........now if only my wife would give me back the keys, so I can drive it.

About the car:
92 500e black pearl
17 inch BBS RKs w/potenza S02s/AND 18 inch RIALs w/ p-zeros

Renntech airbox, front swaybar, gleason diff,chip,ASR defeat switch,trans valve body(1rst gear start), and radiator!!!

600sl brakes, and naca ducts in belly pan w/cooling hoses, braided brake lines

borla stainless exhaust

koni "adjustable" front shocks

Schroth- competition belts

I absolutely love this car, and have since I first had it in the shop for some service a few years ago. It belonged to one of my clients who took great care and pride in it. He used it as a daily driver and for track events. The car was used for the "One Lap event" in 97 and won it's class! Sheeesh, I guess I'm sounding like a proud, new father, braggin' about how cute his son is,,,,BUT, Whew!!! What a ride this is!

Well, the rest of the story is that I took it home, and showed it to my wife. We were going to go out to eat, so I handed her the keys, and told her she should drive it to see how she likes it. Well, I guess that I should mention now that my wife has been driving nothing but benz diesels for the last ten years. She backed it out of the driveway and "accelerated" up our street. We didn't get more than 500feet away from home when she turns to me (with a giant grin on her face), and proclaimed, "This is "MY" car!!!, You can drive my shmeeezel to work!"

I think I created a monster.

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Holy mother of....

That sounds like a dream set-up! Give us pictures!!

Sounds like you've worked on the car? Can you give other forum members installation advice for similar mods, if asked??

To start with, who did the NACA ducts and how can I get some?

More...more...I WANT MORE


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Dean Albrecht
94 E500
99 ML320

www.need2speed.web.com

Yes, I did some of the mods on the car at our shop. I haven't taken any pics yet.....But I will. I can e-mail them but do not know how to post them on the site.

Maybe I can e-mail some pics to one of you who is more computer oriented than I, so that they can be posted here?

Installing naca ducts is pretty simple for the front brakes. You can get a pair of small ducts from a race supplier (like racer wholesale) and mount them in the space where the "access door" is for the front fog lights. Of course, you will have to remove those little access doors since the duct goes into it's place. Attach a piece of flexible hose (also from race supplier) to the duct and route back towards the tie rod assembly. You can then attach the hose to the tie rod assembly so that the hose will "move" with the spindle when you steer the car. Mount the hose securely and aim it at the caliper/rotor. This is not really needed for street use, but for track sessions it is a must. This is also a very inexpensive project. You should be able to do the whole thing yourself for less than a hundred bucks.

BTW: happen to have a Porterfield enterprises catalog here and the ducts & hoses are on page36 duct #AD-D102 and neoprene hose 3" diameter 10'long part #N300

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[This message has been edited by Alain V. (edited 07-30-2000).]

Alain V.

The only fair way to share the car is for you and your wife to each enter Autocross events with it - Whomever has the best time for the event gets to use it as a daily driver until the next event!

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JCE
87 300E, 65k miles
Smoke Silver

Alain,

You are making alot of 500E owners jealous. Especially Lee and Michael, I am sure... Lee, Michael, what ya gonna do?? Hehe...J/K

Congrat on your new baby, and enjoy many ear-to-ear grin miles!!!

Andy Kuo

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• 1992 Mercedes-Benz 400SE
  
• Pearl Grey/Black Leather
  

ICQ#26950002
Mercedes Owners ICQ ActiveList ID#61730549
Mercedes S-Class Page
http://akry.web.com

JCE- I wish it would be that easy. With my roadrace & solo experience, she would never go for it though. I am hoping to get her enrolled in some upcoming porsche club drivers schools at heartland park. I have been instructing at these types of events for about seven years and they are alot of fun. Of course, She probably won't want ME as her instructor.
My strategy is to offer to take it to the car wash about 4 times a week.



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Congratulations! I am sure we are all a little jealous of your find!
As others said tell us about the mods and suorces it might be un to do some if cash allows...
John

Congrats!! (lucky sob....j/k) No doubt that car is quite a beast. How does the upgraded radiator do? 500's always seemed to have trouble with cooling (especially low-speed or stop-n-go). Does the upsized radiator do the trick in your experience?

Also, does the tranny valve body cure the damn 1st gear kickdown lockout (can't get first gear back once you are past 50% or so of its range)?

Thanks...Lee

Alain V.

To post your images, just click on the link at the left margin of the "Post Reply" screen, just above "Smilies Legend".
Go half way down the page to the section titled "Adding Images".

But I'm so eager to see your pics that I'll leave you this link just to speed things up...

http://www.peachparts.com/ubb/ubbcode.html



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Dean Albrecht
94 E500
99 ML320

www.need2speed.web.com

Wooopie! Hope you're having fun, as we all are! Great car, and sounds like yours has all the logical mods. Very nice; Akry's right !!

