E46 vs. IS300 vs. 350z v. G35

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wvonkessler
Yes to the nissans. Tim did, but was not in depth and I don't know enough about suspension to evaluate the IS300. It does make good power and at least one is being rallied in Finland under IS/RS200 guise.

Mercedes W203 chassis. They have massive suspension travel stock, hell for stout chassis, and they are getting to be dirt cheap now. I have one as a LeMons car right now and it just lets me ignore every bit of curbing on a track. We had a brake failure entering the corkscrew at Laguna Seca last year and had to straighline the corner...it just drove through the gravel drop with no drama...just a bounce as I went over the drainage cover.

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Tim Taylor
Mercedes W203 chassis. They have massive suspension travel stock, hell for stout chassis, and they are getting to be dirt cheap now. I have one as a LeMons car right now and it just lets me ignore every bit of curbing on a track. We had a brake failure entering the corkscrew at Laguna Seca last year and had to straighline the corner...it just drove through the gravel drop with no drama...just a bounce as I went over the drainage cover.

Was this Merc available in a stick?

Also, any knowledge on the difference between the sedan, coupe, and hatchback models?

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Tim Taylor

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wvonkessler
Yes to the nissans. Tim did, but was not in depth and I don't know enough about suspension to evaluate the IS300. It does make good power and at least one is being rallied in Finland under IS/RS200 guise.

Mercedes W203 chassis. They have massive suspension travel stock, hell for stout chassis, and they are getting to be dirt cheap now. I have one as a LeMons car right now and it just lets me ignore every bit of curbing on a track. We had a brake failure entering the corkscrew at Laguna Seca last year and had to straighline the corner...it just drove through the gravel drop with no drama...just a bounce as I went over the drainage cover.

Hi Tim!!!
I forgot about those. I always wanted a C230 back in the early 2000s. They aren't dirt cheap here yet but getting into the affordable ~$5k range for a decent one with the six speed manual.
What weight is your lemons car at?
Do you recall what your thoughts were on the IS300?

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Grant Hughes

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Andrew_Frick
Was this Merc available in a stick?

Also, any knowledge on the difference between the sedan, coupe, and hatchback models?

I have a 2003 C320 that is a 6-speed manual but it was one of 50 imported that year. There were many more 6-speeds in the C230 coupe that came with the supercharged 4 cylinder engine. I don't have deep knowledge of the variation between models but I would expect that they all have the same front strut setup (about 9.8" of travel stock with another 2+ that you could get using longer struts) and in the rear the wagon and hatchback most likely share a flat floor style subframe while the sedan has tall shocks that run up into the wheel wells.

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NoCoast
Hi Tim!!!
I forgot about those. I always wanted a C230 back in the early 2000s. They aren't dirt cheap here yet but getting into the affordable ~$5k range for a decent one with the six speed manual.
What weight is your lemons car at?
Do you recall what your thoughts were on the IS300?

Hi Grant. They're way cheap here in the Bay Area. Any day of the week you can get a decent C230 daily driver for less than $4K and ratty ones are down below $2K. I got my C320 as a crunched insurance buy back for $1800 and promptly sold off the 5 remaining airbags, some leather interior bits and 3 catalytic converters to make it a free car.

I don't have any corner weights for it. The EPROM on my scales lost its memory and I'm too lazy/busy to ship them back to be repaired. It's not feathery light though. Think more Volvo or Saab stout with a bunch of triple wall sections of the chassis.

Around here the IS300s are still absurdly expensive. I remember the front suspension travel was limited and the front steering knuckle was huge/fragile looking. The rear suspension was basically Supra so there were easy limited slip diffs and a wide range of gear ratios.