Riverflyer

Hi all, I am a long time enthusiast and have owned wayyyy to many cars. Most have been on the performance edge and while lots of fun, not always comfortable on brave new world of California's degrading road system.

I wanted a comfortable cruiser with topless option and always liked the styling of the last generation SL's. I mean a glass roof that you can remove with the push of a button....how cool is that!

I found this car through reading a thread on the site here. Contacted the previous owner,(David) who was very helpful and found his old car at the MB dealer he had sold it to. Trusting what he and the previous owner before David had said about the car, I bought it sight unseen and had it shipped cross country.
Just arrived yesterday and we put the top down and drove 200 miles on wine country back roads, some hiway etc. What an awesome car.
My only previous foray in MB world was a new c63 AMG edition one car. It was the designo matte black and while it looked cool, just did nothing for me. Sold it within a month of purchase.
The SL55 was meant to be driven and came at an excellent price point for use. I have a roadster but it has been in an appreciation cycle for a few years and has gotten to the point that its too expensive to drive anymore other than short jaunts.

Sorry, I digress. The SL55 is the 030 performance pack car and in just brilliant condition and I could not be happier, esp. given the price.
Just 21k on the clock and such a nice ride. Roads that were a chore in the TT, are now just fine. Great sound system and just an overall fine car.

Thanks to David for the reassurance and encouragement.
Surely will have some mod questions and hope to get to know the forum members. John

carguyshu

glad you like it! With that 030 performance pack be prepared for a hefty bill when it comes time for rotor replacement, though based on the list of cars under your name you are likely no stranger to high cost parts.

walterwhite

Wow, sweet looking ride. That's like a text book example of a SL55 with the 030 package. You should post a pic of it to the SL Wikipedia page!

Nosmo SL55

What an awesome looking car, love the colour!

kittyandgary

I know the once preceding owner from Anaheim via the Porsche 928 community. He is close to a legend in the Porsche Club racing circuit, so he KNOWS performance cars!! I know how much HE liked this car. You got a great car, and I know it will serve you well.

See you have a 3.0CSI. I had a '73 3.0CS for about 10 years in the '70's. BADLY wish I still had it. These are beautiful cars that were a great joy to drive. Love to hear more about yours.

carlsturm

Beautiful color. Enjoy.

Riverflyer

Thanks for all the great comments. It is a wonderful color and pretty rare it seems. Lots of metal flake so really pops in the sunlight.

KittyandGary, The 3.0 is a beauty. The car had an early 80's factory engine replacement to the highly desirable M90. This is a 3.5l high compression, high hp example that puts out around 220hp. Mated with 5spd transmission and Carl Nelson springs and upgraded torsion bars, creates a very spirited driver that handles well and is quite fast.
I have owned several and they are wonderful cars.

cal1

Love the car, welcome to the boards. IMO as far as appearance mods, I'm thinking don't mess with perfection. I am a bit an R230 purist though, but the 030 pack is sweet. Maybe some darker tint and an electronic lowering module (ELM) would be in order. I'm an ELM fan over links or other mechanical methods because the ELM can be adjusted to have the ride height rise to normal height at a given speed. My car is set to be low when stopped or going slowly and then back to normal at driving speeds. No need to mess with alignment and no handling compromises that way.

As far as performance mods, there are many good options depending upon your goals. More and more SL guys are beginning to do performance mods, but the E55/E63 guys are the mod nuts of the boards. Tons of good discussions over there on performance mods.

SGTzAMG

Love that color! congratulations!

Riverflyer

Thanks Cal 1 for the input. I would like to know more about ELM, to be honest this is the first I have heard of it. I was hoping to lower the car a bit but have also been dissuaded by one shop I spoke with. I am not looking for much, maybe 1/2 to 5/8". Please tell me more.
John

cal1

First off although i could be wrong, I do not think many cars other than Mercs use hydraulic suspension like our Active Body Control (ABC) system. ABC is great when it is working. You will no doubt read tons of stuff about ABC horror stories. In a nutshell, MB said ABC was maintenance free and after people started having significant issues, it was realized that keeping the fluid clean and changing the filters was the key to reducing ABC trouble.

First paragraph and I am already running astray. OH, the fact that our suspensions are hydraulic and very sophisticated provides great flexibility in using ABC to adjust ride height. An ELM module can be wired into the system to tell ABC what height it wants to maintain. The two most common systems to accomplish this are the ELM2 and the ELM3 or at least those are the two I know the most about.

Not sure if you are familiar with Renntech, but they make tons of mods for MB among others. They have both the ELM2 and ELM3 available for sale. You should check out their site. It did not take long for some people to realize that a company called Programa made the ELM2. I suspect they make the ELM3 as well, but not sure. One could purchase the ELM2 with a RT badge on it and pay over a thousand for it. Our you could buy the same unit without the badge directly from Programa for $500. That is what I did. Here is their site.
http://www.programainc.com/product_d...aspx?sf=LCMR01

Have a look at the PDF downloadables on Programa's site and it will tell you everything you want to know. Some guys install the system themselves. I was intimidated by it and actually had an MB dealer install it for me for about 1 hour shop time. If you have a trusted independent so much the better.

Here are a couple of shots of my car lowered. If I recall close to a full inch like maybe .8 inches. Also, I have 18 inch wheel. So your 19s would look sweet.












The best thing about the ELM is the speed control where you can adjust what ride height you want at what speed. I recall you stated that you wanted a "comfortable cruiser" so you dial in the drop that makes you happy. Keep it low while stopped or rolling slow and a soon as you hit normal driving speed it is back up to comfortable cruiser.

One more photo. The best place to hide the remote control unit unless you use the old Motorola phone.

Riverflyer

thanks Cal, looks like a great solution. Perfect drop on your car. I had thought about the tune and pulley,(I see you have done that) do you recommend it?

