Parts Development For C250
 

We have purchased a lot of new Benz's in order to develop parts to sell for them. We are thinking of buying a C250 and are interested in finding out what parts C250 owners would be interested in seeing available for their cars.

It would be great to get some constructive feedback on this from you guys.

Thanks-
-Craig

Let's start with affordable, then things like dp's, suspension related items like camber plates or control arms or chassis reinforcement braces. Could do something also like a intercooler hard pipe kit, hell even upgraded intercooler would be nice and I know some ppl had wondered about bov's. But the main criteria is affordability.

I agree that affordability is a big deal with this car. It would be important for us to offer a high quality part that works well with the factory parts that surround it.

Downpipes and exhaust would probably be one of the first things that we tackled if we did something like this. I'm not sure if we would do stuff like camber plates but an intercooler and pipe kit is definitely something that we could tackle as well.

Well I look forward to see what your company brings out, seeing as how mb are pushing the blue efficiency models we'll really need more support. I hope though that you take into consideration that not everyone wants dual mufflers when you r&d your exhaust. I can't tell you how annoying it is for me as a c200 owner looking for an exhaust and only seeing duals. I'd rather keep my stock bumper appearance and just look unsuspecting.

Single exhaust is there.

@ World, FYI the exhaust for the C180/200/250 is the same.
BUT for the Facelift models.

The C250 pre facelift exhaust is a little different than the C250 facelift exh.

You mean from Vath? The only one I've found close is the remus axle back and that's actually for the kkmpressor model.

Yes Vath has a single one...

Is it cat back, rear section or turbo back? How much is it?

Dont know the price , think its only the rear section.

Have pm-ed you World

We are going to pick one up today and we will work on an exhaust system for you guys. We will probably offer down pipe, midpipe and rear section by the SEMA show (beginning of November).

All three sections will be able to be attached to the factory exhaust components or they will be able to be used altogether. It will be made from high quality T304 stainless steel 16 gauge seamless tubing. The system will be all mandrel bent and will use all the factory mounts and flanges so there will be no fabrication required.

With all the parts that we make, you can expect the highest quality components that you should be proud to install on your car. We will also be working on many other parts for this vehicle but the exhaust is our first and you can expect production pieces to be ready to ship by November 7, 2012. We will release pricing as soon as we have that information available.

Having done a bit of work on my 2012 C250, I can offer a bit of advice... Firstly, the factory intercooler is huge and does a great job. I would expect it would still not be the bottleneck of the system even if you placed in a larger turbo. However, a better downpipe would be greatly appreciated. It is one of the few things on this vehicle that - to my knowledge - does not exist yet - at least not from a reputable manufacturer.

I have done custom quad exhaust on my C250 coupe - it is a little bit of a pain in the arse. First, the Cat feeds right into a lower support brace at an angle, and pipe almost immediately has to bend over that. And then shortly after there is a rear differential that gets in the way - so too quick and close together bends is certainly not ideal.

Additionally, there are no factory supports for a muffler on the passenger side on a C250. To add salt to the wound, the gas tank is shifted more towards the passenger side, so that both spaces are not even on both sides of the vehicle. This means that a muffler will have to be smaller on both sides, and also, that the exhaust piping leading to the mufflers will not be symmetrical. Also, there is a black plastic cover that needs to be removed with a few torx screws and a plastic clip in the wheel well.

Perhaps if you could revise the downpipe and either provide a smaller "performance cat" that will end up being higher then the undercarriage brace, then you could avoid at least one bend in the exhaust. Additionally, due to the muffler constraint issue, I have relocated a single Magnapack with Y-Pipe to the center of the vehicle, and straight piped to the tips. I love the sound, and one muffler is certainly sufficient, as the turbo definitely quites the exhaust down a LOT.

Also, a better intake for these vehicles would be awesome. The way the current intake draws in air, and bends it around is certainly not ideal. There is tons of room in front of the engine and behind the grille to do a ram air setup as well as prevent the need for any bends in the intake.

