BMW E30 M3 vs. Mercedes-Benz 190E 16-valve

Originally Posted by customisbetter

The end of the video says it all. The host bought the car. You can't give a better review than that!

That can also imply that there might have been a biased from the very beginning as well.




Oh, and M3>190

i guess we can't win in a bmw forum!

oh well, i love my merc and driving it is super comfortable, but am willing to sacrifice some power for riding comfort

Originally Posted by Kris.R

That can also imply that there might have been a biased from the very beginning as well.

Oh, and M3>190

I hope you realize if it was a Evo II or even and Evo I 2.5-16 vs. the Evo M3, it would be a landslide victory for the Mercedes.

Originally Posted by B_Cyrus

I hope you realize if it was a Evo II or even and Evo I 2.5-16 vs. the Evo M3, it would be a landslide victory for the Mercedes.

I can't realize anything without a video.

Originally Posted by Kris.R

I can't realize anything without a video.

check out xhamster. Pretty good videos there.

Originally Posted by customisbetter

The end of the video says it all. The host bought the car. You can't give a better review than that!

So he can park it next to his E30 which he already owns.

I do love the 190E but I'd still rather have the E30 M3 of the two.

Originally Posted by B_Cyrus

check out xhamster. Pretty good videos there.

Fixed

Originally Posted by ///MPR77

Fixed

Originally Posted by B_Cyrus

check out xhamster. Pretty good videos there.

Checked it out and here's my conclusion:

both cars are cool. and glad they were produced.


i r happy with the video

man i remember my mom had an e190 2.6, it was the car i learned to drive in back in 94. Loveeedddd that car, wish i had a garage to turn it into an evo. id have an e30 m3, an e190 evo, an e46 m3, and a gt3 rs.

lol

Originally Posted by mkodama

Street performance and legacy, the E30 M3 wins. For everything else, including respect, the 190E. Way better engineered and built car in every way despite being released 3 years before the M3.

If the 190E had electronic fuel injection instead of mechanical, it would have matched or beat the E30 M3 in power, and it sacrificed some handling, but in return it got a much more enjoyable interior, along with 2 extra Recaros seats in the rear and two rear doors. If you like modding, the 190E also has a lot more potential than the already maximized M3.

+1million to the fuel injection. There are certain things about the 190e that i wish were different, and could have been because the technology existed back then, they just didn't want to eff with it i guess. I DD a 190e 16v, and my e30M3 is in the garage. for DD duties/comfort/features, 190e hands down. But the FI system, stupid fuses (those ones with the exposed filaments), crazy vacuum system things (locks and hvac system), recirc ball steering, all seem out of date in comparison to the M3.

as an owner of both i'm liking the trend of people paying more attention to the Cossie, but the M3 is a way better drivers car.

Originally Posted by duboy

+1million to the fuel injection. There are certain things about the 190e that i wish were different, and could have been because the technology existed back then, they just didn't want to eff with it i guess. I DD a 190e 16v, and my e30M3 is in the garage. for DD duties/comfort/features, 190e hands down. But the FI system, stupid fuses (those ones with the exposed filaments), crazy vacuum system things (locks and hvac system), recirc ball steering, all seem out of date in comparison to the M3.

as an owner of both i'm liking the trend of people paying more attention to the Cossie, but the M3 is a way better drivers car.

This is a completely truthful post.

I love the 190E, but those things you mentioned I hate with a passion.

Originally Posted by mkodama

This is a completely truthful post.

I love the 190E, but those things you mentioned I hate with a passion.

and the 190E is quirky too:

- why are the wing mirrors different sizes. i assume for better visibility, but WHY...it's...so strange.
- if you have a passenger wing mirror with a motor in it...and you wire it to a switch in the center console...why can't you motorize and wire the drivers side too instead of making me adjust it with a manual lever?
- do i really need to be able to adjust the height of the power antenna?
- Lastly....why is the shifter assembly made of 217 parts, most of which are small? maybe they could have made the shift feel of the Getrag 265 more like the M3, and less like rowing your hand through solidified oatmeal. no wonder people don't make SSKs for the 190e.


yeah. it's a strange beast. but I still love it. ;-)

Originally Posted by duboy

and the 190E is quirky too:

- why are the wing mirrors different sizes. i assume for better visibility, but WHY...it's...so strange.
- if you have a passenger wing mirror with a motor in it...and you wire it to a switch in the center console...why can't you motorize and wire the drivers side too instead of making me adjust it with a manual lever?
- do i really need to be able to adjust the height of the power antenna?
- Lastly....why is the shifter assembly made of 217 parts, most of which are small? maybe they could have made the shift feel of the Getrag 265 more like the M3, and less like rowing your hand through solidified oatmeal. no wonder people don't make SSKs for the 190e.
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/mike65/merc_gear_shifter.jpg[/IMG

yeah. it's a strange beast. but I still love it. ;-)

-The passenger side mirror was made narrower and electric because reaching to the side of the car to make adjustments or to fold it in for a narrow european street is inconvenient. It is taller to aid with parallel parking. The passenger side is the "default" size essentially. This was also a bit of a styling statement by the designer, Bruno Sacco.

