Getting the Valve Job - Can I port the cylinder head?
 

My 300E shall soon be into get some service for the valves - which mysteriously and without smoke drink about a quart of oil about every 1500 miles.

While this is getting done...can I have the cylinder head ported and polished ? Rather, I know it can be done, but is there power (of substance) to gain from this in this application (300E)?
I know this is usually a great advantage in the V8 application.

Second - when this "valve job" would this be the right time to add the "competition" camshaft? (thinking expense here).

Thanks!
D

Nobody seems to have ANY idea!!!
 

Lot's of people have been looking at this question.
** But...nobody has a single answer. ** !!

Can this porting and polishing be done?
How much power will it provide?

Anyone ever done this - or EVEN thought of it - other than myself?

Hello...is there anybody out there?

David :D

YES I HAVE DONE THIS I HAD TO DO A HEAD GSKT SO WHEN I
HAD THE HEAD OFF I PUT IN A MILD CAM FROM BECKKERS AND
HAD TO HEAD PORTED ON THE INTAKE AND EXH MAN BUT DID
NOT HAVE IT POLISHED FOR A MILD TO STOCK ENG YOU STILL
NEED SOME ROUGH AIR MY CAR RUNS BETTER IN THE HIGH
END OR ON FREEWAY

Really you have the cam changed? Intake side only? Does it only improve high end and lose some low end?
Would a 97 E320 M104 motor be a direct fit into a 95 C280 M104 chassis? Not sure about MB motor mounts and engine swapping.

Porting and polishing
 

Nice to hear about the cmashaft working out. Did you lose alot on the low end torque?

My understanding about the perfromance cam is that is will increease high end power - but that low end off-the-line will suffer a bit. For those without the first gear T/M that's too much lost.

As a balancer I have bee talking with some Mercedes techies who have told me that short of changing the head to a 24-valve piece - the best improvement for air flow is to port ther head (correct to leave the polishing off - unless you will run really high RPMs) -- in addition - second to changing the head is to oversize the valves in the head. The improvements will be noticeable enough to get to runs you want.

I'm going to have this work do on my Benz. I don't use it as a quarter mile runner - I leave that to the V-8s -- the Benz is better for the highway runs and passing (IMO) !

Esquire

One quart of oil per 1,500 mi is not really bad. Mercedes accepts one quart per 1,000 mi as being ''normal''
jackD

polishsed
 

I swapped the head on our 300E some time ago. The original had no problem at like 130K when we did this, but I wanted to try the polishing trick. I had a spare head and polished it my self with a Dremel tool, didn't port it though. It did made a nice improvement, although I think it was mostly from removing all the carbon deposits in there. The car had little improvement at low RPMS, but as the RPMS went up you could feel the change; specially on second gear, and those 4 to 2 kickdowns.
If you can get it done for a reasonable price, I'll say go for it; or at least make sure they clean al the carbon deposits. It defenetly makes a difference on a highmileage car...

my .02