I bought a '79 300SD about a month ago, and I've been lurking on the forum since then. what a treasure trove of knowledge!

Anyway, I noticed my car was quite sluggish, especially after reading reports of others claiming 0-60 times of under 15 seconds. I broke out the stopwatch and clocked my 300SD at a miserable 26 seconds!

So I ordered a cheap-o boost gauge, but when I went to install it I noticed that the plastic boost line coming off the back of the intake manifold had broken free, so the ALDA was seeing absolutely no boost at all.

Simply connecting this one line dropped my 0-60 time by 7 seconds!

I can't wait until I work my way through all of the other recommendations I've been reading about on these forums (ie, throttle linkage wear, chain stretch, valve adjustment, etc).

Welcome to the forum and congrats on solving your first problem by yourself.

Valves tend to get tighter as they wear, which can lead to burning of the valve seats, so it's a good idea to check them, even if you don't actually have to do an adjustment.

How many miles on the car? Can we see some pictures?

Jeremy

__________________

"Buster" in the '95

Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .338,000 miles Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 113,000 miles My car
Santa Rosa population 176,762 (2022)
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . 627,762
"Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."
-- Janis Joplin, October 1, 1970