-Mercedes-Benz didn't bother making the driver's side electric since you really don't need it to be when it's right next to the steering wheel, as well as keeping cost, complexity, and weight down. After 1993 they changed this though.

-You can adjust the height of your antenna?

-I haven't fiddled with the shifter yet, but I bet it's pretty easy to work on shift feel. Lots of rubber isolators and flexible linkages that could be replaced with metal.

Originally Posted by mkodama

-The passenger side mirror was made narrower and electric because reaching to the side of the car to make adjustments or to fold it in for a narrow european street is inconvenient. It is taller to aid with parallel parking. The passenger side is the "default" size essentially. This was also a bit of a styling statement by the designer, Bruno Sacco.

-Mercedes-Benz didn't bother making the driver's side electric since you really don't need it to be when it's right next to the steering wheel, as well as keeping cost, complexity, and weight down. After 1993 they changed this though.

-You can adjust the height of your antenna?

-I haven't fiddled with the shifter yet, but I bet it's pretty easy to work on shift feel. Lots of rubber isolators and flexible linkages that could be replaced with metal.

this is good info to know

yes, I have a switch on the dash to adjust the height of the power antenna, i'm about to bypass it though since the only hirschmann antenna i can get is the one for the later W201's that only goes up and down.

and yes...i have a full set of delrin shifter bushings at home, sometime very soon I will get it all apart. I'll let you know how it goes :-)

Drove both extensively in the late '80s/early '90s. Skip Barber driving school for the M3 and a business connection with Prestige MB in Paramus, NJ for a number of brand new 190E 2.3 weekend floggings. The M3 wins hands down in my book.

I think each car is more than just a car, each is a showcase of its company's ultimate goals and a way to stuff as much "awesome" into one car while keeping it street-legal and relatively affordable. Having driven dozens of E30 M3's (from all-original 38k mile show-worthy, extremely heavily-modified cars one of which not only had a fully-built S52B32 "Euro" engine but also a rather impressive forced-induction setup and razor-sharp suspension, to cars with 200k miles that were in such poor shape that I am pretty sure I could hear the car begging "kiiillll... Meeeeeeee"), I find them incredibly involving and every single one is a different experience from the next, sometimes the differences are subtle but sometimes they are immense. However, of all of the many different makes and models, stock or modified, of cars that I have driven in my life (from Honda Civic to Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 and everything in between), the E30 M3 is still a favorite because it has a very specific and unique "personality" to it. It's hard to explain, it really needs to be experienced.

