Drop-a-Daimler

Someone asked about how to lighten the C-Class recently so I thought it might make a good thread. I didn't think it was really even feasible, for a little added performance, until I had my resonator removed and decided to weigh it. The thing weighed over 10 lbs! What's in those things? And it was replaced by a pipe that barley weighed anything. So I took out the spare and replaced it with a Fix-a-Flat kit. The spare weighed 40 pounds! That's 50 pounds right there without giving up much convenience. So then I found a thread about the Optima race batteries and realized you can fit them to the Mercedes replacing a 60 pound stock battery with a 15 pounder saving another 45 pounds! Ok, that might be a little painful as those things will trickle discharge from your clock if you let them sit for a few weeks -- but still it's a big savings and right over the nose heavy engine bay. Those 3 things alone are worth 95 pounds. Another nice bennie is a performance muffler. A good street/racing straight-through style muffler can be 20 pounds lighter than a stocker (I've read, haven't weighed my SuperSprint yet). Making these changes not only gives the car a much better sound (and possibly a few extra ponies from reduced back pressure) but can also make the car 115 pounds lighter which is like adding another 10 horsepower!

Blake P

I'll trade you for my lighter M271 engine!

kevblah

you're still trying to take on those 335i's?

take out the rear seats and replace the windows with the nascar nets

Drop-a-Daimler

Cool, let me dig out the old Torin BIGRED 2-TON engine jack.

Drop-a-Daimler

Not a bad idea but what do I do with both of the kids booster seats?

Blake P

Dead weight... gotta lose em.

kevblah

tell the kids you're moving onto bigger and better things...
...that if daddy is gonna school some 335i's, that sacrifices have to be made
HAHA

Drop-a-Daimler

I don't think Don Quixote had kids when he went out tilting windmills. But he was nuts.

BlackLiquorish8

what bout CF hood and lighter wheels?

e1000

drive naked

Drop-a-Daimler

I'd love to find 18" wheels that look like the AMG double spokes
but were lighter. I'd drop the coin on that.

rlee02135

LOL

you could run the c55 wheels, they are only 25lbs each

or get some BBS

Drop-a-Daimler

My favorite wheel! Do you know if that's any lighter than the stockers?

tommy

Get OZ Ultraleggeras - $325 each and 18 lbs for 18x8s. Can't go wrong. If you're serious about adding performance to your Benz, AMG is the last place you should look.

rlee02135

they might be. they are lighter than stock C32 wheels.

drexappeal

Damn, that's heavy for 18's! Mine are 3 piece 19's and they weigh in that range.

Ryanr317

You can find an 05 C55 between $35-$40K if you look hard enough and you know those will run the stock 335i's no problem. The way i see it is that it's just not worth putting that kind of money into the 350 when you can put that many and maybe just a tad bit more for the C55. Just my $.02.

c230ftw

nitroussssss will make you go vroom vroom!

Drop-a-Daimler

I would like a V8 AMG but I got the 350 for a great price and now I am pretty psyched to see what it can do as a sort of an underdog. Every car or bike for me is a project. I just finished my bike where I bored it .30 over, raised the compression a point, swapped in some mild cams, hand ported heads, 2-into-1 headers and a custom dyno tuned ECU. I got 60% more power naturally aspirated out of that one. It's a hobby really. Even if I got the RS4 I'd still be out modding it to catch the next big competitor on the horizon. It doesn't really matter what I seem to be driving, I just want to push the VE envelope as much as possible. Losing 100 to 200 pounds on the C-Class sure won't hurt. It will be a whole different car at 3500 with me and some race gas in it.I've thought about that! A little Sneaky Pete system. But I've never had great experiences with NOS kits for one reason or another. I guess for the same reason I don't jump on blowers or turbos either. I'm old school and just think "there's no replacement for displacement". But there's a lot of other schools of thought out there too.

Drop-a-Daimler

Not bad!

infected

Swap out the stock seats with a pair of carbon buckets.

HKevinF

I wouldn't try to lighten the car. Street racing is not my thing. It only took seeing one story on one of the local Houston stations to scare me enough. It was tragic to see some innocent person get killed by some idiot trying to beat another idiot.

onecoolloser

Who said he wanted to street race?

mig888

Carbon fiber hood .

splinter

Granted, less weight improves every aspect of a vehicle’s dynamic performance. With all of the comfort, convenience and safety equipment included with a C, it’s not surprising they weigh ~3600+ pounds. The Optima is a worthwhile modification.

War story to share. When I first brought my car home and discovered its TIREFIT equipment in lieu of a proper spare wheel/tire, I though that the engineers in Affalterbach had thought of everything. Not even a month later, while returning home from a party in Newport Beach with the Mrs. on the freeway, after midnight no less, the LF equalized. In the rough part of Long Beach. I limped to the next off ramp with the expectation of sealing the offending pneumatic failure, and soon being on our way. No such luck, as it was toast. Time to call a flatbed, but only after hearing; “Yo fool, doesn’t that POS have a spare?” I’m in a suit, and he’s just out on parole. Not a comfortable situation.

The next day, our local Michelin dealer fit two new front tires, and sourced an AMG spare wheel. Don’t be too quick to ditch that stock spare of yours. It’s like insurance. When you need it, you really need it.

If you are hell bent to haul ***, get an E55.