300CE turbo trouble - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

GDR1888 · #1 09-10-2007, 04:16 PM

i started a project in the summer. i'm going to turbocharge my 1989 300CE coupe. now it is time for me to order forged pistons because my project is a lot like PUMPISH's car. i was going to order custom from CP pistons but i need info. for filling out their order form because there are like 50 measurments that i don't know. so please help me fill out the form. the engine is 1986 m103 3.0l. with about a 100k mi.

Ortolan · #2 09-10-2007, 06:03 PM

Why not ask Roman for the measurements he used? If you get even one of the measurements wrong the pistons could be unusable, it's not something you want to guess at.
I'm using new forged Oettinger pistons in my engine (they were made for Oettinger's 300E-24 3.6 conversion) and I had to get some bearings custom made so that they could connect to the rods properly.

PUMPISH · #3 09-10-2007, 06:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GDR1888

i started a project in the summer. i'm going to turbocharge my 1989 300CE coupe. now it is time for me to order forged pistons because my project is a lot like PUMPISH's car. i was going to order custom from CP pistons but i need info. for filling out their order form because there are like 50 measurments that i don't know. so please help me fill out the form. the engine is 1986 m103 3.0l. with about a 100k mi.

How much Hp are you planing to get?
What other part are you planing to use?

I can fix the pistons but you know that you can get pretty high Hp with stock parts as long you can control your injection and ignition.

If you planing to use stock K-jet injection then no forget pistons can help you fron the damage.

Everything is about right tuning injection and ignition curve.

Before you thinking about BOOST you must instal the standalone magament system and drown K-et in the toalet

Please tell me about your setup you planing to make

I promise you that standalone system makes unbelievable differense so it feels like you got a new engine!

300EVIL · #4 09-10-2007, 09:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PUMPISH

How much Hp are you planing to get?
What other part are you planing to use?

I can fix the pistons but you know that you can get pretty high Hp with stock parts as long you can control your injection and ignition.

If you planing to use stock K-jet injection then no forget pistons can help you fron the damage.

Everything is about right tuning injection and ignition curve.

Before you thinking about BOOST you must instal the standalone magament system and drown K-et in the toalet

Please tell me about your setup you planing to make

I promise you that standalone system makes unbelievable differense so it feels like you got a new engine!

I agree 100%... Tell us how much boost you plan on running and/or how much HP your looking to make. If your only looking to add 7 or so PSI, just use the stock 9.2:1 compression. Now, If your looking to run 2 Bar (28 PSI) like Roman, your gonna need to go lower....
Adam

FLYNAVY · #5 09-11-2007, 03:18 AM

Hold on for a second.....are you building this motor yourself? If you are having a shop do it, they should be able to order everything that you need for you (once the motor is torn down). If you are building it yourself, it sounds like you have a lot to learn in a very short time and you probably aren't ready for this (yet). But again, assuming you are having someone else build the motor for you, I would advise against just up and buying some pistons. Once the motor is torn down, 1) you will need to decide if it needs machining (bores, valves, etc), 2) given the nature of your project, you will need to determine what kind of pistons to use, what physical properties (like land thickness, squish, effective compression, etc) you want. All of those things will need to be actually looked at, and could very well affect the dimensions of your pistons.....dimensions that your motor may or may not share with other m103's. Also, spending $1500 on a set of custom pistons right now, that you may not be able to use later, with little chance of selling, is probably not the best thing to do. I know it seems as if buying the pistons (or whatever else) will make your project happen sooner, but sometimes this is a waiting game. Good luck

reinier · #6 09-11-2007, 08:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PUMPISH

and drown K-et in the toalet

No, don't do that please! Put it on a bookshelf, aside of you other antiquities, or use it as a presse-papier. One day it will be worth al lot of money

PUMPISH · #7 09-11-2007, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reinier

No, don't do that please! Put it on a bookshelf, aside of you other antiquities, or use it as a presse-papier. One day it will be worth al lot of money

By the way we have my old K-jet on the wall in our workshop becaurse we hate it so much

So it just hanging on the wall and looks like one ugly octopus

aka$h · #8 09-11-2007, 04:36 PM

Im getting a set of pistons made up for my e320, they have asked me to send in a sample piston. Id suggest you do the same, much less room for error that way.
Regards

GDR1888 · #9 09-11-2007, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aka$h

Im getting a set of pistons made up for my e320, they have asked me to send in a sample piston. Id suggest you do the same, much less room for error that way.
Regards

realy? what company is that 'cause that would save a tonn of work. and how much are you paying for your pistons?