Riverflyer

Its a great color, thanks. Lots of metal flake so dust does not show and even after two days of driving, including a stretch of dirt road, the paint looked great.

cal1

Been meaning to get back to you on this. If I have it right, the main use for your SL is to be able to take it out say on a Sunday afternoon and cruise through the wine country or what have you and enjoy a carefree afternoon or maybe some daily driving. That said, you don't want to be thinking in the back of your mind "damn, am I going to throw another SC belt or is the new smaller SC pulley going to dynamite on me like it has for other 55k guys?" I merely state the above as a caveat. Some people have had serious issues with larger counter pulleys and the newer smaller SC pulley. Have a look at this thread https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/...er-pulley.html

I have a Renntech counter pulley that has been trouble free for 45,000 miles. When I first bought it a number of years ago, many forum members thought I was crazy for spending three times what they did on their larger counter pulleys. Then, threads popped up about all sorts of counter pulley issues. Wobbling pulleys and pulleys spinning off the crankshaft come to mind as two of the big problems. My RT pulley is still solid. A few years back, a few mod companies came out with a smaller SC pulley. Makes perfect sense. Accomplishes the same as the larger counter with less rotating mass, perfect, but it wasn't or doesn't appear to be yet. Maybe the kinks will be worked out.

If you did not live in California, I would suggest your first mod to be long tube headers and a tune. Don't quote me, but I think this can get you up to 50 WHP. Unfortunately, I think you would have issues with California smog tests. You might want to do some checking to see if people have a work around for that. I have short headers which still connect to the primary cats and should have no smog issues. I did remove my secondary cats because my state only checks for "check engine" codes and that is it. If the mod bug bit you and you wanted to keep going, LT headers and a tune is the perfect foundation to mod to the moon with.

If you are just interested in a pulley and tune situation. Check out Kleemann If I was to do it over again, this is the direction I would go. I think Kleemann delivers the quality that RT does, but gives you better value. You cannot go wrong with RT, but you will pay much more. you could also check out Eurocharged. I have a Eurocharged dyno tune, but I see them as a low cost alternative personally.

Finally, I suggest spending some time cruising the boards reading about different mods and mod issues. The E55/E63 guys are the mod nuts of the boards. You will learn a ton on that forum. I should add that because of our SCs design, heat soak steals gains quick so cooling mods are often needed which is one reason why I like the LT headers so much. Also, the stock Intercooler pumps tend to be crap.

If you have specific questions, post them up or feel free to shoot me a PM. I am far from an expert, but have lived through some of the challenges modding our cars can cause.

carguyshu

the smaller clutched supercharger pulley problem has supposedly been fixed. You can see the difference in rivot sizes if it is an old or new design. The fixed smaller supercharger pulley might still have some tuning issues and you run the risk of the car not being able to turn off the supercharger and something going boom. I'd say on average people are having less problems with the smaller clutched supercharger pulley than they are the crank pulley. Most problems have occurred due to poor install though. Adding 1 or 2 psi of boost isn't going to be putting much extra stress on the motor or hurt reliability.

cal1

Riverflyer: I am not trying to scare you, just helping you make an informed decision on your choice of mods if you choose them at all. This is a must read if you are thinking about the smaller SC pulley. Note how recent some of the dates are and there appears to be some confusion regarding the older and newer designs.

https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/...-my-car-4.html

Riverflyer

thanks for looking out my friend. I appreciate the advice and will, as you mentioned, study the board about mods before jumping in. I have a couple of highly modded cars and it might be nice to just enjoy the oem setup on this car... for awhile at least.

cal1

My pleasure.

I was going to ask if you did the mods yourself on your other cars or have a trusted shop to do it for you?

Riverflyer

My limit on wreching is exhaust, wheels, brakes, suspension, thats about it. Heavy stuff goes to the pro's. I do have a great shop space to work in.

cal1

Carguyshu makes a valid point that some of the counter pulley issues where in fact the result of improper install. My first set of mods were performed by a supposed professional speed shop. They made tons of mistakes with my pulley and heat exchanger install. I could write a book on the story, but won't bore you with it. The MB dealer in Indianapolis (used to live there) did a fine job for me cleaning up the speed shops mistakes. At no small price of course. The speed shop even forgot to tighten hose clamps on the HE so my last fun experience from them was to **** out every ounce of coolant on the freeway. Still don't know how I got the car shutdown so fast and avoid engine damage. SBC and ABC where at their best as I went from the far left lane to a safe place near an off ramp in like two seconds. The SL would have been toast if the wife would have been driving it that day

The point of my story is if I had just purchased that sweet car of yours, had the cash to spend and a very trusted shop with some experience doing mods on 55ks, I would likely buy either Kleemann's performance pack one or two and be done with it. The result would be noticeable extra power with a safe tune.

Riverflyer

Yes, I have had some bad mechanic issues as well.

My Z8 came from Indianopolis. The BMW shop there is top notch so folks in that town seemed to be blessed with good dealers.

Thanks, I'll check into Kleemanns webpage.

Riverflyer

Update....I have not done anything to the car, at least for now. Its kind of refreshing as I have several highly modded cars and am enjoying straight up OEM world on this one!!

I do have one issue. The selling dealer sent a windscreen, as per our agreement, but it turns out its the wrong one for this car. Anyone have, or know of a correct windscreen for 2007 SL 55 that they would like to sell??

cal1

^ You might want to check this out.

https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/...oup-buy-6.html

Riverflyer

Found a windscreen, thanks all.

mark anderson

I have an extra as well and I'm glad you're enjoying my past SL. I just bought SL#5 over the weekend in a similar color so I will be selling my 2006 soon. I did love that Designo package on your car.