The Curious Case of My MISSING SLS AMG Black Series!

The journey begins with our current project, a couple of SLRs and various high-performance vehicles that we've got here today. It's always a pleasure to work on projects like this and have access to such exciting machines. We appreciate your patience as we get started with this testing project. Moving forward, we'll be working on a very different V8 engine in the SLS Black Series, which I'm excited to get back into action soon.

As we make our way out of here, we've got a long drive ahead of us to return to the museum. The journey itself is just as exciting as the cars we have with us today - we'll need to navigate through traffic and ensure our safety on the road. With the AC blasting, it's essential to stay alert for any hazards such as forklifts and trucks that might be present.

It's been far too long since we last saw the SLS Black Series, but I'm thrilled to report that progress is being made. The car has been through a rigorous process of investigation and maintenance, with all the necessary components being sourced and replaced or repaired as needed. It's not an easy process, but the end result will be worth it.

I'd like to take a moment to thank Steve and the team at Avant-Garde for their incredible help in getting our SLS back on the road. It's been a challenging project, but with their expertise and support, we're confident that we can get the car up and running smoothly once again. As I've mentioned before, the SLS Black Series holds a special place in my heart - it's a dream car that I've had for years.

In fact, when I collected the car two and a half years ago, it was imported from Germany, which is why it's left-hand drive. Before bringing it back to the UK, I spent some time with it, getting to know its features and enjoying every moment behind the wheel. The SLS Black Series boasts an impressive V8 engine, Gullwing doors, and a sleek design that turns heads wherever it goes.

In addition to my personal connection to the car, I've always been fascinated by other high-performance vehicles like the Ferrari F50 and Porsche Carrera GT. These cars are truly out of reach for many enthusiasts, but for those who can make them their own, they're truly special.

Now that we've finished up our current project, it's time to get back behind the wheel of the SLS Black Series. With any luck, we'll be taking her for a spin in just a couple of weeks' time. Until then, I'm excited to have her parked safely back at the museum, where she'll remain until it's time to take her out for another adventure.

As we make our way back to the museum, I couldn't help but feel grateful for the opportunity to drive such an incredible car. With its V8 engine and sleek design, it's a joy to get behind the wheel and experience its performance firsthand. We'll be taking it on many more adventures in the future, including a visit to the Gad Automotive Museum, where we hope to take her out for a spin and do some investigative work with Tom and Brad.

Thanks again to Steve and the team at Avant-Garde for their hard work and dedication to our SLS Black Series. We're looking forward to seeing what the future holds for this incredible car, and we can't wait to share it all with you - stay tuned for more updates on this exciting project!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi guys I'm shmee hello and welcome back to the channel where today we need to talk about something that so many of you have been asking me about where is my SLS AMG Black Series it's one of my favorite schemobiles but we haven't seen it in a while typically it would be living here at the garage in this lineup up towards this end in fact where the gt8 is at the moment alongside it in this Gap would be the GT Black Series which is tucked in just over there under the mezzanine at the moment but it's been a notable absentee for far too long and that's had lots of you wondering what's happened to it have I sold it where's it gone what's the story and today we shall explain all I haven't actually seen it myself I think for about five months today we're heading out to avant-garde to have a full update to explain all what's been going on why you haven't seen it and how we're going to be seeing it again properly very very soon before we get on the road let's recap this a little bit my SLS AMG Black Series is a car I bought back in early 2020 just before everything went crazy a time that I was a bit nervous after I'd taken delivery of it whether this was a good idea but fast forward two and a half years I've driven it about 12 or 13 000 miles since most of which was in that first six months and it's probably worth get this approaching double what I bought it for back at the time and as a result it's a car certainly with longevity in mind and keeping it here in the collection that I need to look after now because of those early miles being based in Germany it was the time when I was spending a significant proportion of my time out in Germany it did a lot of very fast driving on the Autobahn at 200 miles an hour and it did a lot of laps on the Nurburgring nordstrifer two things that combined with the upgrades that I did after the respray Chartwell to Mystic blue and making the wheel silver we then went to do the full rentec R1 package to up the power and as a result of that it's been running very very hot very hot very frequently now you might remember last year it departed from The Collection temporarily after we did the audio upgrades with Cambridge Car Audio To Source a new ECU that we needed for the car and Parts Supply over the last year or two has been a disaster it took a very long time to track down an ECU eventually we got one that's why it was absent for a while but this time around I decided considering the values considering my intentions with the