I bought a '76 280 a few months ago and it sees the road quite a bit. The 4A1 carb is a bit tempermental on hot starts but if you follow the instructions in the owners manual, it works every time. I just have a mental block when it comes to flooring the pedal when starting any engine. But, if you do what MB says, it will fire instantly and you have plenty of time to let off the throttle before it revs into the stratosphere. It spins up to somewhere around 2000RPM which is comparable to my fuel injected gasser MB's which handle starting using computer maps. No tach so I'm guestimating but it is certainly not stressing the mill beyond normal. Oil pressure is instant as verified by detatching the oil guage line and hitting the starter. 15 foot stream of Castrol GTX 20-W50 within a fraction of a second.

As far as driveability, the only issues I can report concern noise....if that can even qualify as an issue. The M110 has a noisy valvetrain no matter what you do. It's a quirk, not a problem....unless you have the cam oiling issue cited many times on this board. Also, that old York AC compressor makes sure you are aware it's there and doing its thing. It sucks power like a pig and thumps like a banshee. Works Great, though.

I would not hesitate to drive it every day but I have to give the other MB iron some love, too.

"edit" I see you have a 280e. No wories about the carb issues. Lucky you!

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Best Regards,
Sam

'76 280 Time Capsule
'00 S430 Long Trips
'91 190E Seeing how far it will go. 366k
'04 American Eagle Motorcoach