Looking at the OP’s profile he lives in Wisconsin.

Well I guess you know better than the Mb engineers. Good luck with that.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

More specifically, the OM617 turbo was an experimental engine. It was a rushed solution to a problem. Mercedes' S-class lineup's fuel economy was too poor for them to be able to continue to be sold in North America unless the combined fuel economy for their S-class could be increased, due to sudden law changes. At the time, their S-class consisted of a gas-guzzling 6.9 liter V8, a 4.5 liter V8, and with the smallest engine being 2.8 liter inline 6 which still didn't get great fuel economy.

So, what to do? The obvious answer was to install an economical diesel engine. But, this hadn't been done in an S-class before and simply installing even the largest diesel engine they had at the time (the naturally aspirated OM617 in the W115 chassis) probably wouldn't have interested S-class buyers.

In the time frame of maybe a year (I don't know the exact time frame other than it was short), the engineers decided to turbocharge the engine to increase the horsepower while not adversely affecting the fuel economy. What they ended up with was an S-class diesel which had decent performance and good enough fuel economy to bring down the average fleet numbers to the required amounts.

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Stop paying for animal enslavement, cruelty, and slaughter. Save your health and the planet. Go vegan! I did 18 years ago. https://challenge22.com/

DON'T MESS WITH MY MERCEDES!


1967 W110 Universal Wagon, Euro, Turbo Diesel, Tail Fins, 4 Speed Manual Column Shift, A/C
1980 W116 300SD Turbo Diesel, DB479 Walnut Brown, Sunroof, Highly Optioned, 350,000+ Miles

The location for the return line must be above the oil in the pan. Just make sure the oil has a place to go that isn't restricted.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

He just likes to butt in with a blissful lack of knowledge and a bad attitude.

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Milan Brown 1979 240D, rebuilt OM617.952 turbo diesel, rebuilt 722.315 transmission (my only daily driver)

Instagram: @maximed93

Thank you for that.

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1981 240D 4sp manual. Ivory White.

Nope, New Mexico.
I live in the desert. It's July and we might hit in the upper 80s this month. Desert means dry, not hot, if you want something else to argue over.
Where in Wisconsin is 8000ft?

Thanks for all the actually helpful discussion! Really. I have searched this and other boards and found the naysayers "you'll shoot your eye out" but very little real detail. This is reassuring.
Once again: stock fueling (M-pump, no ALDA or ADA) with added air to be able to burn the fuel instead of just making black smoke. 7-10lb of boost as a goal. The M-pump was sold on European models, no EGR or other emissions crap but also not very field-tunable.

VW also added oil squirters to its 1.6l diesels when it added a turbo (early '80s?--the one I run in my Westy is from 1986, 617s are gargantuan engines by comparison). It has been all over North America and spent most of its life in the desert, too.