500E/E500 performance from a 400E/E420

[400Eric]

You all know of my 400E's exploits in the drag racing thread, and you have all seen the two videos of it running literally side by side with a modded 500E ALL OF THE WAY DOWN THE TRACK! It is in fact the quickest naturally aspirated stock 2.24 geared 4.2 powered W124 in the universe!

Now we are talking about 500E/E500 acceleration performance here, not handling performance. That is a separate topic that I will let someone else start a thread on.

I'm posting this thread to THIS SITE in the hopes that we can get some of the performance oriented 034 owners back here where they belong. (MOST of the 036 guys DON'T REALLY want you.)

Edit: I forgot to mention that if you follow my recipe, you will not see any loss of your existing fuel economy. I've been very careful to preserve fuel economy with this car, as it was my family's MAIN car. There are folks who think lower rear gears are a good idea but that's a very "involved" mod that will also cost you fuel economy. Plus, you very well might end up with a car that now doesnt hook very well. That 500E that I'm running side by side with in those videos is in better shape than my 400E, has lower gears AND a bigger engine, gets 3 MPG less fuel economy, and yet I still run side by side with it all the way down the track. Still think you need lower gears?

First of all, start with a 93-95 034. The 92s have a full one point lower compression ratio, and as a result, don't make as much power. Plus, there are some other more minor internal differences as well that, when taken as a whole, rob a little more power on top of what the lower compression ratio robs. (maybe GSXR will chime in here with a link to his site where you can read more about said internal differences).

Before you do ANYTHING, you must make sure your spark plugs, spark plug wires, caps, rotors, etc. are in great condition. If they aren't stop here now and fix this stuff. If the spark plug wires have a white looking powder on them, THEY MUST BE REPLACED! If they've never been replaced and your car has over 100,000 miles on it, THEY MUST BE REPLACED. Lot's of folks say I'm wrong on this. NONE of them have a stock geared 034 that runs 14.200 in the quarter.

Make sure your air filters are clean too. Don't bother with K&N crap. They don't filter very well, and you won't see a performance gain either. I once did back to back track testing with no air filters at all. Guess what? No difference! None! Now if removing the filters didn't gain me anything, how much will K&Ns gain you?

Warning: I absolutely refuse to get into any arguments about what I have or haven't done. Good or bad, it is what it is. I am simply sharing my secrets, spilling the beans on what I have done to get where I am. I'm just trying to give back! You all can do what you want and prove me wrong with quicker timeslips!

OK, this is how I did it. I am going to divide this up into three parts: One for the mods that you MUST DO, one for the mods that you should do, and one for the mods that I'm GOING to do to go even quicker.

MUST DO MODS:

GET 92 ECU AND INSTALL IT! Don't even bother trying to do anything else if you aren't willing to do this one. For the record, I am THE FIRST PERSON to propose that this was a viable idea for 4.2 M119s. Before I came along, it was believed that only 5.0 M119s and M120s benefitted from a 92 ECU swap. This is a documented solid 2 to 2 1/2 tenth reduction in E/T right here. It's because 92 was the last year for WOT fuel enrichment.

Dump the stock resonator and muffler. I put a nice "Y" after the stock cats and ran straight 3" pipe all the rest of the way to the back of the car.

Remove the panels/wipers/motors from below the headlights. This is a very high pressure area that, once opened up, rams cool dense air directly into the air collection buckets that are located directly behind the headlights.

Do the Jim F resistor mod. These cars MUST be kept cool! They run faster when they are cooler and everything under the hood will last longer as well.

When at the track, run the car as stone cold as possible!

SHOULD DO MODS:

"T" bar mod to the trans. I went three full turns.

As your fan clutch ages and gets looser, DON'T replace it. With the Jim F resistor mod, you can let the electric fans pick up the slack.

Light weight rims. I'm running 16" CLKs.