car down the line we need to get it right we need to do a lot of things so it went over to avant-garde about five months ago five or six months ago after I had driven it back from Germany literally on Christmas Day and the reason for that was to do the full investigation to work out everything that we needed to resolve and to Source all of the parts now sourcing Parts as I said has been incredibly difficult and because it needed lots of things like electrical components wiring elements sensors these kind of things it's been really difficult to track it all down and that's why it's been quite a lengthy process us you know it's a seven or eight year old car now it's hard to get all of these things but we need to do it right we need to do everything completely correctly and today we're going to be heading over to avant-garde to have the full update with it to explain why it hasn't been here a little bit more and to see it in person because I've not seen it myself for quite a long time and to be honest I'm itching to get back behind the wheel the SLS Black Series like I mean many of the other cars but especially the Ford GT the AMG GT Black Series are permanent stream mobiles they are cars that are going to be sticking around for the Long Haul and it's one that I know so many of you have been missing hearing and seeing on the channel in recent times so we've got the E500 outside at the moment it is quite an early start but we're going to head all the way over to avant-garde to go catch up with the SLS to see it again back on the channel to find out everything about it and to hopefully get some good news about it being back and returning here very soon you might be wondering why am I here driving in the E500 the E500 wagon which you might have seen on this Museum Channel I picked up recently the latest shmee mobile you could say this 2003 T model E500 estate which means we've got a lovely V8 engine we've got all of the technology and equipment and luxury features of a car that's nearly two decades old and we are cruising down some tight twisty English Countryside roads where something like this to be honest it's actually quite comfortable and pleasant but isn't necessarily entirely at home now on previous visits out to avant-garde we've been with the GT black series with the C63 Black Series I think I probably went with the G63 at one point because we had an update in the past with Steve at avant-garde about some of the issues that the car had on the previous visit but it's always worth bringing it to hands that you know are reliable and going to know exactly what's going on with the car so even though we're not exactly around the corner from base it's a good place to be able to bring the cars and we've got this small diversion right now down some quite interesting roads shall we say out in the west of England towards Bristol which I'm enjoying driving even although it's a completely different experience to the supercars and we've picked this car up as you'll know from the museum channel for some Towing tasks some garage errands just a car to throw some stuff in every now and then but I want to get a little bit more familiar with it myself so hence today taking it for this journey to meander down the lanes and it's amazing actually how well it rides and drives we've got the air suspension system we've got Tech that no random cat just running down the road we've got Tech that didn't I guess back 20 years ago or 19 years ago when this car was delivered was very very very very much from the future it's just all around Works everything works there's nothing in here that doesn't which is quite amazing as well so hopefully we will get to avocado before long it's about 40 minutes or so from here and then we'll be able to take a look at the SLS in detail run through it all go through everything that has been wrong with it is being worked on is being put together and then before too long from now it will all be back in one piece again and we'll be able to come back out to pick it up and obviously very much looking forward to that on the other hand this is still a car with a big V8 and that's what makes it so fun we could have gone with a diesel which might have been better for probably Towing stuff around but just to have that grumble in the background and it's not the loudest thing in the world but you know that it's there and you feel the talk of it and it's just it's just cool the E500 you know back when the 500 on the back of the car represented the engine it's a five liter V8 anyway not too far to go and I'm very much looking for forward to seeing this car again this is where things are pretty cool not one but two Mercedes SLR McLarens here being serviced at avant-garde but also of course we have my SLS AMG Black Series and it might be cliche for me to say this but having not seen it for a while the color of this car the Mystic blue is so nice especially with the silver wheels that we did at wolves with the Mystic blue insert for the AMG logo as well I have missed this car but we need to talk through everything that we've got going on here all of the components laid out and we will be joined in a moment by Steve to discuss things in more detail but it's not every day that you get to see into the engine bay and into the engine itself of the SLS Black Series and also some of the other components around the headers for example and the things that are going to be done in terms of the heat shielding but all the parts are here everything is here now to continue on this so let's go grab Steve and have a better look through it all hey Steve so here we are hi Tim welcome back thank you it's good to be back and it's fascinating to see everything yeah when it's in bits you get a real idea of what we're doing yeah and um it is in bits as you can see I don't know if you want to