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#1
05-19-2003, 06:04 PM
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Phenolic spacers for 500E?
I'm sure all the hardcore gearheads around here have heard of phenolic intake spacers and the philosophy behind them. Is there any reason we can't apply the same concept to our motors? There's probably nothing that our engines would love better than a cooler intake charge. I know these things work for the Mustang guys, and there are rumblings over at MBWorld about the CLK55/E55 guys looking into them as well. Somebody has already contacted a vendor about getting a fitment for Mercedes, and it boiled down to ~20 committed customers and ultimately ~$100/each. Unless I'm missing something here, this might make an incredible bang-for-the-buck mod for all of us, regardless of state of tune. People have reported drops in intake charge temps of up to 30 degrees F, that translates to about 6% increase in HP/torque across the board. For those who are already skeptical, phenolic spacers are a dyno-proven mod that a lot of the domestic-types use. The only question is whether there is something about our engine layout/design that would prevent their use. I know speedybenz custom machined a set for his W202 with great results, maybe he can chime in as well. Any thoughts, fellas?
Vendor for phenolic spacers
__________________
1994 E500 
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#4
05-20-2003, 04:38 PM
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update
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From: Outlaw Engineering [mailto:sales@outlawengineering.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 1:26 PM To: Scott M. Shell Scott, We do not currently offer an application for the Mercedes 500E. We generally request 20 firm commitments prior to the design, prototyping, and production of a new performance part. Pricing for a set, including intake manifold and throttle body insulators along with necessary hardware such as lengthened studs would be in the $100 range. To prototype a new set, we generally prefer to have acces to a full vehicle. This will allow us to investigate fit-up issues and to do a before and after dyno test to asses performance increase. We are located in Indianapolis, so if there are any interested parties in the central Indiana area that would be interested in having their vehicle used as a test bed, please step up. This would include a short session to evaluate the vehicle and take measurement data, followed by another session a short time later to install and evaluate the prototype set. This, of course, would be done free of charge. Please asses the interest for your group and let us know. Best regards, Sean Morgan Outlaw Engineering www.outlawengineering.com ----- Original Message ----- From: Scott M. Shell To: sales@outlawengineering.com Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 2:25 PM Subject: inquiry Do you have a phenolic spacer fitment/application for my 1993 Mercedes-Benz 500E (W124-036)? RSVP / Thank you, http://www.nemonis.net - Scott M. Shell
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#5
05-21-2003, 08:22 PM
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stupid question, but...
Daesun,
Why can't someone simply courier (FedEx/UPS) Outlaw Engineering some OEM, M119 intake manifold insulators, throttle body insulators and studs for fabrication of a sample set of phenolic spacers and (lengthened) studs? Do we have any resident (central) Indiana W124-036 types who can accommodate Mr. Morgan's (cost-free) request? PRETTY PLEEEEAAASSEE????!!!
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#7
05-21-2003, 08:31 PM
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We definitely don't need to go through that particular vendor. I'm sure there are plenty of ppl who are capable of fabricating them on the West Coast. Isn't anyone else interested in these things? It's a foolproof power bump.
__________________
1994 E500
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#9
05-21-2003, 09:34 PM
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Phenolic???
Hi guys,
Scott asked me to chime in on this topic. I won't claim to be any sort of expert on it but here are some things to think about generally and specific to these cars. 1) Yes, these spacers have been used - mostly in drag racing. However, once the motor is heat soaked, these won't do much so you're really postponing the inevitable on a road car for a little while. Is it 10 minutes, 30 minutes or an hour - I don't know. Remember that the intake manifold is still snugly sitting in a hot V of the motor. 2) Raising the intake manifold will pull the injectors out of their proper position in the ports. Is this a good thing or bad thing? Won't know until you test it. I'm less worried about this in a forced induction setting, but otherwise not sure how well the fuel dispersion will hold up. Until you know this, I'm not sure I'd jump in on a 20+ order. This is the only potential performance downside that I see if it's properly designed and fabricated. As usual, it will take someone who will to pay for the R&D to know if this is really worthwhile on this car and substantial testing under different load, ambient and run time settings to know what this mod will really deliver. 3) It's hard to imagine a drop of intake charge 30 degrees - particularly once the engine bay is hot. 30 degrees is not quite intercooler territory but it's a big drop. How much heat do you think that the air really picks up in the second it flys through the intake manifold? And what percentage of the air is even contacting the manifold to create the heat transfer? 4) The cost in this project is not the spacer. If someone will make a custom app for $100/copy - run with it. Most plastic companies won't even cut this stuff anymore because it's murder on their tools, particularly in these thicknesses. You're looking at water or laser cutting. I'd spend a lot more time worrying about the labor and ancillary parts costs not to mention that it all get done correctly. Unless you've recently replaced the idle air tubes on the top of the motor, all of these tubes and connectors will need to be replaced as they're cooked rock hard. There's $100 to start with. Again not much, but possibly the tip of the iceberg. If your engine wiring harnesses look anything like mine, count on a new one of those as well. Now, we're talking some real money. These are best left undisturbed when you see lots of cracked insulation. At the end of the day, it could be a $1,000+ proposition for 5HP for the first 30 minutes after startup. Is that worth it? Conclusion: I'm not saying this may not be a good mod, particularly if you like to take the car to the dragstrip (which I do), but I'm not sure it's all roses. There's no way to know until it's been tried and tested. If Outlaw will do this for an order of 20 units at $100 a pop, it's a bargain. $2000 for all the R&D, custom design and results. That's a great deal. Only one person needs to take whatever risk there is in the installation, parts, etc. They're not even charging for the install and test results. That's pretty fair. I'd just ask for them to agree to retrofit the stock setup if it turns out to hurt performance for whatever reason. The other 19 buyers invest $100 and can chose to not install the part if they don't like the results. That's the cost of a cheap detail. Plus, you get the benefit of Outlaw's experience with this type of product design and fabrication. By comparison, I'm sure it'd take us much more time and testing to get up the learning curve. At the end of the day, this may be a cheap price for the fun of the experiment and helping advance the tuning options for all M119 motors. That's my $0.02 for what it's worth (probably about $0.02 on a good day).
__________________
-Carl Principal, BergWerks
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#10
05-21-2003, 10:56 PM
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thank you, Carl
...for your very detailed and thought-through response.
This is precisely why I value mercedesshop.com so much; it is the participation of professionals such as yourself which galvanizes an already well-forged community of enthusiasts! I am willing to invest $100 in this venture - provided that one of us closest to Outlaw Engineering's facility is willing to bite the bullet. For me, at least, every single unit of BHP counts! With appreciation and continued enthusiasm,
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#11
05-28-2003, 05:34 PM
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I would be all over this, but I have an M104, so that would mean they would need to make two versions.
~dnm
__________________
1995 C36 AMG
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