Remove the two screens from the mass air meter. Leave the one at the exit of the air cleaner assembly in place. Some folks will want to give me a lot of flack for this. Please keep it to yourself. Again, I'm just listing what I've done. You all can do what you want and prove me wrong with better timeslips. More power to you!

Use a 92 4.2 EZL. (This last one may only work for 93 cars and may not work on 94-95 cars. I'll update this thread after I've tried it myself on my 95.) This will give you a little more ignition advance. This is worth a little less than a tenth, but every little bit helps. Better be running good gas though!
Edit: This EZL stuff gets real complicated. When the open deck blocks came out in late 93/early 94, the EZLs were changed yet again, because, supposedly, the open deck blocks cool their heads better, making them more tolerant of more ignition advance. So if this is true, there may not be as much gain running a 92 EZL on a car that originally came with a EZL that has a part number starting with a "015" prefix. Again, on my early 93, the 92 EZL was worth a little less than a tenth in the quarter mile. It may not be worth as much on a 94-95 car, if it even works on a 94-95 car! The only way to know for sure is to try it, or wait for me to try it on my 95!

Try to reduce at least a little weight. I removed my front carpets, pads, and insulation. Sometimes I remove the spare, sometimes I leave it in for traction.

I bought an E-bay chip that on the dyno gave me absolutely zero gain, but it did at least allow me to raise my shift points to 6,500 RPM, which helps a little with the huge gap between gears on our old tech 4 spd automatics and our tall gears. I'm not sure if I even recommend this one, but I had it in the ECU when I ran my 14.200, so in the interest of full disclosure I have to list it. If forced to say yes or no I'd say yes, it's a benefit to have it. However small the benefit is, I think there is one. I haven't really been able to document it though. Too many other variables!

GOING TO DO MODS:

The rest of the exhaust system. ALL of it. GSXR has some great info on his site. One of the things I learned there is that the headpipes immediately after the exhaust manifolds are only 50mm in diameter! That's the same size as the headpipes on my little M103s! Not acceptable! I'm going to port the outlets/exits of the exhaust manifolds too.

I'm going to try to do SOMETHING with the intake manifold. The plenum is too small!


So there it is. I will be adding more things if I remember something that I forgot. If I do add anything more, it will be to THIS first post, so check it again from time to time. I'm reciting all of this from memory because my original "Build Thread" was on a site that is now defunct.

I know some of these mods need a little more explaining. Just ask and I'll elaborate. I just wanted to at least get this thread posted. If I waited till I had time to "do it right", it would never get done! It's already taken me too long to get it done!

Good Luck!

Regards,
Eric

[400Eric]

I just realized that now that B3 is on DragTimes, and that I linked that post to this thread, we might start seeing a few newbies around here, looking to make their 034s quicker. This means maybe we need a disclaimer now!

Follow my advice at your own risk! I assume no responsibiliy! You will probably break your car! Look what happened, I broke mine! It's sitting right now with a blown front trans seal!

Having said all that, I'm still going to follow this thread and build upon it when I embark on B4's build. Watch for the results both here and in the drag racing thread! http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/performance-paddock/251933-anybody-up-some-1-4-mile-action.html

Regards,
Eric

[Admiral Ahani]

Sorry to bring up an old(ish) thread but I really like the info and wanted to say thanks.

I don't have a 400E but I'm looking to buy one next year.

A few questions:
Have you considered going to standalone EMS? E.g. Megasquirt?
If I haven't bought one yet, which is the best year to buy, and why?
Do you like open deck or closed deck more? Coming from 944 turbos, I hate open deck (blows head gaskets all the time), although on the non-turbos it's not a problem.
Do you have plans to change your differential?

[400Eric]

Originally Posted by Admiral Ahani

Sorry to bring up an old(ish) thread but I really like the info and wanted to say thanks.

I don't have a 400E but I'm looking to buy one next year.