pop your camera in first of all and we'll have a look at the engine I mean obviously we brought the car back to you a fair few months now ago now you had a full inspection and kind of looked through everything to ascertain what it needed to do what we needed to do yeah so you've obviously had some fun in this car if you ever bring and and other things and it's had various modifications already as we know to the exhausts and that kind of thing it's got a lovely note when she runs but there has been some concerns with that namely with heat soak issues and also the engine did have a little bit of a rattle when it was on idle specifically on Startup as well which is a little bit common to AMG engines anyway um aligned to that there was also the dimension of maybe some loss of horses so for us it was a little bit of Investigation to see if any of all of those things tied together um and if there was what did we find it might be lead us to fixing it and hopefully regaining those lost horses yeah I talked a fair bit obviously before now about how this car has run frequently at 200 miles an hour plus it's done a number of Nurburgring laps it's been driven hard and as a result you have heat issues and this was one of the problems we faced a little bit before things like wiring Looms taking the brunt of that really yeah and parts like these being very hard to Source at the moment but obviously this time around you've gone significantly further because we are looking at parts of the engine you do not normally get to see that's right so essentially what we started doing was just engine diagnostic Basics which is checking things like cylinder leakage compression tests going through the Diagnostics on with the sensory diagnosis machine to see if there was any misfiring going on that kind of thing and really everything checked out it had good compression good cylinder leakage hadn't lost anything so that tells us really that a lot of the internals of the engine are still absolutely serviceable and in really good condition um but a couple of things we did find when we had the we took the rocker covers off that we weren't happy with that we could actually see visually um started here really um it's always a bit difficult to see the actual condition of the the complete valve lifter or the hydraulic lifter but once we've got it out we can see that a lot of the the heated coat heat coating the protective coating that they put on at AMG um it's worn away all the way around here and you can see certain blueness to the to the bucket as well indicating some some heat issues have gone in there now these could just be out of life essentially yeah and that's why you add a little bit of a rattle when she was idling and on Startup the actual main Mechanicals of the top end of the engine this is the the camshaft out of bank one on the inlet side it's in really good condition there's no wear on any of the lobes that we can visually see there's no pickup no indication that it's got excessively hot through through bluing or anything like that so we're very happy that the actual Mechanicals of the engine are in really good condition and these really on the early iterations of this the 6.3 engines were quite common and the most serviceable Replacements really comparison those are the yeah so these are the brand new ones that we've we've got from from Mercedes AMG from Germany as you see they're nice and new now all the protective coating is on them and uh we'll be installing those later on this week so ready to rebuild it's always amazing to see these kind of components knowing that those are from my car and I mean even just to see this piece removed and taken out I'm always fascinated by engineering and how they always craft yeah certain shapes uh to fit nicely and you know this this air scoop is is no different really um everything is really precisioned engineered even just getting the the AMG logos on is is lovely to look at um obviously these are the two throttle bodies on the yeah on the front the throttle valve actuators which provide the uh mixture into the engine now we've got the air boxes tucked away as well yeah they're over there which I believe you're going to be doing something with that's the plan that's the plan indeed so this has been part of it to investigate all of this to ensure it's all in proper shape and order but obviously beyond that are the heat issues yeah so if you come over here we'll have a look at what we're doing with that this is a big part of it now it's quite fun to see these These are of course the rentac headers that's right that we fitted to the car a while back in Germany they get hot very hot they do so this is a complete manifold unit really um unusual normally the manifold is is Branched separately to the to the main pipe it's all one unit so this sits very very close to um the engine wiring harness which which runs around the back um and the heat from this is causing lots of sensor issues on the on the vehicle electricity can be very sensitive to heat especially on cars so what we're going to do is look to to manage this heat that's coming off these headers to prevent it soaking into the the engine components and we've got various different things here that have been provided to us by a company called Funk Motorsport in London I've had a couple of conversations what would be the best thing to do and they've supplied us with various pieces of equipment here to install so what we're going to do this is lava rock titanium exhaust wrap so this is going to be wrapped around the exhaust manifold on each branch down to where the oxygen sensor sits and then we're going to wrap the rest of the exhaust in this protective blanket that's quite cool yeah now Funk Motorsports say that this will reduce temperature from about 600 Degrees to about 100 degrees okay wow