Our W210 E55 AMG Turbo

[CompR]

Been a few weeks since we've updated as we've been so busy.

Still running just 0.4-0.5bar boost while we quadruple check everything, but thankfully no more CVs or driveshafts have exploded.

Having said that, accelerating hard in a straight line (from a ~40mph rolling start) managed to snap one of the rear arms, so it's clearly making fairly decent torque levels...!

You know you're making good torque when you can snap a rear arm just from hard straight line rolling start acceleration (on a rare dry day).

Honestly the closest I've ever came to crashing without actually crashing- One rear wheel sitting at about 45deg toe out is not good when you're doing 100+.

Another thing we've found, is the torque is pretty much unusuable in the wet at any speed. And I mean any.

 

[CompR]

Totally forgot about this thread, so 9 months later, here's an update...

We got bored for a bit and for a few months just left it down the workshop gathering dust.

Then it was MOT time, so we thought it was about time to get it on the road, and it passed the MOT easily with just 2 tyres and 2 bushes.

Then drove it a bit, makes some good noises, and isn't slow, as this video hopefully shows...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNEX9n2s3eg

Then decided, despite it being about the least agile car in the world, to take it drifting...

A 2 ton autobox car with no handbrake and skinny front remoulds isn't exactly what we'd consider a dream drifter, but it was pretty hilarious and lasted the whole day no problem, happily bouncing off the limiter and so on, so from a reliability point of view, the conversion is pretty faultless.

Gonna make a few mild changes and use it for more drift days, as while it's not a 'good' drift car, it's a very fun one, and this car is all about fun...

 

[John Jones Jr]

Brilliant. I was wondering what happened to it.

 

[CompR]

Some poly bushes would really help. None of the bushes are exactly knackered, but can feel the car moving around on them when driven hard more than I'd like.

Not surprising with car this heavy, but it would be a big improvement if no longer like that.

Unless my searching skills are really poor, there's not any for the W210 really though.

 

[BFT]

If you ever sell do send me a message!

 

[CompR]

Like most standard production cars, off throttle at least, the E55 understeers too much for my liking, so more front grip was in order.

18in track tyres are pretty pricey to be fair, but then I managed to get a pair of brand new Pirelli tarmac WRC tyres for less than the price of 1x normal track tyre. Nice.

 

[CompR]

One thing I felt it needed after the last drift day was better response, it spools up fast, I don't mean that, I meant throttle response, not turbo response.

Turbo cars are never as good as n/a for that unless they got ALS as until the turbo is blowing more air than the engine is sucking, the engine has to suck thru a load of pipework.
And on this, it's a 5.4ltr engine sucking thru 20ft+ of 60mm pipe, so it's worse than most. In fact you can see the boost pipes trying to suck shut off boost.

In fact as I've driven these cars without a turbo, I knew it didn't have as much throttle response n off boost power as when N/A, and there was a few occasions on the last drift day that'd come in handy.

So I had an idea, from something I've seen on some very trick Volvo Penta twincharged 2 stroke boat engines, I could allow the engine to breath like it was N/A, but boost like it was turbo. Best of both worlds.

So I did...

And it works. Boost comes in at the same rpm (it spooled fast anyhow), zero air leaks as its designed to do what I've done so nothing is changed in that way either, but the instant throttle response is back to being the big 5.4ltr kick in the ass they are when N/A, which is much much better.

AND it's yet another thing to confuse the **** out of everyone that sees it with lol.

 

[John Jones Jr]

That looks strange. I presume that's a valve body directly after the cone air filter, if so is it vacuum operated?

 

[CompR]

It's a flapper valve, designed to handle and seal against boost pressure, as it's fitted as standard to Volvo Penta engines which have a turbo and a supercharger as standard.

The engine vacumn sucks it open, getting air from the underbonnet filter, just like it being N/A.

As soon as there no vac, the flap shuts (via gravity TBF) and then the boost seals it tightly shut.

Very simple but effective bit of kit. If it's good enough for OEM boat applications (which have to be a lot more reliable than automotive ones), it's good enough for a tuned car.

 

[CompR]

Chucked the Merc on the rollers earlier...

Had boost control issues so was running very little boost, 4.5psi peak, dropping to 2psi by peak rpm. Should be 7psi holding all the way through.
Despite running less boost than even any standard turbo engine runs, it made 440bhp@6050rpm and 465lb/ft@3500rpm.

440bhp with 2psi of boost, and 465lb/ft with 4.5psi boost.

We got fuel for 7psi, that's 3.5 times more boost than we ran today, so you can guess on the power.

We've not got the fuel for it, need bigger/more injectors, but we (and the dyno operator) all agreed it'd easily handle 15psi if we had the fuel for it. That's gotta be upwards of 650bhp and 700lbft...

We tried 11psi but haven't got the fuel for it so leaned out, preventing a full run (though from a quick glance looked like 430bhp/650lbft@3500rpm), and boost control was playing up, so couldn't get it to the 7psi we wanted and what we 99% sure we got fuel for.

We made 380lb/ft at peak power, to hit the 500bhp+ we'd need about 435lbft at the same rpm. I reckon it probably would do that even at the 4.5psi it ran lower in the rev range, and certainly will at 7psi.

Next time though, next time...

Graph. Pink line is boost, in bar (0.3bar peak, tailing off to 0.15bar)

 

[CompR]

Right, so last time it made 440bhp at 2psi boost, and 465lbft at 4.5psi boost. It was very fast.

It's now running 8-9psi. It's a whole lot faster.

Option 1- Back to the dyno and get a lovely 500bhp+ number for everyone to go 'ooooh' over, but it's meaningless really, and tbh wouldn't make it sound much better than later E55 Kompressors, and was already pretty sure it was quicker than one of them even at the lower boost.

Option 2 it is then, get the expensive Racelogic timing gear out and see what it REALLY does.

First two gears, even in the stone dry, it just smokes the tyres as soon as you boot it, so impossible to get any real timing from that, which was a shame.

BUT 3rd gear on it's ok, and VERY fast indeed.

60-100mph times...

Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 4.6sec.
Ferrari F430 4.7sec
Audi R8 V10 4.8sec
Nissan GTR 5sec
E60 M5 5.1sec
C63 AMG 5.3sec
E55 AMG Kompressor 5.8sec
Golf R32 9.1sec

This low budget home brew Mercedes?- 4.4sec (no gearchange needed btw).

Also, looking at the datalogging, I did one accidental 60-120mph time. It wasn't on one of the faster runs, so would likely take about 4 tenths off it with a perfect run, but was 8.4seconds.
Even that far from good run was 2.4sec faster than the later supercharged E55 AMG Kompressors, and as a comparison to a 'hot hatch', 21seconds faster than a Mini Cooper S lol.

Only had 5/6 attempts, but the 60-100 was certainly backed up, rather than a fluke/mistake run...

Also, as I knew it sounded insane from inside the car, I wondered how it sounded from outside, so a mate filmed a few little clips. Sounds decent. Quiet enough to pass any trackday noise test easily too...
https://youtu.be/b5SMovRDhuc

And that's about it. It's been decided, as it's proven everything that it was set out to, and hardly gets used, that it's being sold.

If anyone wants an absolutely bananas car for very little money, watch this space as I'll be putting a for sale ad up soon...

 

[CompR]

Car now for sale-
http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/clas...east-mot-aug-2016-%A33500ono.html#post2205969

 

[Tanderso]

Curious to know the fuel setup this car was running. Would you be able to share? Pump, injectors, modified ECU mapping?