Custom headers for '88 300E... Potential problems?
 

I was wondering if having custom headers fabricated for my '88 300E would be a problem. The stock headers appear to weigh nearly 200 pounds, and restrict flow considerably with the precats. Would I completely screw up the engine management by removing the precats? I want to improve the exhaust flow a bit without making the car ungodly loud, and why not remove a few pounds while at it. Just ideas... Also pondering turbocharging the engine. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks in advance.

http://www.tdi-plc.com/Merc300Eclass.html



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Thanks for the link, but I'm well aware of TD's offerings for the 300E, and can't even remotely justify spending $8,000 + shipping on a turbocharger kit for my car. I think with a little research (and limiting the pressure to 0.4 bar as they did, which seems to be the highest safe pressure for the engine on stock internals) I could assemble my own setup, intercooled and all. I take it no modifications were made to the EFI system with TD's setup? Has anyone ever made their own home-brew turbo setup for their 300E?

$8,000 is just obscene. If I was to go with one of those kits, I'd be 99% sure I'd go with the supercharger instead for the same price, but I'm thinking I could turbocharge my own car with a custom setup for under $3,000.

Tips? Concerns?

Oh yeah, and in a biturbo setup, what's the smallest turbo I could reliably get 6 psi from? I want spool-up time to be a minimum and boost pressure to be as steady and constant as possible.

No way that's 200 lbs of headers.

Hard to see a shadetree solution doing anything but decreasing performance and reliability.

You may want to check out 190Revolution.net's forums. Since the M103 was shared between the 190 and 300! There is a guy there named MRP-Engineering that does custom work for these engines. He does have flanges for custom headers for the M103 motor and may even have full manifolds already made. He just had posted yesterday about making some custom exhaust headers for the M103 out of the remaining stuff he has in his shop. He also is quite knowledgeable about the tuning of these engines as he has done much work.

Try this site:
 

www.bekkers.com
They used to offer headers for the 124's. I do not know if they still do but, they are NOT cheap.

Good luck!

J.H.