A few questions:
Have you considered going to standalone EMS? E.g. Megasquirt?
If I haven't bought one yet, which is the best year to buy, and why?
Do you like open deck or closed deck more? Coming from 944 turbos, I hate open deck (blows head gaskets all the time), although on the non-turbos it's not a problem.
Do you have plans to change your differential?

I'm VERY sorry I missed this post. I was off the web for a while during the Holidays. Then after the holidays I was busy being a Volvo man for a while. Love my Volvos! Still, I can't believe I missed your post! I'm very sorry that I'm only just now responding. Better late than never though!

First of all you can completely disregard EVERYTHING that gerryvz has to say about ANYTHING. He's just trying to steer traffic over to his site. He's also ticked that I posted this thread here instead of his site. The fact is that the vast majority of 400E performance discussion on his site occured there only because I initiated it, and I'm no longer there. Haven't been for a while cause Gerraldine is an idiot. Need proof? Only an idiot would imply that there's no good performance info on these cars on this site when this very thread proves otherwise. It is in fact the only thread on the web that has ALL of the information on my 400E in one place. (It's even in one post!) I've posted more info on this topic in the first post in this thread than you'll find in a whole week of searching Geraldine's site. The simple fact is that the quickest naturally aspirated stock 2.24 geared 4.2 powered W124 in the universe is here on this site, not Geraldine's. Nuff said on that.

Standalone: Short answer: No. When I had the car dynoed the operator said he couldn't remember a car that managed it's AFRs so well. When running a 92 ECU, it keeps the AFRs at a near perfect 12.5 to 1 at WOT all the way through the pull. Can't get much better than that. Then you add in a 92 EZL for the ignition and you've got a more aggressive advance curve now too. I know this because with the 92 EZL I can hear pinging when I get bad gas whereas before I couldn't. The timing is so aggressive that good gas is a must now! Yes, the knock sensors send a signal that the timing needs to be retarded but there's only about 6 degrees of retard available for that purpose. Now with the 92 EZL's additional advance, 6 degrees isn't enough when bad gas is present. This tells me that the advance curve is aggressive enough. But not too agressive though, cause the car is about a tenth quicker with the 92 EZL.

Speaking as a man who owns both early and late, the early 93 M.Y. is absolutely the best. Try to get one made in the Fall of 92. That way you get a 11 to 1 compression engine (92 is only 10 to 1) but you still get aluminum oil tubes and a closed deck block as well, because those two changes didn't occur until about 3/93. There is some debate on that date so try to get one that was built WELL BEFORE 3/93. I realize this narrows your search a bit but I had to answer your question accurately and honestly. You can add the better headlights and cabin air filter of the 94-95 to your 93 a lot easier than you can add the closed deck block to a 94-95. Maybe we can work out a deal where you can buy my early (9/92) 93! PM me about it if interested. Be aware though that it needs trans work.

As I stated in my first post, there may be some cooling advantages with the open deck block, but I, like you, still prefer the closed deck block, even in a N/A application.

As I stated in the first post, I'm fine with the 2.24s. Lower gears will likely just make the car harder to hook-up at the starting line. I'd rather just use the money to get N2O instead and blow by my opponet mid-track.

Please keep us posted on your progress!

Regards,
Eric

[Admiral Ahani]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for the answers. I understand how life can keep one busy and forums are just a hobby after all, not an obligation! Glad to see you're back, though.

Wow, so a car which already has a limited production period and low numbers has been further narrowed to early '93. TBH, I'd never add any forced induction to an M119 (where closed-deck would be best) and I'm completely OK with open-deck in an NA application. I also would never rebuild an M119 so I don't want to worry about changing pistons. So that means I'd much rather have the later engine than a '92.

I strongly prefer the 86-93 headlights, grille and hood (provided the headlights are Euro). It's not a deal breaker, but if I ended up with a '95, I'd actually consider backdating it.

