Yawn.

People can do whatever they want to their own cars.

I've found a little bit of technical related information regarding adding turbo's to the OM616

Once and for all the answer to the did AMG do diesels for the w123 - Mercedes-Benz Forum

Turbo Systems

I found an installation guide that (although isn't hyper specific to the OM616 it is for the OM602) lists what a STT thinks you should do with their kit (!)

http://www.sttemtec.se/1.0.1.0/51/Mercedes%20410d%20installation%20manual.pdf

If anyone wants to see the changes Mercedes thought were necessary to the OM617 for turbo charging they wrote an SAE technical paper on the subject. It is actually quite a good geeky read!

swedish STT claimed 100hp with the om616 if i remember correctly...

and id rather have 90hp om616 than 88hp om617, especially since i have a low-geared differential, and the aim is a little umpf and good mileage/low consumption.

a 240d will "always" be leaner than a 300d.

and regarding durability, been running a NA om617 with a bmw 525tds turbo for quite a while, paired with a 4speed manual and a 2.65LSD its an absolute beast, about 110hp perhaps, and torque from hell, looking for the fifth gear when doing 80-90km/h.

im not doing extremely long pulls, the pump is somewhat untouched, the turbo gives me 1.2bar of boost, no blacksmoke. im happy.. the difference is mainly at low rpm, where i got a whole different kind of umpf.

the only reason i havent done it to the 240d is time, and a lot of other cars being fixed/looked at or overhauled.

Good to see you here too!

There will always be "the factory did it right" people and they will never except that anyone else can do it differant and have it work well.

That said I did document my build on this forum so anyone who wants to look into building a 616 turbo can see what I have done. I have also posted hill climb data pre turbo and post turbo. As well as compared it to a stock 300 turbo. So the numbers speak for themselves.

As far as long life, think this is more function of how it is driven. Drive it like a mad man and life will be shorter. Let the egts get to high, melt pistons. Watch egts and let the engine live. Before adding a turbo I saw egts go way up 1400 or so for short amounts of time, that is really pushing it. Kind of surprised no meltdowns happened. With turbo, 1000 is about as high as it goes.

I did not want a 617 because of the added wieght. Handling just suffers too much, as I like to have some fun in the mountains with it, and a 300d is more of a highway cruiser, so the better balance of a 240 gives much better handling. I have both so have a real comparision.

I am not saying this is for everyone but it does have it's place and can work very well.

By the way this original post was for a fellow asking about differant pre chambers.

A smoltzed up OM616 sounds like a great idea, especially if you can drive the overall weight of a W123 below 3,000 pounds. I've seen ALOT mod's to these cars (W123) and so far I have not seen any melt downs, anything explode, or all the so-called doom-and-gloom. Old cars do break down. As for those folks demanding some sort of laboratory-like proof with millions of miles of documented history, you got'z to be kidding me. If a 30+ year old car runs fine with a particular mod over the course of a few years or so, it is probably a winner. Plus, all the mods that I have seen so far are far, far from being new or innovative. Hot rodders and tinkers have been doing the same exact thing to other models a long time ago. Really nothing new, so not sure why the "horror" at folks building a better mousetrap.

I'm contemplating it. I've been researching original kits offered back then. I recently found an article about the epa testing a 220D with a turbo. They were hoping for better emissions, but it was just faster.

It brings up an interesting subject. About the same time the government cracked down on mercedes, they came out wit a turbo.

In regard to not having oil coolers, I was thinking of water injection.

Problem is the pneumatic governor. The throttle valve has to be behind the turbo so it doesn't run away.

I've been wondering if any newer 240D pumps will work. I'm curious what a 123 euro pump looks like.

It is an easier approach than a swap. I looked at a 617 swap and you have to build a manifold anyways.

I believe water injection is a plus for the WVO crowd. I've used it and now I need to re-locate my pump since I'm installing my W115 longrunner intake (my Devil's Own pump sat on top of a mod'd intake manifold).

Good luck on finding a turbo kit for the OM616. Ive been looking for a while, but then again one will pop on E B A Y by the time this post hits the airways ... lol

It's popular in big rigs for keeping egt down. And yeah cleaning. I think it's just great in general. I'm contemplating having it setup so if I run out of water boost will drop off. I think that's why manufacturers don't do it. That and the necessity to add water.

I'm actually 615. I read some sort of test in the 70's, and for some reason they had to take the governor out of the pump so it would run forever.

I need to study up more on what mine do. I thought vacuum was for idle but maybe I have it backwards. Lol.

Shameless plug,
I've been making my turbo adapter plate to put the 5cyl 617 turbo exhaust manifold on the 616 for years. Just search for "Mercedes turbo adapter plate" on fleabay. That's the hard part. Everything else can be sourced of a 300 at a junk yard. Its not a conversion for the faint of heart, but once you have the manifold on there, everything is pretty much plug and play.
Cheers!
Chris

Hi Lucas,
I actually ran a vacuum type IP from a 615 on my 616 for a bit (pre turbo) as an experiment. It was a drop in swap, so I'm assuming you could run the centrifugal 616 IP on the 615. This would be a much better solution than throttling the airflow from the turbo in order to make the vacuum IP work.
If you want do get into the nitty gritty as to why I believe this to be the case, we can start a new thread to discuss it rather than hijacking this one.
Cheers!
Chris

I am more than open to that idea. I've been attempting to understand. I've been wondering if a euro 123 240D has an M-pump, and how it is governed.

That was one of my original questions also, if a later style IP could be swapped into an older 616 with the vacuum stuff it has

47dodge how do you think your car would do with different rear gears, like maybe 3.07 out of a 300D?