Intercooled 300DT Pictures
 

Front view of 83' 300DT. Notice both fog lights have been replaced by small chrome grills (small child and bird resistant.). The left grill provides opening for air to Intercooler. The right grill provides ram air to K&N air filter.

More intercooler pictures
 

"Mercedes parking ONLY." Not a Mercedes convention this is a family photo. We're all diesel, including the VW pickup at far rear.

Now the intercooler!!
 

Picture shows complete intercooler installation. Note the lower left hand showing the blue fiberglass plenum leading to the intercooler and associated piping to and from intercooler.

Now the intercooler!!.
 

Overhead view of complete intercooler installation.

Now the intercooler!!
 

Right side of engine showing K&N filter located behind the second fog light grill. Later pictures will show a ram air box to add several more HP to already great total.

Now the intercooler!!
 

Dial up any boost you want!! Picture shows the boost adjustment device. Took the car for a highway drive and pulled off, adjusted boost and are getting 12.5PSI max boost.

At this point we're staying very conservative. While we haven't installed sensors to establish the temperature drop across the intercooler, the inlet is very hot after a highway drive while the outlet from the intercooler is slightly warm to the touch.

Response at 80MPH is thrilling, and this particular 300DT _hasn't_ been converted to a manual transmission yet.

We'll soon be doing a long highway trip to establish our performance and mileage gains. Remember that one of the side effects of this installation is a lower combustion temperature which means increased durability for the engine and turbocharger as they both see lower temperatures of at least 125 degrees F.

Means longer life!!!!!!!!!!

Hope all enjoy the pictures!!!!


Ben
www.reproduce100s.com

Excellent job Ridge - when will the kit be available and how much is it?
Where did you run the line from the valve cover that used to go to the air cleaner?

very,very observant!!
 

engatwork,

That was one of our biggest problems. Turns out that Purolator made a unit the we mounted on the fender well and that's what all the hoses are are crossing over the intercooler go to. We're hoping to make that arrangement less hosey later but for now it works We're considering making a CD with all the installation instructions, etc. but don't know if there's anyone interested. If you followed our lead and dug up all the bits and pieces at a local junk yard, the resulting setup would cost about $400 to $500. How's that sopund?

Ben
www.reproduce100s.com

So is there a huge performance increase? That is the coolest thing i've ever seen!

Performance increase
 

We're not able to tell yet what the performance increase is. Normally one gets between 18%-24& increase with a good intercooler. The problem is that unless you have air flow through the intercooler while running the car on a dyno, you don't get any HP increase because you don't have cooling of the charge.

We're going to mount a fulltime Spal fan so that cooling occurs all the time. The we can dyno the setup. One can certainly feel the increase at highway speeds and we haven't installed the manual 4 speed on this one yet!!

Ben
www.reproduce100s.com

Is this within acceptable limits of the factory trans though, just curious. I am very interested in your product. I didn't look at all the threads but is this your product?

Wow! That looks amazing!

Did you do anything to the turbo or is it still using the stock turbo?

Turbo questions
 

Holson,

The turbocharger is the original one. Its cover has been polished up but nothing else was done to it. A boost adjustment was attached to the rubber line to the waste gate so we could adjust the boost upwards to compensate for a pressure loss through the intercooler.

We've collected enough parts to do another installation on my son's manual 4 speed 300DT which should be the definitive unit.

That installation will be awhile.

Ben
www.reproduce100s.com

TX Bill
 

Didn't get to your thread until now. No this isn't my 240D/300 G-Wagen diesel.

That car will eventually get upgraded to intercooed turbo engine since it's the first one we ever did and has almost everything replaced like all window seals , etc. plus I love the a/c and heater to death.

Because of its springs and quicker steering, it doesn't ride as well at highway speeds as do the 300DTs but I love the ruggedness of it.

Ben
www.reproduce100s.com

Ben, on the " associated Piping".. the big shiny stuff... did you make that ? or if not ,,, did you bend it ?
So, am I making a leap here..or are the items shown for this intercooler made by you using the methods described in your book ?

PS, this posted out of order...