Since my ride is sitting on a dock in Bremen, waiting on the ride across the big water my thoughts turn to modding and DIY ideas for a C350-4MATIC.

I haven't seen many ideas on what can be done with the M272 engine. I know it has been on other models for a few years but the idea of making minor tweaks (and still maintaining some resemblance to my factory warranty) has me ready to break out a tool-kit.

There are quite a few of the "options-that-should-have-been-put- on-the-car-but-weren't". I am ok with that, folks like Sunman have given me plenty of ideas. Since I ordered the car with every option I shouldn't need to do things like "how do I add xenon headlights"... Definitely things like Parktronic, Distronic and Linguatronic.

So, does anyone have ideas that would improve handling and/or performance without breaking the bank? On a single mod I wouldn't have nightmares if it went into the $1500 range so you have an idea of how I want to break this into achievable segments of work.

So guys (and us girls too). Let me hear your ideas!

Tisha

doubt there's any easy DIY performance mods other than the air-filter.

typical mods are pulley, ecu, and exhaust.

I can see the pulley mod on a supercharged engine but the M272 is normally asperated. I wouldn't gain anything there.

An ECU mod sounds interesting. I haven't found a place that knows enough about the M272 to know what kind of performance peaks that they can get out of that motor.

This idea has some possibilities. Here is what I was thinking about that.

1. Clean up the sharp edges in the flow that rob power, chamfer the edges, bead blast and polish the inside and outside.

2. Line the exhaust system with ceramic (inside and outside) for better flow and to improve heat flow characteristics. Cover the exhaust manifold and pipes down to the first catalytic with a hi-temp cloth to keep heat out of the engine compartment and move it along to the converters where it needs to do the real work.

3. Do "something" with the emissions air pump so it can divert airflow for additional spot-cooling. Or, this is an odd idea, as cooling air through the crankcase (nicely filtered, stuff like that).

Or put an air conditioning clutch on the pump so when it's not needed it doesn't do anything.

You like answering yourself a lot huh? 1500 bux I would go for............a set of replica wheels and some springs if you are a conservative modder

Headers will get u a good 20hp. Simple but decent gain...looking like another 15-20hp with the ecu. As far as exhaust....straight pipe after the cats and and X pipe in the middle. It wont get u any extra hp but sounds sexy, the x pipe wont gain any hp but its vital to not losing hp. It balences the back pressure u lose after taking out the resonator and mufflers. It u JUST straight pipe its pretty much the same sound but hp is lost bc the back pressure.