I'm in contact with Luke from Diesel Pump UK, but also wanted to solicit some opinions from the many seasoned MBDiesel owners on here...

I'm considering a performance upgrade to my '84 non-turbo 300D (euro-spec). One of those considerations is to increase fuel flow via one of these custom pumps. And yes, I do realize that the trade-off here is fuel economy!

Does anyone have experience installing something like this on their OM617, and would it be something that you'd recommend? Is there some other performance mod that you'd recommend in lieu of this (like adding turbo...)? Besides fuel economy, are there other drawbacks/pitfalls that I should be aware of?

Thanks!

Adding fuel without adding air just makes smoke and higher EGT's. Adding fuel requires added air for added power. About the only way you're going to achieve any meaningful performance improvement is to turbocharge the engine.

If your location is in DC as suggested by your profile, you can find good used 617 turbo engines for about the same money as you'd shell out for a built IP. In stock form you're going from ~79HP to ~123HP which is significantly more than you'd ever see in the best case tuning scenario on an N/A engine.

__________________
Current stable:
1995 E320 149K (Nancy)
1983 500SL 120K (SLoL)

Black Sheep:
1985 524TD 167K (TotalDumpster™)

Gone but not forgotten:
1986 300SDL (RIP)
1991 350SD
1991 560SEL
1990 560SEL
1986 500SEL Euro (Rusted to nothing at 47K!)

I thought that might be the case! My engine has very low miles on it, so I'd be a little reluctant to swap it out for a used turbo-OM617. But I'll keep that in mind.

The performance mod that I'm really hoping for above all else is to swap my 4-speed manual for a 5-speed. But those are so difficult to come by here in the States...