I don't think it could be the oil, because you can drive the car, and if you don't break first gear, you can get the "enhanced" performance mode for about 30 seconds. If you go over 3k rpm, even for 1 second, and then back off, the car immediately goes back into slow mode. Thats also why im not agreeing with the cold air theory, because the air temp doesn't change in 30 seconds, but thats all it takes to go from wow its fast to *yawn.* It must be the fuel enrichment, and it must be working.... Thats why I was wondering if you could manually turn it on. I don't want it to be in "enriched" fuel mode all the time, because of the loss of gas mileage, I just want to be able to turn it on when wanted. I guess ill just have to do some digging about how the air sensor works, and how to force the car to think its 20 degrees outside and the car has just started. And btw... in the mornings around here... its in the 70s, and ive noticed this performance improvement during sweltering hot 90 degree mornings. And as far as the increased fuel, I agree that if you don't get enough air moving through with the gas, you are going to wear out your engine pretty fast, not to mention you will be emitting putrid smoke. If only I could find out how much more gas the valve injects and where...

It's possible your car's taking in air from the engines surroundings - i.e. cold air when the engines cold, but hot after a few minutes, so you then have decreased power. Check your air intakes

later,

Russ

__________________
190E's:
2.5-16v 1990 90,000m Astral Silver
2.0E 8v 1986 107,000m Black 2nd owner
http://www.maylane.demon.co.uk/190esmall.jpghttp://www.maylane.demon.co.uk/190esmall2.jpg

hehe... the intake is fine, it goes through a sawed off scoop up at the front, to facilitate the movement of air at higher speeds (Ram air style) I might have mislead you guys, the car isn't any slower than normal when driving, its just faster than normal for the first 30 seconds after a cold start...

The fuel mixture does not account for the performance. The fuel mixture is getting enriched when the engine is cold in order to account for the decreased atomization of the gas molecules. In other words, the mixture is the same as any other time and not any richer. To put it in another way, when an engine is cold fuel does not evaporate as efficiently and the engine is running lean. That is why the enrichment injector supplies an extra dosage of fuel during this period to compensate for the otherwise lean mixture and bring it back to normal until the engine is warm enough to do so on its own.

If you were to turn on the enrichment during normal (warm) engine operation, the performance of the engine would decrease since the mixture would not be optimal for efficient combustion.

Now, the reason your car has better acceleration has probaly something to do with your transmission. When the oil is cold the oil pressure inside the transmission is higher (and so is inside your engine as you would have noticed the oil pressure gauge shows much higher pressure in the morning when the engine is cold and until it warms up).
I suspect that this increased pressure inside your transmission makes it shift into the first gear. I believe but I am not sure (somebody verify that) that the 300E starts moving with the second gear. Probably the increased pressure in the tranny makes it start on the first gear, hence the increased acceleration and the ability to burn rubber.

As the oil warms up, the transmission starts shifting normally again and therefore you start moving on the second gear and bye bye burnouts...

You are SURE this sawn-off air scoop isn't having some small effect? I do wonder how much engineering and time MB put into designing the air intake for optimum airflow, and wonder if it could really be improved by simply 'sawing it off'


later,

Russ

__________________
190E's:
2.5-16v 1990 90,000m Astral Silver
2.0E 8v 1986 107,000m Black 2nd owner
http://www.maylane.demon.co.uk/190esmall.jpghttp://www.maylane.demon.co.uk/190esmall2.jpg

well... apparently they didn't put enough time into designing the air intake, cause you can definetaly feel a difference with it sawed off. This has also been verified by other members of this board....

As far as the first gear start issue, I have a 92. And from what I have read, my car has first gear start from the factory. This was put in in order to compensate for the changed rear end ratio.

That's interesting, as someone one the Delphi 190 forum experemented with all sorts of different custom-made intakes, and concluded you couldn't improve on their design.. weird that they can get it right in the smaller 190 bay, but not the E..

later,

Russ

__________________
190E's:
2.5-16v 1990 90,000m Astral Silver
2.0E 8v 1986 107,000m Black 2nd owner
http://www.maylane.demon.co.uk/190esmall.jpghttp://www.maylane.demon.co.uk/190esmall2.jpg