far.

it's bolted up okay. three bolts is good just to locate it All right. What do we got? What do we got? Didn't seem like anything was touching, just tighten it up. No, that's not touching.

I Mean it's close. It's definitely close. But the power steering, pulley, and the throttle body there. They don't move at all.

So even if the engine moves, these things would move together so that's okay. Um I Think the connector would fit in here and everything else is pretty nice. We could run it like this, although you think either way, no matter what we do, we're gonna have to figure something out for this hard line here. We might end up just having to run it steel braided.

so I'll have to get a male fitting on the steel braided end and just kind of do away with this metal. so maybe a little bit of a longer power steering hose something like that. I Flipped this back I Just wanted to see something I Think maybe the best option would be this. We don't have to redo anything with this steel line.

The connector has plenty of room. This isn't coming close to the pulley or the reservoir and it looks like these two bolts here. If we got extended bolts, we could use the current Provisions in the spacer to go right into the intake. and then this here.

This is about where this bolt would be right in this area. We could drill that and tap it. The torque spec on these little guys is not much at all. that would be enough to hold it and there's plenty of meat on the bottom one as well.

We're gonna fix everything on this car. It's gonna be awesome. That's all we need to do. And then I Got to figure out the hood.

So if you guys know of a 124 chassis black hood in good condition, uh, let me know. Legitstreetcards Gmail.com I'm gonna definitely search around I could get this one fixed but I'll do whatever makes the most Financial sense here we got working. AC We're gonna figure out this throttle body Hood thing in the next video we are going to fix I Think literally everything on this car. we're gonna get some new tires.

We're gonna do the fuel filter, that oil pressure switch I'm pretty sure that's all that needs. We'll do the tensioners whatever else we find we are fixing this car. We're gonna sort it out. and then I think I think it's going to be worth way more than what I have into it.

So so far I have eleven thousand dollars into a very very clean swap. Very clean rust free 124 chassis E-class in I Think one of the best color combinations with the black and the gray two-tone The interior is nice. the gauges are nice. What's really not to like about this? I Know you guys are going to say it needs a six-speed manual and I get it.

That would be really, really cool. but for the purpose of this series, I'm gonna definitely drive it for a while and kind of see what I think of it long term? uh and then I think we'll trade this up for something else. Who knows what it'll be I don't know. Stay tuned in the next video.

We're gonna fix everything and then we're gonna go drive on it. Beat on it. Get a really good feel for the car and see what she's got. So anyway with that I Hope you guys really enjoyed this video.

I Hope you kind of like this idea. It's something I've always had in my mind which is trading up from something small so maybe you guys are in the same boat and always thought something like this would be fun to do. Uh, so if you did like this video, you know what to do. Give it a big dirty old thumbs up.

Share the video with your friends, subscribe if you haven't already. Again, big thanks to everybody who's subscribed. We passed 1 million subscribers a couple of days ago and I'm I'm just honestly blown away. I will be doing something special.

Uh, kind of a 1 million subscriber recap video of my favorite parts of the channel or something like so we'll do that soon. But anyway, thank you guys so much and most importantly have a fantastic day! I Will see all of you in the next video. foreign so I basically so I basically have so I had about 7 000 into the gotta have your five point Got it? We got a um we've seen lots of crusty vehicles on this rack but we've seen some nice recovery. Didn't recover, only took a few minutes.

If I ever owned an LS1 SWAT car, hold on a second I Gotta think about this for a second before I say it. I Don't think so.