My 1980 300D (non-turbo) 4 speed manual tranny on 2 runs through the 1/4 mile at a sanctioned NHRA Dragway ran a 21.9sec run and a 21.8 sec. run. (No Red light)

I want to know if this is a good 1/4 mile run time or slow?

What does a normal 300D run in a 1/4 mile run?

Repy to: JudgeGruesbeck@aol.com

LOL you might be the first guy on the board to run thier diesel thru the 1/4 mile. I am not sure what a NA diesel is supposed to run. I think I would be in the 18's with my 300SDL.

I thought the 300d quarter miles would be rated in minutes and not seconds??

It will be very easy to find out, but don't forget to take your hour glass with you!

Have a great day,

The best time for a 300D quarter mile?

Probably right around Tea Time.

If you're concerned about quarter mile times, you might be better off with something that burns gasoline...

Ron
http://germanstar.net

This 300D I have is about the strongest running diesel I've driven. Ask the county cop that chased me down for over 5 miles. At speeds well in excess of 115mph.

On the strip or the street, it'll burn rubber 1st and 2nd gear with ease! If you're beside a car that has a GM v6 it makes them think twice before trying to race you. Most Mercedes diesels Don't do much of anything other than some black smoke out the hind side.

My 240D won't even catch rubber in 1st gear, much less 2nd.

I think someone has cranked up the pump on this 300D and I have just recently noticed something else. My 240D I can go around the corner in town and leave in 3rd and gain speed. Not with the 300D! It'll fall flat on its' face and chugg-a-lug like it is in way too high a gear which makes me thing the rear gear is a higher gear ratio than my 240D is.
Which brings up another ?? Question - on an American car, there is a metal tag on the rear axle that tells the gear ratio, how do you know or find out on a German car?

My brother has a 84 300TD and the best he can get out of his is about 82mph - I can give him a head start, catch him and pass him with ease and as you know, 84 is Turbocharged and my 1980 is not.

As for the Mid-Michigan MotorPlex - the anouncer didn't even know what a Mercedes looked like and so didn't even anounce the Mercedes going up against the Pro-Stock Camero! Incidently, he ran a 11.021 1/4 mile.
It was my very first time on a Official drag strip and I had to do it in a Mercedes! :-) I was proud of myself for not red-lighting!
To be honest, I couldn't even hear my engine running next to that Camero! I almost killed it on the line! You oughtta heard the wife when I got home, she knew what those numbers were on the windows! oops!

The gains in quickness must be due to gearing. The IP may be dialed up also. Be sure to keep clean oils in that thing. She may be pushing some tolerance limits and good oil can make all the difference with high RPM's. I would definitely think about using only Mobil1 Delvac. I wonder what your car would do with a turbo. Then again, you may be on the "No Turbo For You" list. Like the guyat the bar who has had too much to drink - you are cut off! As it is, you are driving a car that normally produces between 70 and 80 horsepower and you are burning up the road. Your brother's car needs to have a few simple adjustments and it will probably come back to life. An 84 TD that tops out at 82 is not well. You can check out the archives for info on "Banjo Bolt" and connected line cleaning, "ALDA" adjustment, EGR disconnect and intake manifold cleaning.

Yes, the deisel Benz in the quarter. Hard to stay away from that tire sqeeling, head snapping, body slamming power.
I once got through a quarter mile in no less than one minute. And that was going downhill!

Yeah, I am a bit picky about my lubricants. Rear end lube to tranny to the engine. I do not think much of the synthetic oils.
I've seen some motors tore down with so called great syntheic oil, very gummy inside.
I run either Chevron or Mobil Delvac 1300 15w40. I just recently found out that 20W20 is actually the best oil in a diesel engine. Less viscosity to wear out and break down.
I also change oil filters twice per oil change. A filter costs little compared to cost of engine parts. And a tube of White Lithium grease costs so little for the amount of money verses part cost ratio!
Another thing I do very religously - I use Diesel Kleen by Power Service. EVERY Time I fuel up and I run Nothing but Amoco Premium, and if I can't get that, I run Shell Premium.

According to Amoco their Premium diesel is a "minimum" of 50 Cetane.
Other diesel fuels like #2 is as low as 35 cetane. Compare that 35 cetane to gasoline and you'd be running about 75 octane! Wonder how your car runs on low grade gasoline? You know that el-cheap stuff you find for 89 cents at the pump for #2? well that can be as low as 32 cetane. You might as well run No. 1 Kerosene!
50 Cetane is about same as 96 octane! And I mix the Diesel Kleen to the maximum to gain a full 6 points or better, so I am running 56+ Cetane! Rarely if ever will you see smoke from my exhaust.
Diesel Kleen has a IP Lubricant to lubricate that all very valuable pump and also anti-gelling agents.
I drove over the road as both a company driver and an owner operator, so I know the importance of good fuels and oils.

A normal semi gets 4-6mpg and a good would be 8mpg avg.. I was getting as high as 13.5mpg loaded (70-80K), but I ran nothing but Mobil 15w40 and run nothing but Red fuel, a high grade premium diesel fuel. I even ran Red fuel in the company trucks as was getting as high as 9.2mpg in an under-powered governed truck.
So, it is up to you, what do you want to use in your diesel engine?

