Well, I KNOW it's OK! 125k miles on my C280... hitting the rev limiter many many times, every day.... and she still drives like a champ.

Simply, drive it hard a bit... give it some good revs... under load...

I agree. Italian tuning really smooths out an engine. My car gets a lot of city driving but every once in a while, I really flog her on the freeway and I notice it seems to'like' it, i.e., smoother idle afterwards and less smoke out of the tailpipe when cold.

As had been pointed out, these engines are made for serious autobahn cruising.

We call the techs who like to do these types of operations "Rev-Techs", it is not a noble title.

Gilly

My "common sense" inclination leads me to believe that it's probably pretty good for cleaning the gunk out of the engine, particularly a diesel, but at the same time it is probably putting extra wear on the tranny and other components. Is the tradeoff worth it?...I don't know. I tend to drive my SD pretty hard, and it seems to like it. Runs consistently good.

Mike

A couple of months ago I was doing an "Italian Tune up", which I firmly believe in, and was motioned to the side of the road by a local police officer. I was decelerating when he caught me but I was still doing 85 in a 50. I expected this to be a very expensive tune-up but he asked me "what the HECK I was doing so I explained. He had never heard of an Italian Tuneup but admitted that the '89 300E was purring like a kitten so it must work and he just gave me a warning.

gillybenztech,

You say "Rev-Techs" is not a noble title.
Is that to say that you do not endorse this practice?

Jeff Pierce

i tried this method of "tune-up" driving 80 mpg in 3rd and
i seemed to have wasted so much gas in doing so...

is this what should happen?

Of course you're gonna eat gas..!!! 80mph in excess of 4,000 RPMs... you sure will. But it's so miniscule... don't even worry. I hope it shows some results!

hmmm
now i'm perplexed...

i've had other 300CE owners tell me that they get great gas mileage... 18 - 22 mpg city...

i get a see-saw mpg of 15-17 mpg city....

when i was doing the "tune up" 3rd gear drive i could swear i could see the needle go down towards "E"...and as a result my tank/mileage numbers are currently at 189 mpg where normally i'm at 215 mpg

hmmm
hey does anyone know if running 108 octane boost is a good way to blow out the injectors? burn them clean so to speak...one of my friends is doing it on his range rover...where he's using the 108 boost..

does anyone have any knowledge on this?

is it still ok for me to drive a 380 sel with 450 000 km (purring like a kitten) hard ?

hey Benzonline,
would you wear an adidas velour sport jogging coat over a Armani 3 piece suit, on your way to a business meeting to close the deal on a 300 Billion dollar merger?
:D

LOL.....


i guess its all good then!!

italian gone awry???
 

well i tried the 'tune up' while i had my car in 3rd gear.everything was fine for a few minutes AND THEN.....my coolant light came on!
of course my heart stops momentarily and once oxygen comes back to my brain i shift it back into drive.after 5-10 seconds the light goes out and i continue to drive along.after a few miles i decide to try again but only with the same results.i do plan on changing my coolant-it's due-and i guess the t/stat but why would this happen?

Has anyone tried PowerFoam made by AMSOIL? I did several months ago and this stuff works great at cleaning out deposits and overall giving your engine a good internal cleaning.

I removed my spark plugs to check the gap on them several weeks ago and the top of the pistons looked brand new. I then removed the intake pipe, opened up the throttle valve and looked at a shiny aluminum intake. I wish I had taken a few pictures because I was stunned at how clean everything was. This stuff seems to work excellent and no I'm not a dealer, although I am an avid user of their products.

Dale

95 E320
00 C230

In the past few days I have been letting my engine run hotter than normal (over 100C). Initially, I noticed this really strong chemical smell, and black smoke on hard acceleration.

After a day or two, the smell and smoke are gone. The car did idle a bit rough after doing this, but that is smoothing out. I would like to run it flat-out at 100+ mph for a while to really clean it out.

Jet -- I never heard of PowerFoam, but have used Z-Max with great success up until about a year ago, when I could no longer find it at my local stores.