so it's a mass it's literally a massive yeah heat protection that we're supposed to be putting in um and then we they've supplied us some different little things so particularly it was the oil level sensors that were suffering with the heat so we've got some protection to go around the sensors itself around the engine wiring harness we've got this protective blanket now it looks quite big but it's actually velcro all the way around so this will will wrap around the wiring harness and that will just protect the wiring harness in future but what we're going to do this is double thick aluminum heat shield yeah it comes in the sheet and we're going to cut a very nice shape of heat shielding and then bolt that around the manifold get the top so it'll prevent any excess heat soaking upwards so really we're trying to do everything we can to make sure that this heat isn't going to soak in it's going to give it Extra Protection it's probably a little bit overprotected in some ways hey if the future of the car's life is anything like this it's like not until now it's worth it yeah it's absolutely worth it I mean it's it's obviously been a big job and involved a lot of I suppose time really for just waiting for parts and waiting for things to come in and sensors and again with the the last thing that we had with it when we're waiting for the engine harness you know that took us a while to to get hold of that and there's been the same sort of issues with some of these mechanical components um it's not just the you know the the valve buckets it's all the other little seals and gaskets that you need to to do it and make sure everything is here so when you start it you do it in one job as opposed to taking apart weight and realize something's missing and then all again so it's always best to do do everything in one hit so yeah even the alternator has been suffering with some with some heat problems you see that the back of this has started to melt and get very hot um that is actually quite critical because the main charge harness which comes from the battery goes to this now they do put a protective plastic cap over that and that completely Nutley melted away okay and the nut that hold it on was was blue you can tell that got very hot and then you've got the electrical connector which tells the engine that the the alternator is charging um again that had suffered some heat damage as well but we're going to replace this alternator put a new one on it mainly because we want to make sure that the internals of this alternator are good yeah as well whilst we got it apart and the the heat management protection that we're going to put around that exhaust should protect that we're not going to put any protection around the alternator that should be just nicely managed with um with the stuff that we're doing so yeah should all help it come back together well it's fascinating to see it thank you for all of your work on it really really cool to have come in and I guess had had a full update and seen how the state of play is yeah well we we like we like cool cars here you know as you've seen in your in your intro we've got a couple of slrs here and we also have lots of other different types of high performance vehicles in so it's always a pleasure to to work on stuff like this and to have it in so thank you very much for your patience with it because I know it's a testing project but I appreciate it time for us to head back a very different V8 in here to the one that we have in the SLS although I cannot wait to have that started up again in the not too distant future and let's make our way out for the journey onwards from here a whole lot of cars and trucks and things around just making sure we're all safe and good and the AC is obviously blasting watch out for forklifts and trucks and things but yeah how cool was that to come and see the SLS again it's been far too long and to know that there is actually some progress underway it is coming back together I actually need to work out how to turn this down a bit because that is there we go a little bit less aggressive like I've said many times it's not that I've sold it it's not something that I'm trying to keep secret it's just been an immensely annoying process as Steve said to Source all of the different ancillary so things you need to be able to take the engine apart and put it back together again to investigate and have a look into it to go through all the different components to go through everything that could be wrong to find out and get to the bottom of hopefully these problems and when it is all back together I suspect we'll try and go and visit Anthony at Gad where Tom and Brad on this Museum Channel took my C63 Black Series recently it's going to pop it onto the diner and do some investigative work into it as well hopefully they can or we can take the SLS up there and go and see how it is after all of this too so do stay tuned for that but of course first up we'll be returning back out here to come and actually pick it up to pick it up and take it for the first drive in a while to get it back to this Museum when the time comes and I can't actually wait for that I hope we get a day like today because it is absolutely glorious out today and this is quite a fun way to get around I think we're going to be doing many miles with this car with the c500 it just seems to be I don't know it's it's a fun way of Motoring fairly inexpensively in terms of the car at least without sorry I was gonna say while still having a smile having some fun out of it just because you know what it was you know how cool it is you know w211 generation E-class so onwards for now we've got a long old drive ahead of us to make our way back home towards the museum fast forward and we are back at this Museum it has been quite the drive beautiful weather but very