I have been thinking about taking the big step and selling the 300SD and buying a 400E. I am absolutely fixated on the 400E. As I couldn't leave the diesel alone I was wondering about performance upgrades available for the 400E. What does anyone have or heard of ?

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'85 300SD (formerly california emissions)
'08 Chevy Tahoe
'93 Ducati 900 SS
'79 Kawasaki KZ 650
'86 Kawasaki KX 250
'88 Kawasaki KDX200
'71 Hodaka Ace 100
'72 Triumph T100R

WHY -- ? If you want performance in a 124, just go out and spend the money and get a 500E. You'll be much happier and spend much less money overall. Plus you'll have a car that was optimized for high performance in the first place.

There are precious few, if any, MEANINGFUL performance upgrades available for the 400E. For the amount of money that it would take to obtain, say, 50 additional HP in a 400E, you will spend far more than just paying the $20K it takes to get a very nice 500E.

The 400E was just an MB response to Lexus and Infiniti -- putting a V-8 into their mid-class chassis.

My two cents.

Cheers,
Gerry

Well, $10k + for a 500E is a little out of my league right now. That would be the ultimate car for not only perfomance but collectability.

I am talking things like chips or exhaust/intake mods. It looks like a decent 400E can be had for $6-8k.

__________________
'85 300SD (formerly california emissions)
'08 Chevy Tahoe
'93 Ducati 900 SS
'79 Kawasaki KZ 650
'86 Kawasaki KX 250
'88 Kawasaki KDX200
'71 Hodaka Ace 100
'72 Triumph T100R

Well, let's just say that you spend $7-8K for a pretty decent 400E.

ANY performance (I'm talking horsepower here) mod that is worth it's salt, is going to run $5K at a minimum.

There you are, staring the cost of a $13K "decent" 500E right in the face.

Easier to just bite the bullet and buy the 500E up front. But that's just my opinion. If money is a concern, and you want to do cheap but effective performance mods, you'd do far better with a Honda or Acura. For $2K, you can hop up a Honda motor incredibly. $2K in Mercedes performance circles, is just letting your mechanic and parts supplier that you are (sort of) serious.

Cheers,
Gerry

I didn't think a chip (don't even know if they are available), performance exhaust or any kind of intake mod would cost $5k.

__________________
'85 300SD (formerly california emissions)
'08 Chevy Tahoe
'93 Ducati 900 SS
'79 Kawasaki KZ 650
'86 Kawasaki KX 250
'88 Kawasaki KDX200
'71 Hodaka Ace 100
'72 Triumph T100R

Compared to an SD, a 400E will feel incredibly fast. I have owned one since 1993. The 500E is a faster car due to a larger engine and shorter gearing. The thing that hampers a 400E is its tall first gear. Mine will hit 50 in first gear meaning that it takes quit a lot of time to hit 30. Beyond that, it is pretty quick.

Original specs indicated a 7 second 0-60 and a 15 second quarter mile. As I said, much time is lost getting to 30 from zero. Above 30, the car is as fast as my old Ferrari which only does a 14.6 quarter mile and hits 60 in 6 seconds.

Probably the best upgrade for a 400E is would be a 5 speed automatic tranny. That would lop off a nearly a second in the 0-60 time. I would leave the engine alone as it is a very good engine.

__________________
Lawrence Coppari

2002 SLK32 AMG
2005 Acura TL
1987 328GTS
1986 944T

No chip is specifically available for the 400E that I know of; the ones available for the 500E run $600 and provide (if lucky) 10 HP -- most of us who have them have certified with dyno results that they are of dubious value.

RennTECH makes an increased-volume air intake box that will probably also work with the 400E. It costs $1,000 and again is supposedly worth 10 HP -- again dubious. You're paying a lot of money for that 10 HP.

Intake solutions such as K&N filters don't provide any measurable gain, and allow through increased amounts of particuate matter. Again, several hundred dollars for no/negligable gain.

On the 500E, there are only two real ways to get significant HP. The first way is to install nitrous oxide. That's worth 100 HP, but you will pay nearly $3,000 for the Bergwerks.com kit + accessories that you need, and then at least another $1,000-1,500 for installation unless you want to do it yourself.

The second way to get significant HP on a 500E is to punch it out to 6.0L by either boring, stroking, or a combination of both. These solutions would run you $10-15,000 at a minimum, for obvious reasons.

All other solutions are piddly and not worth the money. Options available for hoppign up a 400E are even more limited.

