Does anybody know what type of pistons & cylinders are used in the C55 engine?

1) Are the pistons forged or cast? Alloy type? Low friction coating?
2) Cylinders: do these 55's use the low friction silicon/aluminum cylinder sleeves like the V6 (with low tension piston rings?)
3) Can these liners be bored or is there a surface coating applied?

I'm just wondering about the rebuild potential of these engines in case mine is toast...
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Thanks,
Roger

According to the info I got from the AMG lounge, this is what we have

1) Pistons are so called racing-type forged aluminum piston
2) I believe all Benz M113 V8 have the low friction sillicon/aluminum cyclinder sleeves
3) I dont think anyone has try this

Also, it seems that the AMG block has a specially designed oil spray nozzles to cool the piston at high load.

Search for threads on the W210/W211 board - I believe Ted Baldwin has something to this effect in the works......

There are a few boring/sleeving projects happening on the W211 E55 board by VRUS Ted Baldwin and maybe a few others. You may want to ask around over there. I believe they said the cylinders are nickaseal (sp?) coated.

The M113 design uses cast-in cylinder sleeves made of silicon aluminum. The main concern I would have is block stiffness. According to the Mercedes-Benz press kit, those sleeves were designed to increase block rigidity, and are a big part of decreasing the weight of the block.

There are more details at my website. Click engine details on the left

Specs from the CLK55 press kit, as well as the 2002 AMG docs were added a few weeks back.

The engine uses aluminum cylinders coated with Nikasil and can be repaired or bored and replated by Millenium Technologies. They do a ton of roadracing bike stuff and other race car engine stuff. They are the best of the best when it comes to Nikasil.

The stock pistons are forged and so are the rods.

I would find some nicer stock sized pistons that weigh a bunch lighter and use the stock rods, but send them to Carillo to have them checked and sized.

If you went to custom rods you could get them sized to use Honda Rod bearings and then increase the stroke a little and decrease the friction also.

Get the pistons coated for friction reduction on the sides and ceramic ocated on top to shed heat.

Try to get lighter valves so you could use a more aggressive cam that opens and closes the valves faster. And have the piston to head clearance set to 0.030" to increase combustion swirl and combustion process.

Jeff

The pistons I recently looked at are forged , Produced by Mahale , Please pardon the miss spelling, to AMG specs
The current con rod is a powered metal

You may not believe this the block is sleeved !! they used a low silicone content alum. AND IT IS INSTALL with a special type hi temp Loctite. I know because we just did one , I had a little issue with a NOS user ( Not Me Guys)
So we bored it a little at a time , until the OEM sleeve was paper thin, picked it at the top deck mating area & peeled it out. Then we saw the glue. We in stalled a new steel sleeve & cleaned up the other cylinders with out Rottler honing machine. This should start some postings ___PTE___

PTE, thats awesome!

Guys, I've read so many articles claiming the "difference" in the AMG blocks. Recently I read the AMG lounge and they are saying the C43 block for example from the 430's was worked with forged pistons and con rods as well as an inlarged intake manifold, cams, etc..I would assume the AMG lounge is "the" source for factory info. Yet it conflicts what I've been told.

Last I heard the 43's 430 block had the same internals and only the cams, injectors, and heads were different. I really have no idea what the difference is now. I bought an intake from a regular ML and its the exact same (as least it looks that way) as the AMG intake. Even the #'s are the same yet the AMG lounge is saying it's different. What I'm really after is finding out about the internals. Was the 430 motor originally equiped with forged internals or did AMG actually make that happen?

I'm sure you guys have heard many different things concerning your engine too. I just want to know once and for all. For example, I've been reading lately about people wanting to build and sleave the motors, and some are speaking against it. Now I just read above that this one block comes sleaved from the factory....

I'm a writer and the press kit is what Mercedes-Benz supplies to members of the automotive press.

Using the Mercedes-Benz press kit as my source, the non-AMG 430 V8 came with a forged steel crankshaft, pressure cast aluminum block, silicon aluminum cylinder sleeves, four bolt main end caps, the center three are six bolt caps, hollow (hydraulically cracked) forged steel connecting rods, and forged aluminum pistons. To my knowledge, AMG does not cast their own blocks - which is what would be required to maintain an 89.9mm bore in a similar block without a sleeve.

Awesome! thanks for the info. So I guess my engines internals are pretty good from the factory. These are some pretty cool features for a stock mill.

I wonder if the bore of all M113 motors are the same and they use the sleeve width to determine the final discplacement along with maybe a difference in stroke. ex. thinner sleeves on the 5.5 and thicker on the 4.3. From a production standpoint it would seem the easier less expensive route considering they sleeve them regardless.......

This is interesting stuff.

You guys are great! Love the info, I'll be looking it all over & considering the options if MBZ doesn't fix it.
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Thanks.
Roger

It works a little differently than that. A few posts back, I wrote the M113 uses a "cast-in" sleeve. When a cast-in sleeve engine block is made, the sleeve is inserted into the mold, and then liquefied metal is poured into the mold. What you're describing would be a pressed in sleeve. With a pressed in sleeve, after the block is cast, the sleeve is "pressed in".