Hi Mike,

I purchased my 400E in Feb. 2002 for $8,000 . It had 176,000 miles on it at the time . At this same time I was considering installing a turbocharger on my 88 300TE (Euro model ) wagon .
The cost to retrofit the 300TE ,with a turbocharger, was estimated at about $6000 with myself doing all the work .
On Feb 14th (Valentines Day ) 2002 , my son was on the internet
looking for cars in this area and found a early 90's Audi for $1000
that he was interested in . At the same time he saw the 400E for $8500 . I said " How far away is that car" and he said "It is the same phone number as the Audi and is just south of town"
I had not seen one of these models for sale in our area before.
We called the guy and were at his house within the 1/2 hour.
One stomp on the gas of that 400E and I was sold!!! Paid him $8000 for it . I think the 400E is the best bang for the buck of the 124 series cars.

Now why would I want to gut this car to race it? Well about a year later , when I was teaching my 15 year old daughter to drive,
She accidently hit the accelerator instead of the brake and drove the 3800 lb car under full acceleration into the side of my house!!!!! With me in the passenger seat!!!! We hit at about 10-15mph I guess . No air bags went off . The right side headlight area -hood and fender hit the corner of the house . I let out a few classic words -Oh @#$% and what the @#$% . but did not get on my daughters case about it . It was an accident and nothing was going to back up time to change it . We were both fine except of course she was very shook up about the whole thing. I joked to her that she would just have to work for me for the next 10 years to pay it off! Estimated damage to the car was about $5000 -$7000 . i did not report it to the insurance company . No major structural damage was done to the car. I had a 86 300E parts car (the same color as my 400E and my 300TE by the way) So I salvaged the right headlight ,the hood and purchased a new right fender for about $75 or so and with the help of a comealong and a tree was able to get the right side of the car back into position . I have had several other things go wrong with the car in the last year --Ignition failure -key would not turn -
ended up having to drill the thing out . Sunroof failure and a few other strange things --. As far as i am concerned once the car hit the house the cost to bring it back in shape correctly exceeded its value . so it was on it's way to being a racecar from that day .
It was now in my mind a $3500 400E -- since I run a Mercedes business (dealing in parts for the 190SL and 230SL -250SL-280SL ) I can write this car off as an advertising tool .

The $125 chip was purchased from JRF engineering -email
jforgione@prodigy.net I think it gives a little bit more power but without a dyno test I can not say . It was not that much of a noticable change in performance .

Magnaflow websight
http://www.magnaflow.com/02product/mirrorfinish/streetseries.htm

You can click on the dealer icon on the top to punch in your zipcode for the nearest dealer. The muffler was well worth the money just for the sounds!!!!! i drove around for the next 10 days or so with the window down and the stereo was never turned on in that 10 days!!!!! It sounds as good as it goes!!!! I think this also has a second effect in making me want to race this car -It just sounds so great !!!