RBYCC · #10 09-13-2007, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PUMPISH

By the way we have my old K-jet on the wall in our workshop becaurse we hate it so much

So it just hanging on the wall and looks like one ugly octopus

If you know what to do with the K-Jet III on a twin turbo install you can go fast and save a lot of money by not modifying the engine internals.

So far with the "ugly octopus" with two small Garrett T2's and a fixed .48 bar boost we're seeing a best 0-60 of 5.49 seconds measured with a G-Tech three axis accelerometer.
This was in a 90 degree f / high humidity ambient environment.

Cooler weather should bring the 0-60 time down a few tenths....
Will track the car soon to complete the tune.

If you can bolt on and go fast, along with building a reliable motor then why not ?

PUMPISH · #11 09-13-2007, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RBYCC

If you know what to do with the K-Jet III on a twin turbo install you can go fast and save a lot of money by not modifying the engine internals.

So far with the "ugly octopus" with two small Garrett T2's and a fixed .48 bar boost we're seeing a best 0-60 of 5.49 seconds measured with a G-Tech three axis accelerometer.
This was in a 90 degree f / high humidity ambient environment.

Cooler weather should bring the 0-60 time down a few tenths....
Will track the car soon to complete the tune.

If you can bolt on and go fast, along with building a reliable motor then why not ?

Yes it works with K-jet but far away from the Standalone system.
My first turbokit I had I used K-jet too and if I boost more then 0,5 then I blowned all vacum hoses and it was leaking everywhere under the octopus. And my gas account was just rising everyday.

If you some day try standalone system you never want to go back to K-jet.

When I opened the engine I could see many spike mark on the pistons and the head only after 0,5bar.

With standalone system I boost 1,7bar with 85 the whole last season and 1,4 bar with gas on stock engine. 1 year later I opened the engine and I could not find a mark of spiking and the engine looked like a new.

This season I boost 2bar and even I blown head gasket and was driving 1 week with water in the engine when I opened the engine the pistons and the head stil looked like new. Only crank bearings was damaged becaurse of water and 1 bearing came loose.

I got much lower gas account too. I consumed more gas with K-jet without turbo then I consumed with standalone system with turbo.

I ispected my car and exhaust gas last week without Kat:

CO: 0,01
HC: 22
Lambda: 1,3

I can say that the standaalone magament system is the best think you can ever to for your car even if you dont have a turbo.

You get more Hp even without turbo and lower gas account

Mercedes engines is very good but with standalone system they are the best

But of caurse everythink about how much the poeple want to pay. Megasquirt is very cheap in USA and works very well and can give you a possibility to boost much more so why not. You dont need to boost 2bar like I did but you can boost 1-1,2 bar and be safe.

But I understand that everybody can not install those kind of things and they choose bolt on kit for 0,5bar and I am agree with that

GDR1888 · #12 09-13-2007, 03:40 PM

that is exactly why i will use Megasquirt.

Racing · #13 09-13-2007, 03:45 PM

Roman has asked me to chime in here for the sake of reason.

No offense in any way,but the mere fact is that you can hamper with the Kjet and its derivates to hell freezes over and it won´t touch a SA anytime of the week.

I´m NOT in any way coming down on your install...i recap that i´m NOT.

I´m just asking you to compare apples to apples,and again...the mere fact is that the old KE won´t touch a stand alone from a performance standpoint.

Don´t know how aware you are of it,but we´ve learned to extract insane amounts of power mainly by understanding timing needs under boost.
How would you adjust a KE/EZL setup when being optimum for NA use when going turbo,and what´s more...at what cost?
In short,when you´re getting into turbocharging..please give the SA some thought.
If nothing else to keep your own sanity so you won´t be running up the walls in the long run.