I'm not afraid of tranny work. It seems a LOT of w124s have bad trannies, especially the 400E / E420. My search for one has been postponed because I bought a different benz - pre-smog w116. But I think this car won't stay with me for long, I really want a 400E.

[400Eric]

I think you are the first person ever to side with me about having a preference for the pre-facelift look W124.

Please keep us posted on your progress.

Regards,
Eric

[duxthe1]

Ive never voiced that opinion but I share it.

[Adenauer]

Eric,

Can you list p/n's on the '92 ECU & EZL?

I understand there's a VIN split sometime in the model year. Would like to source the correct parts for correct WOT "mapping."

Also, aren't the injectors from a 500 better suited to the mods?

I get that the plenum is, well, weak but it may be a start to open up the venturi/throttle plate, no?

Need to figure out how to mod the torque converter stall.

[400Eric]

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond, but I've been gone a while.

I've been gone a long time and I apologize for that. It is no way to treat one's friends on an online community, to just up and disappear like that, which I have done twice now, but I can't even begin to cover the hows and whys I am just so overwhelmingly busy and have had to let "car stuff" take a back seat to the other bunkness in my life.

I'm also sorry about the P/Ns oversight. I thought I had already posted them. The early-MY-92 P/N is 012 545 30 32 and the late-MY-92 P/N is 014 545 15 32. There was no appreciable difference between them when tested back to back on the chassis dyno but I think the late 92 ECU gives better fuel economy. (Just my own highly unscientific, unproven, un-properly documented MPG experience.) Sorry, I removed the 92 EZL shortly before the trans blew as I was getting bad tank after bad tank of gas and I was worried about engine damage from the detonation. Lot's of disreputable stations out there, especially in the "IE" where I lived until just recently, are selling "premium" gas that is spiked with lower grades. I NEVER got detonation when I bought gas at Costco. Anyways, I haven't seen that 92 EZL since I moved. I will post the number when I find it. In the meantime, any 4.2 EZL with a number lower than 014 545 45 32 should be good as that is the number for my 9/92 build date early 93-MY 400E.

As difficult as it is to believe, the 500E/E500 injectors are the same as ours! And at only 19 LBS, they are way too small for the job at hand. I suspect that that is why modded 500Es seem to hit a wall performance wise. Their injectors are maxed out!

I think that the plenum is the bottleneck, not the venturi/throttle plate, but I welcome experimentation in that area. That is why I started this thread! To get others to pick up where I left off.

Torque converter stall: Since everything from the 3.0 M103 on up used the same basic trans, I'm thinking that substituting a converter from one of the smaller engines will accomplish your goal. That's how us old time Hot Rodders did it back in the day! (Well, that's how us CHEAP Hot Rodders did it!)

Regards,
Eric

[duxthe1]

I'm high 90's% certain the converters won't swap between the inline and V8 722.3's. I'm all but certain the V8 converter wont fit in the inline bellhousing. Assuming the inverse also hold true.

Off topic but I'm pretty worried about the converter in my turbo wagon. It has been blowing through the converter for a while. Not to the point of an RPM flare but it will shift from 3rd to 4th under full load and the RPM wont change. With a built box and raised line pressure I'm fairly certain the clutches arent slipping. I'm not too out of shape about that because I beat on the thing pretty hard most times. Here lately though I've noticed a disconcerting sound if I'm hitting it hard and I think its coming from the torque converter.

If there was a factory part upgrade I'd be on it. I'm afraid I'm going to have to get one built.

[400Eric]

The later V8's bellhousing have cut-outs on both sides for the starter. Can't help but think that these later V8 transmissions have more interchangability baked into them than the earlier trannies do. Plus, a little 6 cyl torque converter might be an easier fit into a later bigger V8 bellhousing than a V8 converter would have fitting into an earlier 6 cyl bellhousing. We won't know for sure until Adenauer tries it!

Regarding a trick new custom converter, maybe you and Adenauer should pool your resources and engineering abilities. I'd be interested in the results!
Regards,
Eric