Cheers,
Gerry

This has been mentioned before but swapping out the rear end for a 2.82 makes a pretty good improvement in the feel of things off the line, considering the car has 1st gear start alrerady. I know that Feathercarbon has a large volume airbox that was made for Run.exe's 500e, and it's half the price of the Renntech model. Shouldn't be too hard to get it for the 400e, considering this guy's a custom fabricator. I'm not real sure about the headers, I think they are already pretty good and custom stuff would be prohibitively expensive (as far as hp/$$). The exhaust I'm not too sure about but I have heard about the ol' TimeValve Y-pipe thing instead of the center resonator. From what I have read, you should be able to get one made by an exhaust shop for about the same or less than TimeValve. I haven't priced them out lately, so don't quote me on that. If you SERIOUSLY want to get more ponies though, you are going to have to go into the engine, and that means $$$$. I think if you tastefully modify a 400e as mentioned above, you should have a great time and not have too much tied up in it. Better even, it'll be a "super sleeper" due to the fact that it doesn't have the 500e's fenders!! It looks just like a 300e!! Shoot, go for it!! I am seriously considering that or bringing over a "euro spec" 500e from Germany when I PCS from here. They are suprisingly affordable here, but converting them to US spec can be expensive. I just want one because it has manual AC controls available and it's different than the US spec model. Prolly more for bragging rights, really, but there's nothing like saying "yup, it's european spec".

While I fundamentally agree with your post, again there is huge $$$ and little benefit to some of the mods that you mention including the airbox and Y-pipe (which can be fabbed by a decent exhaust shop for perhaps $100-150). If you're not getting noticeable benefit, why do them?

The rear-end swap is going to cost at a minimum $2,500 with labor, including parts and all. And there is a moderate trade-off of fuel economy and increased RPMs. I am in the process of doing this with my 560SEC, but am willing to make the trade-off in that case.

Most 500Es that I see in Europe are cheap because they are high-mileage (250,000+ km) machines and have been driven HARD on the autobahns. Nothing wrong with that, but there is little to no difference in power/torque specs between a Euro and a US 500E (the exception being the elimination of full-throttle enrichment for the 1993 and 1994 US cars, robbing 7 HP from them). At the speeds we drive here in the USA, this is 100% not noticeable.

The Euro manual klima is indeed superior because it is two-zone and more adjustable, and less complex than the automatic klima that MB continually seems to foist upon us here in the US....

Where in Germany are you located, again?

Cheers,
Gerry

I'm located in a little town near Oppenheim and Nierstein called Dexheim. I am still not sure why they didn't offer this option in the US. I know for a fact that that most German cars have AC issues prolly due to the fact that they really don't need it over here in Germany!! If it were Georgia hot and humid over here, you'd be darn sure you could hang meat in the cabins!! BUT, due to the fact that they aren't that crucial in Germany, they were under engineered. They are getting better from what I have heard, but don't have any experience with them. I know my Ford Ranger will freeze you out in the summer even with 90 plus temps. With a dark blue/ blue truck, it helps trumendously.

On the German side of things, I'm in the middle of very famous wine country out here. That's all you see around our tiny post....vineyards. Nice and quiet for the most part, although a bit isolated for those without wheels. I'm about 45 minutes from Frankfurt and 30 minutes from Wiesbaden, which is gorgeous, albeit expensive. But hey, there are more millionaires per capita there than anywhere else in Germany from what I hear!!! Parking is also a bear there, I prefer the trains...work great and get you just about anywhere you want to go around there.

Just get a used 2.82 diff ($400) from a W140 either with or without ASR, and you'll be within 85% of a 500E's acceleration. Labor should be about 4-hrs.

:-) neil

Alas, it's not that easy. The gears have to be fit into a 560 case properly; there is some machining of the gearset in order to preserve the 560 ABS, and only certain gearsets will work in this application.

Cheers,
Gerry

Gerry:

For a W126 560SEC, I agree, you will have to do a gearset swap and some machining which will cost over $2K.

For a W124 400E, there is no gearset swap or machining needed if you find the 2.82 or even a 3.06 donor. Hence, it is the cost of the diff, and labor R&R only.

:-) neil

Neil,

Sorry, I thought you were talking about the 560SEC. Totally agree on the 400E.

Cheers,
Gerry

I have a modified 400E with the 2.82 --with a chip -with performace exhaust-
Stats --0-60 in 6.2 seconds --1/4 mile best was 14.9 with bad plugs -wires -caps and rotors-- After I replaced them I would guess it was good for a 14.7 or so . Only way to get faster is to toss out more things not needed -I have an aluminum race seat and I have removed the rear seat as well .
The only other modification that I know of besides spending 5k on the engine is to just spend $2000 for a nitros oxide system then you will be in the 5 's to 60 and 13.5 s in the 1/4 mile . As far as costs go just see the picture I have attached. If you can do the work yourself this is a lot of bang for the buck .
I had this car on here a while ago for sale for only $3800 or so and no one was interested and that was with all the modifications!

http://userpages.itis.com/eurocars/FM400.JPG