I spent a lot of time researching the different tunes on offer for the C63 (which are available in the UK) and narrowed it down to a Kleeman K1 or the new Brabus B63 kit. Both claim around 520PS (about 513hp) but I decided to pay the considerable extra money for the Brabus kit. Why?

Firstly, I'll admit the brand drew me in and secondly, as the Brabus kit is supplied by Mercedes themselves here in the UK and therefore (contrary to what a lot of people have mentioned), in the UK the Brabus kit does not affect the ability to claim on the warranty in Mercedes dealer. Before anyone pipes up about this, the key phrase is 'in the UK'...MB have confirmed no warranty is affected by fitting Brabus tunes over here!

Now, I'm on my second C63 and my first one was a regular P30 so one thing I can definitely say is that the P31 is noticeably faster...so much so that I always thought it was much more powerful than the 30hp extra that AMG claim. Nevertheless, I ordered and paid for the Brabus kit and looked forward to hopefully getting another 30hp increase over my stock P31.

The day I was due to get the Brabus kit fitted, I took my car to have it dyno'd in stock P31 form. And what I saw I just couldn't believe - a solid 415rwhp which with 18% transmission losses equated to 507bhp This really confirmed my butt dyno's thoughts that this car was much stronger than quoted 30hp more than a P30!

Had I known this, I probably wouldn't have ordered the Brabus kit but as it was ordered and paid for, off I trotted to my MB dealer to have the B63 kit fitted. When I drove it out, bad news....I seriously could not tell the difference. I decided to give it a week or so to see if it got better and booked it in for another dyno-run a week later.

What happened on that dyno really surprised me...after spending in excess of £5,000 I got....wait for it......an extra 4rwhp (511hp at the flywheel!)

To be fair to Brabus, the car was delivering nearly what they claimed (with the exception of torque which remained the same and well below their claims). On a non-P31 C63, this would have been a great tune that did exactly what it said on the tin. On my P31 however, it just couldn't improve on the incredible standard performance.

As I just couldn't justify the cost of this for such a small gain, I contacted Brabus in Germany and they have been very good...they commented on the fact that my car was performing well above normal tolerances and despite the fact their product is not faulty they have agreed to give me a full refund as a gesture of goodwill! This I am very happy about and I cannot fault them o their customer service

Check out the dyno charts below which show the difference between my P31 (blue line) and the Brabus tune (red line). Indeed, the extra nominal HP is only delivered during the final 100rpm and in the mid range, the standard P31 tune was actually stronger! Both runs were done on the same Dyno Dynamics dyno and conditions were virtually identical.

The P31's appear be coming out of the factory with mega-strong power figures and indeed, the people who dyno'd it said it was the strongest '63 engine in stock form that they'd ever seen (and that includes other AMG models including S-Class and SL's!).

Moral of the story - if you have a P31 then you've got every reason to be delighted with your car!

The question is....are there any software-only tunes that can improve on a P31? Is a K1 going to do any better or is my only option for more power going to be a tune with hardware changes such as a K2?


Dyno Chart - Flywheel HP:





Dyno Chart - RWHP:

 

HAHAHAA THIS IS FUNNY 4WHP but its good that they will give u full refund.
Man all u need is MHP HEADERS AND TUNE COMBO and your car will fly and u will gain 75-80whp.
I myself ordered mhp LT headers yesterday.

 

Wow. This makes me a whole lot happier that I have the P31! Sorry for your misfortune of only gaining a few horses but still, P31 never ceases to amaze. Thanks for writing it up!

 

Thank you.try to cantact MKB or OE tuning for tuning and SuperSprint for headers.
good luck

 

You're really lucky they decided to refund all your money

Get some headers and then tune it.

 

Strong running car, congrats.... and excellent write-up by the way

 

Simon on this forum went with a MPH tune on his P31 in Hong Kong. I think he's pleased with it. I sent him a PM the other day and he responded favorably about the tuning. Good luck and thanks for such a good write-up!

 

MKB for sure, not even sure who the other tuner is? Do they have results on par with MKB, Renntech or MPH?

 

Who are you guys trusting to install your headers?

 

I witnessed cek's car, a P31, put down about 425 whp...so now, of course, I want one!

 

Summary: The P31 is tuned from the factory to remove the TB restriction. You don't see it start to taper off around 5,300 RPM like a non-P31 car. The power curve for for the P31 is nearly identical to the power curve of the Brabus tune which also happens to remove the TB restriction.