very busy roads lots of traffic it's taken a while completely exhausted but how cool to have gone to see the SLS Black Series again it's not going to be long now until it returns here and it's parked back where it will live here at this Museum no I have not sold it as I said it's just been away for an extended period to sort all of this out in fact the last time it was here was after I drove it back at Christmas it stayed here through New Year just I think until February or so when it went over to avant-garde to start all of this work talking of which a big thanks to Steve and the team at avant-garde for all of their help with the car there's a lot that's involved I know it's a lot of work as well for those guys but the SLS Black Series is a very personal car for me when I collected it two and a half years ago now before bringing it back to the UK I imported it from Germany hence the left-hand Drive nature it was always one of my dream cars the only two cars I would ever say I dreamed of more more than the SLS Black Series are both a little bit Out Of Reach number one the Ferrari F50 number two the Porsche Carrera GT but the SLS Black Series is my generation that V8 engine those Gullwing doors the looks AMG everything about it super super cool so I can't wait to get the car back here yeah really excited to have it parked back up hopefully in only maybe two weeks or so we shall see so stay tuned for that and our first drive back behind the wheel but for now that is all a big thanks again to Steven the team with avant-garde a big thanks as always to you guys for your support it is hugely appreciated that's it for this time and I'll see you again very soon cheershi guys I'm shmee hello and welcome back to the channel where today we need to talk about something that so many of you have been asking me about where is my SLS AMG Black Series it's one of my favorite schemobiles but we haven't seen it in a while typically it would be living here at the garage in this lineup up towards this end in fact where the gt8 is at the moment alongside it in this Gap would be the GT Black Series which is tucked in just over there under the mezzanine at the moment but it's been a notable absentee for far too long and that's had lots of you wondering what's happened to it have I sold it where's it gone what's the story and today we shall explain all I haven't actually seen it myself I think for about five months today we're heading out to avant-garde to have a full update to explain all what's been going on why you haven't seen it and how we're going to be seeing it again properly very very soon before we get on the road let's recap this a little bit my SLS AMG Black Series is a car I bought back in early 2020 just before everything went crazy a time that I was a bit nervous after I'd taken delivery of it whether this was a good idea but fast forward two and a half years I've driven it about 12 or 13 000 miles since most of which was in that first six months and it's probably worth get this approaching double what I bought it for back at the time and as a result it's a car certainly with longevity in mind and keeping it here in the collection that I need to look after now because of those early miles being based in Germany it was the time when I was spending a significant proportion of my time out in Germany it did a lot of very fast driving on the Autobahn at 200 miles an hour and it did a lot of laps on the Nurburgring nordstrifer two things that combined with the upgrades that I did after the respray Chartwell to Mystic blue and making the wheel silver we then went to do the full rentec R1 package to up the power and as a result of that it's been running very very hot very hot very frequently now you might remember last year it departed from The Collection temporarily after we did the audio upgrades with Cambridge Car Audio To Source a new ECU that we needed for the car and Parts Supply over the last year or two has been a disaster it took a very long time to track down an ECU eventually we got one that's why it was absent for a while but this time around I decided considering the values considering my intentions with the car down the line we need to get it right we need to do a lot of things so it went over to avant-garde about five months ago five or six months ago after I had driven it back from Germany literally on Christmas Day and the reason for that was to do the full investigation to work out everything that we needed to resolve and to Source all of the parts now sourcing Parts as I said has been incredibly difficult and because it needed lots of things like electrical components wiring elements sensors these kind of things it's been really difficult to track it all down and that's why it's been quite a lengthy process us you know it's a seven or eight year old car now it's hard to get all of these things but we need to do it right we need to do everything completely correctly and today we're going to be heading over to avant-garde to have the full update with it to explain why it hasn't been here a little bit more and to see it in person because I've not seen it myself for quite a long time and to be honest I'm itching to get back behind the wheel the SLS Black Series like I mean many of the other cars but especially the Ford GT the AMG GT Black Series are permanent stream mobiles they are cars that are going to be sticking around for the Long Haul and it's one that I know so many of you have been missing hearing and seeing on the channel in recent times so we've got the E500 outside at the moment it is quite an early start but we're going to head all the way over to avant-garde to go catch up with the SLS to see it again back on the channel to find out everything about it and to hopefully get some good news about it being back and returning here very soon you might be