After reading all these performance posts I got to thinking, what comes first 60mph or the 1/4 mile? So I gave it a run in my 75' 240 and as I expected, the quarter came first!

__________________
87 300SDL (115,000mi. 7/1/2008)
03 Jetta Wagon TDI (62,000mi. 7/1/2008)
75 240D(sold, sad to sell it, needed the garage for the SDL!)

Smokey

Just for a bit extra - I was still in 3rd gear at end of 1/4 mile at (my speedometer) 65mph but the actual clocked speed was 62.4mph which made me feel sorta good cause that means my speedo is only off by about 3mph and most american cars can be off by as much as 5-7mph.

Now I was told 21.8 sec on 1/4 mile was slow - But, is it slow for a 5 cylinder non-turbo-charged diesel engined 4 door sedan? Or is it rather good? As there is nothing to compare with, I could say it is great!

Incidently, in my enthusiasim to get more from that engine, I found out that Mercedes intended that engine to run at a certain maximum RPM (5200 rpm) and Trust me, it goes up there and stays, no higher! oops better catch 3rd gear.

I owned a 1974 240D automatic and that thing is just plainly a slug! Diesel Kleen helped some, but I think it was in love with its' own shadow!
But I did figure out how to get a bit more from it and I think ALL 240D's would benefit from a manual tranny!

I figured out why the Automatic trannied 1974 240D is a slug! It really isn't IF the Thing would take off in FIRST gear instead of second gear!
If you leave it in D and you don't nail the throttle on get go hard, it takes off in 2nd gear and shifts to 3rd and then 4th.
To get the extra from it And you can ONLY do this from a Complete Stop.
Pull the shifter all the way to Low, Leave there and hit the throttle (you're in 1st gear) and it will be surprisingly peppy. If you hold the throttle down and let it shift (automatically) it will be a violent shift into 2nd gear (even though shifter is in Low). Which happens at about 10-12mph.
What I did was take off in Low, then shift to Second and then pull the shifter quickly back into low, otherwise it'll shift into third gear, you'll then have 2nd gear, then shift to S which will give you 3rd gear and then to D which is 4th.
Remember this when you Need to get out into traffic. It is a Plus helper.
Yeah I got a rude eye-opener one day when I pulled out of a Walmart parking lot with (what I thought) was plenty of room. It sure is amazing how fast that car comes up on you at 45mph! And you have the throttle on the floor!

What everyone needs to do is drive an older automatic 240D for awhile and then jump into a strong running V-8 American car! It is a good way to find out how you've been used to driving - tires squeal everytime you take off! :-) My wife drove my 240D while her Big CrownVic was getting fixed. Picked up her car, I swear she laid rubber every time she took off for a while. One doesn't realize you drive a Mercedes with your right foot pasted to the floor most of the time!

I have never clocked my car, but I am sure a turtle could beat it in the 1/4 mile. I do know that I have had it up to around 100 mph.

My book says 0-100 km/h in 28.1s (manual) and 29.1s (auto) for the 220D. Doesn't say how they did it. With my manual transmission I would guess 20 or 21 in a quarter running the torque curve in 1st and 2nd, 3rd to hp rating (about 55mph), but I've never tried it on a track. My time is wristwatch on the highway in front of the house. I can keep up with traffic if I really want to, although I think it's too hard on the car.

Benz240D, your truck mileage seems a bit high for a yankee truck. I got off the road in 1997 with my best annual mileage of 7.3 (nationwide truckload), and with a Webasto. Then did the LTL stuff for three years, averaging 20 stops in a 550 mi trip, and the best I got was 15.8 on a trip when reteaching a hot shot how to drive (he drove and shifted when I told him to shift), but the annual average was 14.7. This was straight fuel with PS DieselKleen and water separators, mixing #1 in spring/fall and straight #1 in winter. Rotella 15W40 engine oil, filters at 10k, oil and filters at 20k. People around here thought I was a mileage guru. I just wanted to maximize profit.

The old way to measure rear end ratio is the only reliable way. One person turns and counts the tire revolutions, another counts the driveshaft. Don't know if your car has a tag.

__________________
daBenz - 1970 220D

Well "dabenz" the truck: 79 Freightliner 12064T new 3406 430hp eng. 13 sp w/twin 3.55 screws. A 48' reefer trl . If I kept it at 60 to 63mph I was getting on averaqe 13.5mpg and that was hub miles. I logged hub miles also and logged to the exact limit that DOT will accept. I ran hub/calculator miles.
That was running Rotella 15w40 and Red Fuel - Premium diesel. and I tried to hit all the Green Stamp fuel stops.
If I ran 70-90mph the MPG's dropped a lot! like down in the 6-7mpg range or lower. Those Triple digits really eat fuel but you get there faster too. I got off the road in 1992 with over 1 million accident/ticket free miles. I gave up my CDL-A,X for a shop job and retirement.
Fastest on the flat - no down hill Georgia Over-Drive was about 142mph grossed out at 80,000 with a load of Wild Turkey and other UNTAXED whiskies and booze. Those are the good loads, the Feds follow you all the way and there aint' a cop or DOT that dares pull you over! You do have to drive through the scales, but No DOT Inspects.
The Wild Turkey was all I could see from the front top inspection door. Papers only had numbers, no description of load.
Have you ever hauled any cigarette loads? They pay damn good! And driver gets one case of free cigarettes.