Additional data: I can personally add that the power curve of the P31 is nearly identical to the power curve of the Kleemann K1 tune. I've compared my car with cek's car and avengerboater's car; the curves are nearly identical. The attached graph shows the curve similarities.

Top car is avengerboater's car with the Kleemann K1 Tune and no Charcoals.
Middle car is cek's car with the P31 Tune and no Charcoals.
Bottom car is my car with the Kleemann K1 Tune and no Charcoals.

Note: These are the cleanest graphs from each car from the same dyno. I did not use the graphs that show spikes in HP.

Worth noting but not in the graph: Looking at the same cars, the peak torque is very similar but the curves are slightly different. The P31-tuned car makes roughly 10 more RWTQ down low (below 4500 RPM) and the Kleemann car makes roughly 5 more RWTQ up top (above 4500 RPM).

 

Excellent post, Supes! This is now the third independent P31 dyno result we've seen and they've all been consistently stronger than the advertised hp figures from MB. Safe to say that MB was being conservative with the marketing for these C63 as to not upset the other AMG classes.

Good job, OP! And kudos to Brabus for their spectacular customer service.

 

It makes sense. Build the C63 that we wanted in the first place, hide it in plain sight and make some extra money on the P31 option upcharge. Now when are the car mags going to wake up and see that the bad boy has gotten a whole lot meaner. Should be worth a re-invite to next years "Lightning Lap" comparison!

 

Super - you rock man. I was reading this thread thinking "oh boy, another data point that re-enforces what I saw with my car on the dyno. I can add value here by posting a link to my thread." But you not only saved me work, but did it far more convincingly than I could have.

I think we really now a have a definitive picture of what the P31 provides.

Palmball - Thanks a ton for posting your results!

 

considering all this, and i feel like i read this elsewhere, but is any1 doing an OE tune?

i guess what im really asking is if the dealer looked at the ecu (with an OE tune), it looks OE - which obviously wouldnt match the specs of the car from the factory - but would not throw any red flags...

i might be asking much though

awesome results either way

 

Best post i've seen about P31 and tunes

 

I always thought the Performance Package Plus had more HP then stated.

Because non PPP C63 with a chip (+60-80hp) are dead even with a PPP equipped C63. But stock vs PPP... The PPP walks away from the non.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxFiC6_oMsA

I love this post!

I'm so glad I got the PPP (APX in Canada)

 

I know the P31 is a somewhat divisive topic here, but it has been proven to be more than advertised.
I love my P31 too, but I gotta admit, I still want more power.
Seriously, I bet if I had a Veyron I'd be thinking I need more power, eventually!
Like anything, it's easy to get use to something no matter how awesome it is at first.
I've got my eye on the new Bi-turbo E or CLS, PP of course!

 

There is no debate here, your post is another confirmation of what it was found a while back when we first saw a video of a oe tune car versus a P31 c63.

or a lot of us we are just happy with just the extra power of a tune, we consider the internals of the "regular C63" to be more than enough. I wouldn't put a Brabus tune myself, I don't doubt they are good but you also need to balance out the price/performance combo.

 

Excellent post, good to know.

We need to see a c63 BS vs P31 now. Dyno and drag race.

 

Good post.. Makes me regret not getting p31 pkg..

 

It would be nice if MBZUSA certified the Brabus ECU upgrade not to void your warrranty as they do in the UK.

 

I'm glad you got your money back. 5000 pounds wasnt really worth it and very expensive for a tune only mod. There is always room for improvement even on your P31. You can get 25-30 RWHP on a tune with your P31 .even though Brabus cant offer it, doesnt mean others cant. If your intrested PM me and I'll be glad to help you.

 

P31 is definitely strong. Ran 60-130 in 9.79 in my car stock p31. Only cars that have run faster are 2 OE cars. Jons and Propain's. Jon's ran around .1 second faster and propain ran .3 faster both had slight advantages, cold east coast weather, 93 octane for jon and I think propain had a blend of 93 and 100oct.

Its the same engine just with stronger parts, compression is the exact same. So whatever is possible on the reg c63 is the same as the p31. Unless you are talking about running a higher octane fuel than normal. Why would it be possible to make more power on the P31 than the non p31? Maybe due to some lighter parts you could make it rev higher and gain power that way but I havent seen it done.

Who are you claiming does this?

 

Hence your name "late bloomer"....