SL500 Drift Monster Roasts Tires at Hoonigan’s Secret Shredhouse
Oregon-based Xccessive Manufacturing’s 1990 Mercedes SL500 weighs only 3200 pounds and has 300 horses of destruction.
Portland, Oregon is a lovely place to be if you’re a gearhead. The car culture is as strong as the support the Timbers Army show for their beloved Portland Timbers. You can learn to race at Portland International Raceway. And there are plenty of shows and meets to trade stories and find parts.
Portland is also the home of part manufacturer Xcessive Engineering. Xcessive makes lots of machined bits for Hondas, Nissans, Jaguars, and now, Benzes. And what better way to show off what Xcessive can do than by turning up at the Hoonigan “Secret Shredhouse” in Portland, Oregon in their Xcessive SL500.
Driven by company founder Ryan Kobliha, the Xcessive SL500 is a true “oddball” for the Hoonigan crew, who have seen Xcessive bring “the most excessive cars in their brand” to their shedhouses in the past, but nothing like an 1990 SL500.
Under the hood of the Xcessive SL500 is the M119 5.0-liter 32-valve DOHC V8, pumping around 300 horses to the welded rear diff through a Nissan 300 ZX transmission. The engine itself no longer has the stock distributor system, which were dispensed with “because Mercedes is too expensive to replace.”
Instead, the right bank hosts a Ford big format distributor cap, which “spreads the spark out so you don’t get cross-spark,” while the left bank houses a Ford magnetic trigger that “sends a signal back to the ECU” to trigger the right-side coil. The entire stock fuel injection system was also scrapped for a “stand-alone aftermarket [system] with ignition control, timing control, and fuel control,” all run by a FAST system. Kobliha plans to add a turbo system to the M119 down the road.
Out back, the rear axle of the Xcessive SL500 is connected to a cantilever suspension custom fabricated by Xcessive, and the stock gauge cluster has been chucked out with most of the interior for an all-digital setup from Intellitronix. Kobliha says when he first bought the SL500, “it weighed 3,850 [pounds], went on a ‘small’ diet, and now it’s down to 3,200 [pounds]; the seats were 80 pounds each.”
As the Hoonigan crew states, “this isn’t your grandfather’s typical Mercedes,” especially with the roar of the M119 exiting through a “straight two-and-a half [exhaust] to a junkyard muffler.” They also state Xcessive “has brought a level to drifting that [they] think is nuts,” and that their choice of vehicles gives the company a style of their own.
And what style Xcessive has. Kobliha swings the SL500 around the shredhouse, leaving donuts on the ground, covered in dust and tire smoke. The rear tires end up destroyed at the end of the run, but that’s what happens when Xcessive turns a 1990 SL500 into the ultimate drifting machine.
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