Anyway, very interested in your responses to Lee's questions...let us know! What brand radiator, BTW? Did RennTech do it in-house??

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Best regards, Michael
'92 500E
'88 300TE

I installed the radiator for the previous owner, because he was a little concerned with the car getting "hot" during track events in the middle of summer.

The radiator itself is a beautiful piece. It is not made directly by Renntech, but it is made to their specs by well known race radiator builder, Ron Davis Racing Radiators, in Arizona....I don't believe you can get it direct though. It is all aluminum and is much thicker than the stock Behr unit. Of course I wasn't smart enough to measure the difference in thickness back when I did the installation, but I can describe it pretty well. This radiator is soooooo big that it was a tight-no very tight fit. I mean that once this thing is in place, the space from the front of the fan clutch to the radiator is only a few millemeters! If it would have been just 3-4 mm bigger in any direction, it wouldn't have fit. The car does run cooler now than before, but not as much as we expected. I plane on adding more water wetter to the system to see if it will help. There is currently only one bottle of it in the cooling system. It was 95 "humid & muggy" degrees outside today when I left work. The first 10 minutes of my trip home are on the highway and the car w/a-c on ran at the 80 degree mark. After I get off the highway, I have another 20 minutes of in town "stop-n-go" traffic to drive through. The temp gauge went up to right in between the 80 and 100 mark, and stayed there for a few minutes before climbing to just undere the 100 mark. Cruising slwly through traffic the rest of the way home it stayed there, just under the white 100 line. That is where it seems to run when idling around alot. I have already checked to make sure the fan clutch is ok, and it is, but it seems to me that the car needs more airflow at slow speeds to keep it running cooler.

About the transmission. This mod makes driving this car a blast! The car ALWAYS takes off in first.
Here is what I have noticed when you don't shift manually but just leave it in "D".
You can tamely accel across an intersection and right after the car shifts into 2cnd, if you stomp on it it shifts back down into 1rst automatically and it leaps forward swallowing asphalt.

When shifting manually, you can take off with the shifter in 1rst and while moving in second (did this at about 2k rpm, but didn't note the speed-going around 15 or so)you can shift back into first and YES it does go back into first gear!

Dean, thanks for the advice for posting pics.
As soon as I take a few (hopefully before this weekend), I'll try and post pics of the car and some pics of the radiator, brake ducts & stuff.



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Alain,
My compliments on your ride. Thanks for the feedback on the radiator and results. As for the low speed cooling Benzmac and I were always curious what would happen if you lost the clutch fan altogether in place of a pair of high speed electric fans that kick to low speed the moment the car gets to 80 C, then on full blast when the temp hits 100C. This is all supplemental to the smaller electric fans in front of the radiator... Since the clutch fan only turns at 500 or so rpm at idle it can't be drawing much air through. If you had a set of fans pulling several times the air through the stock (or larger) radiator you should be able to keep the car cool regardless of speed. Not to mention the power you'd save keeping the motor cooler and not having the clutch fan as dead weight would surely more than make up for any draw the new electric fans pulled. Has anyone ever seen this done or have any experience with something similar?

As for the 1st gear thing I noticed that once you were past 20-25mph you couldn't kick down or shift to first. (which redlines at approx 40mph) Seems the valve body fixes that though...

Congratulations on one helluva car. Sounds like it has all the good toys short of the megabuck stuff. (6.0 motors, 6-speed tranny, trashcan lid sized brakes, etc) Can't wait to see some pics and hear more about it.

drooling with jealousy....Lee

Lee/Alain/Doc/Mac/Other: Do these cars have oil coolers and if not, would it help?

Dying to see the pics (especially the techie ones),
Matt

[This message has been edited by makakio (edited 08-02-2000).]

That sounds like a truly wicked ride. I believe I met a young couple from Dallas that Co-Drove the very same car in the OneLap race. They were driving a nice older Brabus 300E at the Dallas Motor Speedway.

I would like to install the ASR defeat switch and first gear valve body in my car. I am curious if RENNTech is the only source for those parts. I know of one MBCA member lucky enough to have MB modify his 560SEC transmission valve body for the 1st gear start. He claims it only cost him $135 for the modification. I have been told that on a 500E the transmission must be removed to access the valve body. I guess I will have to wait until I have just cause to remove the transmission...

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Bryan Harter
92 500E Smoke Silver

Bryan, if the husband was in the aircraft industry, and driving a white Brabus that used to be supercharged,,,then yes, they co-drove my 500e with the previous owner at one lap. Zane, is his name and I met him a few years ago when he was running an event at heartland. At the time, he had a 190e 16 valve with a mosselmann turbo and a "evo 2" body kit on it for sale.



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