Those would be my 3 suggestions for the first three mods. I'm not really into changing suspension, lowering, etc.

I really appreciate your feedback. We will probably be concentrating on single exit exhaust, we like to keep our installation as easy as possible for the customer. We will definitely be working on the turbo side of things towards the end of the year. We would probably be looking at releasing engine products for this car in the late 1st quarter or early 2nd quarter of 2013.

@JC

I have a cat and downpipe for more than a year now, so it allready excist.

I know Kleemann is busy with it as well.

Quad exhaust isnt a big deal, the chassis for all the W204's (FL) are the same, the only thing we are missing are heat shields and an exhaust bracket.
But can be ordered by the MB dealer

Turbo upgrades for the car will be hugely limited by tuning and our auto tranny unless you have deep pockets to constantly rebuild your tranny. I've considered the idea of porting the stock turbo to allow it to spool faster but meh. Maybe your company can offer a porting service with core charge? I think if its possible to port (depending on how much material is there) then we could see spooling rpm's earlier.

What kind of tips will you be using for your exhaust?

The fty intake does a well enough job and is essentially a true cold air intake plus considering the ecu placement i dont think its a good idea to mess with the design. I have already suggested hard pipes though.

I would like to eventually see other options for strut bars and chassis braces sort of items. Renntech are currently one of the few if not only company ive seen so far that offer strut bars and in cf, but at close to $800 a pop its just not financially responsible for me to consider it.

Btw, I looked up your site and its listed as Scion Performance. Is this a new venture into European cars for your company?

Yes, we are switching over to Mercedes Benz products. We will launch a new site once we have a nice size program to offer to the Mercedes Benz community.

For the C250 community I would expect to see all different colored lug bolts, down-pipes, mid-pipes and muffler sections available for deliver in 9-10 weeks. By the end of the year I would think that we would have an intercooler package and probably some other turbo options. We will have several boost controller options that we already have done, we just have a lot of testing to do first.

Right now we have several projects going on so it prevents us from moving forward with the C250 full time but we WILL meet the timeframes that I list here and our products will be amongst the best quality parts available for any Mercedes, let alone a C250.

All of our products have a warranty and they will fit correctly the first time.

Do you guys have anything for the older 08-11 W204s? If you guys are in Torrance I'm pretty local so I'd be willing to check some stuff out.

Even thought the C180 is essentially the same as our C250. I have contacted companies that offer downpipes and they are saying that their products don't fit for the C250 Coupe - so I was a bit confused. Cats aren't anything special.

Also, on my C250 coupe, the exahust is not the same, as the placement of the fuel tank is different (from my prior C300 for sure, but I suspect also sedans). Yeah, of course the heat shields and exhaust brackets are missing, but it results in any exhaust system not being able to be truly symmetric, with differences in distance and bends on each side.

We will have parts designed specifically for your car soon.

-Craig

exterior stuff!
CF front lip, CF big fin rear diffuser for dual set up, trunk lip spoiler!

We are not close on having the facilities for doing bodywork. It would be very expensive for us to product quality components. Their is so much junk available , we do not really want to compete when the cost of our product will be so much higher in order to do so.

I would assume that is because you have a coupe where as the 180 is a sedan.

And we already have enough vendors that deal with ext. items, it's time to back up the looks.

As far as the intercooler options, someone mentioned that the oem is already quite large though I've seen a BMW FMIC which was large also and MHR managed to improve on that with a more efficiently flowing unit.

Turbo options I'm interested to see what your company brings. Boost controllers I'm somewhat wary of though given that MB links so many items together that if one of the links is altered the whole car might go :smash:

Has your company also considered an air/oil separator?

We basically work like this. If we find an area that we can improve on the car and we have the resources to tackle it then we will work on it. We won't get into areas where we do not have the expertise to tackle the problem. We are good at what we do but we cannot be good at everything. We will do what we do best and that way you will be able to rely on our parts to deliver what you will come to expect from us.

-Craig

I can understand that idea, can we clarify what resources then your company has in order to help brainstorm products suited to said resources better?