wondering why am I here driving in the E500 the E500 wagon which you might have seen on this Museum Channel I picked up recently the latest shmee mobile you could say this 2003 T model E500 estate which means we've got a lovely V8 engine we've got all of the technology and equipment and luxury features of a car that's nearly two decades old and we are cruising down some tight twisty English Countryside roads where something like this to be honest it's actually quite comfortable and pleasant but isn't necessarily entirely at home now on previous visits out to avant-garde we've been with the GT black series with the C63 Black Series I think I probably went with the G63 at one point because we had an update in the past with Steve at avant-garde about some of the issues that the car had on the previous visit but it's always worth bringing it to hands that you know are reliable and going to know exactly what's going on with the car so even though we're not exactly around the corner from base it's a good place to be able to bring the cars and we've got this small diversion right now down some quite interesting roads shall we say out in the west of England towards Bristol which I'm enjoying driving even although it's a completely different experience to the supercars and we've picked this car up as you'll know from the museum channel for some Towing tasks some garage errands just a car to throw some stuff in every now and then but I want to get a little bit more familiar with it myself so hence today taking it for this journey to meander down the lanes and it's amazing actually how well it rides and drives we've got the air suspension system we've got Tech that no random cat just running down the road we've got Tech that didn't I guess back 20 years ago or 19 years ago when this car was delivered was very very very very much from the future it's just all around Works everything works there's nothing in here that doesn't which is quite amazing as well so hopefully we will get to avocado before long it's about 40 minutes or so from here and then we'll be able to take a look at the SLS in detail run through it all go through everything that has been wrong with it is being worked on is being put together and then before too long from now it will all be back in one piece again and we'll be able to come back out to pick it up and obviously very much looking forward to that on the other hand this is still a car with a big V8 and that's what makes it so fun we could have gone with a diesel which might have been better for probably Towing stuff around but just to have that grumble in the background and it's not the loudest thing in the world but you know that it's there and you feel the talk of it and it's just it's just cool the E500 you know back when the 500 on the back of the car represented the engine it's a five liter V8 anyway not too far to go and I'm very much looking for forward to seeing this car again this is where things are pretty cool not one but two Mercedes SLR McLarens here being serviced at avant-garde but also of course we have my SLS AMG Black Series and it might be cliche for me to say this but having not seen it for a while the color of this car the Mystic blue is so nice especially with the silver wheels that we did at wolves with the Mystic blue insert for the AMG logo as well I have missed this car but we need to talk through everything that we've got going on here all of the components laid out and we will be joined in a moment by Steve to discuss things in more detail but it's not every day that you get to see into the engine bay and into the engine itself of the SLS Black Series and also some of the other components around the headers for example and the things that are going to be done in terms of the heat shielding but all the parts are here everything is here now to continue on this so let's go grab Steve and have a better look through it all hey Steve so here we are hi Tim welcome back thank you it's good to be back and it's fascinating to see everything yeah when it's in bits you get a real idea of what we're doing yeah and um it is in bits as you can see I don't know if you want to pop your camera in first of all and we'll have a look at the engine I mean obviously we brought the car back to you a fair few months now ago now you had a full inspection and kind of looked through everything to ascertain what it needed to do what we needed to do yeah so you've obviously had some fun in this car if you ever bring and and other things and it's had various modifications already as we know to the exhausts and that kind of thing it's got a lovely note when she runs but there has been some concerns with that namely with heat soak issues and also the engine did have a little bit of a rattle when it was on idle specifically on Startup as well which is a little bit common to AMG engines anyway um aligned to that there was also the dimension of maybe some loss of horses so for us it was a little bit of Investigation to see if any of all of those things tied together um and if there was what did we find it might be lead us to fixing it and hopefully regaining those lost horses yeah I talked a fair bit obviously before now about how this car has run frequently at 200 miles an hour plus it's done a number of Nurburgring laps it's been driven hard and as a result you have heat issues and this was one of the problems we faced a little bit before things like wiring Looms taking the brunt of that really yeah and parts like these being very hard to Source at the moment but obviously this time around you've gone significantly further because we are looking at parts of the engine you do not normally get to see that's right so essentially what we started doing was just engine diagnostic Basics which is checking things like cylinder leakage compression tests going