Having said that, we´re nowhere into this from a dynamic driving point of view,economics asf asf..list simply goes on and on.
Modern,digital electronics will beat an old mechanical system every time...as there´s this little thing called evolution.

Don´t get me wrong.
Anything man made can be modified to work under different parameters than it was setup to do,but the point is that in the case of the KE it simply isn´t cost effective,and when done you STILL won´t touch the resolution or adjustability available with a stand alone system .

As for transmission failures...again no offense,but you have no idea what you´re talking about.
Me and Roman both run stock units,and you have to cross the 600hp line for real to start experiencing trouble.
In my case i´m currently running like 500 ,and i´m on slicks down the 1320 every now and then in the 11s bracket,and mind you this with my daily beater.(IOW the poor getrag has to take some severe punishment-and it STILL lives)

300EVIL · #14 09-13-2007, 04:10 PM

Agree with Roman and Racing. I'm sure your supplemental injection system works good for your application but it could be better. For instance, With the two extra injectors your using, the intake manifold is obviously running wet. This manifold was engineered to run dry. Now your O2 sensor is telling a different story because it's reading the combined cylinders. However if you were to analyze each individual cylinder you would find that some are running rich and some are lean, most likely cylinders 1 and 6. With a programmable EFI system you can easily eliminate this imbalance. There is always something to gain with more precise inputs and outputs.
Adam

RBYCC · #15 09-13-2007, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 300EVIL

Agree with Roman and Racing. I'm sure your supplemental injection system works good for your application but it could be better. For instance, With the two extra injectors your using, the intake manifold is obviously running wet. This manifold was engineered to run dry. Now your O2 sensor is telling a different story because it's reading the combined cylinders. However if you were to analyze each individual cylinder you would find that some are running rich and some are lean, most likely cylinders 1 and 6. With a programmable EFI system you can easily eliminate this imbalance. There is always something to gain with more precise inputs and outputs.
Adam

Adam

Not sure where you were when Willi Mosselman did the first twin turbo kit on the M103 back in 1990.
Do you recall his "Silver Arrow" 300CE and 300SL ???
He was not a fan of additional injectors, so he used an adjustable piggy back controller that in essence allowed the EHA to supply more fuel.

TurboTechnics from the UK believed in additional injectors.
Their weak point was in their non adjustable fuel enrichment controller which tended toward lean under boost.
They attempted to compensate by using Hobbs switches off the manifold to trick the EHA to a full throttle condition and to retard the timing under boost.
Not the best resolve of an engineering problem !

I purchased one of the remaining TurboTechnics kits from the UK authorized Merc dealer who commissioned them for install on new cars in 1991. ( They are still all running in the UK, some with close to 200K miles !!!)
Delivered to my door it was $2600.00 and included a complete large bore ( 2.25" ) stainless steel exhaust system.
Also for any turbo afficionado, they had cast iron turbo manifolds which are much, much better then fabricated tubing !!!

The install was on my 1988 300CE ( purchased new in may 1988 for $53K) M103-12V with 63K miles

SOOOOOO.... can you say "cost effective".

Kit uses two small Garrett T2's, zero lag as they spool up much faster then a larger turbine.
Torque comes in instantly and the performance is faster then a 500E and approaching " Hammer" numbers.

The key to unlocking the real power was to discard the supplied piggy back electronics and use a Split Second AIC unit.
Computer programmable and 3D mappable.
This along with modernizing the intake and boost piping along with a ram air intake made a substantial difference.

So back to the "wet" manifold that you are concerned about.
TT used an interesting injector assembly with an air shield that appears to maintain a mist and doesn't allow the fuel to drop out of the airstream prior to getting to the stock injectors in the runners.
There has been no sign of any noticeable variance in the cylinders as the plugs after many dyno hours read all about the same.

Don't knock "cost effective" old school that can keep up with all but the latest M3's !!!!
You could always do something better, but when you trash an engine trying to make "insane" power, you really haven't achieved a thing, let alone "doing it better"
Remember this is a straight "street" car.....
Watch out for guys that could be your grandfather driving "unsophisticated" cars....they might smoke you !!!