That said, the 190E 16v is also an absolute gem, and like the E30 M3, is just as incredible today as it was 20+ years ago. I have been fortunate enough that I have had the opportunities to drive 4 different cars, two of the 2.3-16v, one 2.5-16v, and a much-too-brief time behind the wheel of an Evo I. The Evo I was the only car that was entirely stock, but all I can say in regards to the difference between it and the 2.3/2.5 is that the Evo pulled a bit harder in higher gears and it felt a bit more stable at speed; I only got to drive it 13 miles, so I can't speak to its abilities like I can the others with which I have had significantly more seat-time.
The 2.3-16 is actually what I found to be more fun to drive, but as they were all modified to some degree, I don't know if this holds true for the stock cars. The lesser-modified 2.3 (suspension overhaul, brakes revamped, drivetrain mounts/bushings replaced with stiffer bits, Delrin shifter bushings, some custom lightweight 17" wheels so that the OE wheels would remain spotless, and a few relatively mild engine tweaks incl: exhaust work, ceramic-coated aftermarket {i believe} headers/exhaust manifold, modified intake system with larger piping, and a few other things), well, it was a blast to drive. I don't know what it would have felt like on 1980's tires, but on Michelin PS2's with a fairly generous width (and thus contact patch), the car gripped at the pavement so tenaciously it was as if the tires were coated in some kind of adhesive. The ride was rougher than most E30 M3's I've driven, at least on the highway (M3's with equivalent suspension work), but it wasn't harsh. The car was also loud, but not in a bad way; the engine and drivetrain was simply very vocal which I actually enjoy as the more communicative parts allow you to have a better overall sense of what the car wants and how hard you're pushing it. I also found that the 2.3-16v was extremely communicative in terms of "letting you know" when you were approaching the cornering limits, and it was possible to drive the car extremely hard through very twisty roads yet have complete control over the behavior of the rear of the vehicle; essentially, you can easily put the tail out, but if you don't want to, it's extremely easy to keep it in, and it's also very controllable during oversteer and easy to reign in. Again, I don't know how much of this is the car and how much of it comes from the suspension upgrades and superb tires, but I was impressed nevertheless.
The 2.5-16v was modified to a much higher degree, and while some people find it sacrilegious to alter such a timeless car (in the same way many think that the E30 M3 should never be touched), I am not one of those people, and neither is the owner. The car had the entire EVO II bodywork including widened fenders (all OEM) and the only difference visually was the aftermarket wheels (and not the EVO wheels) as well as the lack of a suspension-height switch, as the owner decided that the immense expense of trying to retrofit a 22yr-old adjustable suspension system was not worth it at all when far better performance could be achieved with much more modern parts. As far as I know, the car was utilizing double-adjustable coilovers (cannot recall make, but they had at least 20/ea compression/rebound damping settings, and a surprising amount of height adjustment), seriously heavy-duty sway bars, a mix of bushings/bearings/mounts ranging from 10-15% stiffer than stock to 50-60% stiffer than stock (rubber bushings/mounts) to full-on aluminum mounts/bushings (the differential, and something else, at minimum; it's been a few years).
The engine was what was truly impressive, as the owner had essentially "built" the entire motor himself over the course of a little over 4 years while the chassis/suspension/brake work was slowly progressing (apparently the parts are incredibly difficult to source??). It all started due to a rather-simple issue: oil was getting past the piston rings, but rather than just fix that problem, he decided it was the perfect time to make it one of a kind. The Block was bored out to 97.1mm and Custom-made pistons from Mahle were added (whose tops were coated with combustion-chamber heat treatment by Swaintech), forged con-rods from Carillo that assisted in increasing the stroke by 1.75mm to 82mm (thus remaining over-square at 97.1x82mm bore-stroke), a mix of ARP kits (5 full-engine kits for a few different motors) to be able to use their (fantastic) parts exclusively, the crank was sent away to be blueprinted and balanced/honed, the intake manifold was honed and the intake runners were "ported and polished" (he simply made the airflow angle as smooth as possible) with the manifold being sent to SwainTech for heat-resistant coating afterward... The valvetrain was entirely worked over, to the point where he ended up with two entire "heads": one of them, kept in storage, is the entire OE Valvetrain that has been fully-restored and is 100%, and the other one which is on the car started with nothing more than an OE "head" that he built-up using improved parts including oversized titanium valves (the faces were coated by SwainTech), dual valve-springs, rather aggressive camshafts, and a lot more.
The exhaust was custom made by a local shop and apparently the only place near him that was able to do a full mandrel-bent exhaust system and utilized dual 2.5" tubes that were essentially "straight back" pipes with no resonators, ending in a dual-pipe muffler (I can't recall the brand, it was something unfamiliar and primarily used in Europe). The headers were also a brand unfamiliar to me, but were some of the nicest I've ever seen, being full-size equal-length tubular headers with absolutely perfect bends and an interior that was so well done it was almost a mirror-finish, and they were coated with a Plasma-sprayed ceramic coating (again, SwainTech). The intake system was, again, a custom design and utilized a hybrid design incorporating both stock and "CAI" design techniques, which ended up utilizing more of the latter in its final form as a single tube of Kevlar-Impregnated Carbon Fiber 3.5" in diameter, which snaked its way from just 8" in front of the throttle body down to the brake duct area with a giant conical filter at the end, a powdercoated and heat-treated piece of thick aluminum was bent and water-cut to size and fit a bit further back in the engine bay than typical. The throttle body was enlarged and a new butterfly valve added, with a 6" piece of Samco Sport silicone acting as a "coupler" between the 5" CF tube attached to the TB and the much larger one that was the intake.
The brakes were AP Racing 4-pot calipers up front with 2pc floating rotors (slotted) up front and the same in the rear with 15mm-smaller rotors. SS Braided brake lines and clutch line were used. I don't know what type of clutch/flywheel was used, except that the flywheel was incredibly light, and combined with the insane valvetrain and under-drive pulleys (which were also 62% lighter), made the car rev ALMOST TOO FAST.
17" BBS Wheels, of which type I can't be sure but they looked awfully similar to the LM's, finished off the package (well, of what I can recall).

That car, which I drove a number of times (the owner is a friend of my father's), and even drove back to back with an S50B32-swapped E30 M3, is still one of the most memorable drives I have ever had.

He managed to take what was an incredible car, and improve it in the way that only true custom work done by one person can. Talk about personality...


POINT IS: BOTH CARS ARE AS CLOSE TO PERFECT AS WE WILL SEE!

awesome vid thx for sharing!