through the Diagnostics on with the sensory diagnosis machine to see if there was any misfiring going on that kind of thing and really everything checked out it had good compression good cylinder leakage hadn't lost anything so that tells us really that a lot of the internals of the engine are still absolutely serviceable and in really good condition um but a couple of things we did find when we had the we took the rocker covers off that we weren't happy with that we could actually see visually um started here really um it's always a bit difficult to see the actual condition of the the complete valve lifter or the hydraulic lifter but once we've got it out we can see that a lot of the the heated coat heat coating the protective coating that they put on at AMG um it's worn away all the way around here and you can see certain blueness to the to the bucket as well indicating some some heat issues have gone in there now these could just be out of life essentially yeah and that's why you add a little bit of a rattle when she was idling and on Startup the actual main Mechanicals of the top end of the engine this is the the camshaft out of bank one on the inlet side it's in really good condition there's no wear on any of the lobes that we can visually see there's no pickup no indication that it's got excessively hot through through bluing or anything like that so we're very happy that the actual Mechanicals of the engine are in really good condition and these really on the early iterations of this the 6.3 engines were quite common and the most serviceable Replacements really comparison those are the yeah so these are the brand new ones that we've we've got from from Mercedes AMG from Germany as you see they're nice and new now all the protective coating is on them and uh we'll be installing those later on this week so ready to rebuild it's always amazing to see these kind of components knowing that those are from my car and I mean even just to see this piece removed and taken out I'm always fascinated by engineering and how they always craft yeah certain shapes uh to fit nicely and you know this this air scoop is is no different really um everything is really precisioned engineered even just getting the the AMG logos on is is lovely to look at um obviously these are the two throttle bodies on the yeah on the front the throttle valve actuators which provide the uh mixture into the engine now we've got the air boxes tucked away as well yeah they're over there which I believe you're going to be doing something with that's the plan that's the plan indeed so this has been part of it to investigate all of this to ensure it's all in proper shape and order but obviously beyond that are the heat issues yeah so if you come over here we'll have a look at what we're doing with that this is a big part of it now it's quite fun to see these These are of course the rentac headers that's right that we fitted to the car a while back in Germany they get hot very hot they do so this is a complete manifold unit really um unusual normally the manifold is is Branched separately to the to the main pipe it's all one unit so this sits very very close to um the engine wiring harness which which runs around the back um and the heat from this is causing lots of sensor issues on the on the vehicle electricity can be very sensitive to heat especially on cars so what we're going to do is look to to manage this heat that's coming off these headers to prevent it soaking into the the engine components and we've got various different things here that have been provided to us by a company called Funk Motorsport in London I've had a couple of conversations what would be the best thing to do and they've supplied us with various pieces of equipment here to install so what we're going to do this is lava rock titanium exhaust wrap so this is going to be wrapped around the exhaust manifold on each branch down to where the oxygen sensor sits and then we're going to wrap the rest of the exhaust in this protective blanket that's quite cool yeah now Funk Motorsports say that this will reduce temperature from about 600 Degrees to about 100 degrees okay wow so it's a mass it's literally a massive yeah heat protection that we're supposed to be putting in um and then we they've supplied us some different little things so particularly it was the oil level sensors that were suffering with the heat so we've got some protection to go around the sensors itself around the engine wiring harness we've got this protective blanket now it looks quite big but it's actually velcro all the way around so this will will wrap around the wiring harness and that will just protect the wiring harness in future but what we're going to do this is double thick aluminum heat shield yeah it comes in the sheet and we're going to cut a very nice shape of heat shielding and then bolt that around the manifold get the top so it'll prevent any excess heat soaking upwards so really we're trying to do everything we can to make sure that this heat isn't going to soak in it's going to give it Extra Protection it's probably a little bit overprotected in some ways hey if the future of the car's life is anything like this it's like not until now it's worth it yeah it's absolutely worth it I mean it's it's obviously been a big job and involved a lot of I suppose time really for just waiting for parts and waiting for things to come in and sensors and again with the the last thing that we had with it when we're waiting for the engine harness you know that took us a while to to get hold of that and there's been the same sort of issues with some of these mechanical components um it's not just the you know the the valve buckets it's all the other little seals and gaskets that you need to to do it and make sure everything is here so when you start it you do it in one job as opposed to taking apart weight and realize something's missing and then all again so it's always best to do do everything in one hit so yeah even the alternator has been suffering with some with some heat problems you see that the back of this has started to melt and get very hot um that is actually quite critical because the main charge harness which comes from the battery goes to this now they do put a protective plastic cap over that and that completely Nutley melted away okay and the nut that hold it on was was blue you can tell that got very hot and then you've got the electrical connector which tells the engine that the the alternator is charging um again that had suffered some heat damage as well but we're going to replace this alternator put a new one on it mainly because we want to make sure that the internals of this alternator are good yeah as well whilst we got it apart and the the heat management protection that we're going to put around that exhaust should protect that we're not going to put any protection around the alternator that should be just nicely managed with um with the stuff that we're doing so yeah should all help it come back together well it's fascinating to see it thank you for all of your work on it really really cool to have come in and I guess had had a full update and seen how the state of play is yeah well we we like we like cool cars here you know as you've seen in your in your intro we've got a couple of slrs here and we also have lots of other different types of high performance vehicles in so it's always a pleasure to to work on stuff like this and to have it in so thank you very much for your patience with it because I know it's a testing project but I appreciate it time for us to head back a very different V8 in here to the one that we have in the SLS although I cannot wait to have that started up again in the not too distant future and let's make our way out for the journey onwards from here a whole lot of cars and trucks and things around just making sure we're all safe and good and the AC is obviously blasting watch out for forklifts and trucks and things but yeah how cool was that to come and see the SLS again it's been far too long and to know that there is actually some progress underway it is coming back together I actually need to work out how to turn this down a bit because that is there we go a little bit less aggressive like I've said many times it's not that I've sold it it's not something that I'm trying to keep secret it's just been an immensely annoying process as Steve said to Source all of the different ancillary so things you need to be able to take the engine apart and put it back together again to investigate and have a look into it to go through all the different components to go through everything that could be wrong to find out and get to the bottom of hopefully these problems and when it is all back together I suspect we'll try and go and visit Anthony at Gad where Tom and Brad on this Museum Channel took my C63 Black Series recently it's going to pop it onto the diner and do some investigative work into it as well hopefully they can or we can take the SLS up there and go and see how it is after all of this too so do stay tuned for that but of course first up we'll be returning back out here to come and actually pick it up to pick it up and take it for the first drive in a while to get it back to this Museum when the time comes and I can't actually wait for that I hope we get a day like today because it is absolutely glorious out today and this is quite a fun way to get around I think we're going to be doing many miles with this car with the c500 it just seems to be I don't know it's it's a fun way of Motoring fairly inexpensively in terms of the car at least without sorry I was gonna say while still having a smile having some fun out of it just because you know what it was you know how cool it is you know w211 generation E-class so onwards for now we've got a long old drive ahead of us to make our way back home towards the museum fast forward and we are back at this Museum it has been quite the drive beautiful weather but very very busy roads lots of traffic it's taken a while completely exhausted but how cool to have gone to see the SLS Black Series again it's not going to be long now until it returns here and it's parked back where it will live here at this Museum no I have not sold it as I said it's just been away for an extended period to sort all of this out in fact the last time it was here was after I drove it back at Christmas it stayed here through New Year just I think until February or so when it went over to avant-garde to start all of this work talking of which a big thanks to Steve and the team at avant-garde for all of their help with the car there's a lot that's involved I know it's a lot of work as well for those guys but the SLS Black Series is a very personal car for me when I collected it two and a half years ago now before bringing it back to the UK I imported it from Germany hence the left-hand Drive nature it was always one of my dream cars the only two cars I would ever say I dreamed of more more than the SLS Black Series are both a little bit Out Of Reach number one the Ferrari F50 number two the Porsche Carrera GT but the SLS Black Series is my generation that V8 engine those Gullwing doors the looks AMG everything about it super super cool so I can't wait to get the car back here yeah really excited to have it parked back up hopefully in only maybe two weeks or so we shall see so stay tuned for that and our first drive back behind the wheel but for now that is all a big thanks again to Steven the team with avant-garde a big thanks as always to you guys for your support it is hugely appreciated that's it for this time and I'll see you again very soon cheers\n"