Hi everyone,

Seems like there have been some talks about exhaust on the forum lately, I have a question which I really hope to get some answers.

Does anyone know why our our cars have 2 to 1 exhaust setup? I have seen hooleyboy's C55 with dual exhaust, simonlam168 and SiLvaC32's C32 with dual exhaust. How come none of the aftermarket companies offer dual exhaust for the C32? Is it because power will be lost in running dual exhaust? hooleyboy's C55 runs strong and sounds mean with the dual setup, but that's for a 5.5L V8, what about a 3.2L V6?

Thank you!

I think it might have to do with the fact that , if you want to run 2 mufflers under the car, you don't have enough place to mount them. due to the spare tire whell that is to far off to the right. for running 2 mufflers properly, you should start bij changing the spare tire whell to the one from a C55 amg, that one is smaller & more centered. only then, you have enough place to run 2 mufflers ...


grtz


( ps: my English isn't that good, hope you understand what i mean )

back pressure..?? someone tackle this one, its a great question..

i dont think anyone's really done it on the c32 since the gains are small and the cost is high. Most people go for the bang for your buck mods first like pulleys and ecu tune. I think the main concern is lost in exhaust velocity.

but how knows...someone do it and let us know..lol.

MB didn't utilize a true dual exhaust probably due to a few issues:

1) It would net little gain.
2) Packaging would be more difficult.
3) The exhaust would be louder, which may not pass drive-by regulations and certainly wouldn't appeal to all drivers. (This is a balancing act, for sure.)
4) It would add to the cost of the car.

Bill

Let me share my experience since I've been in this project for the last 6 months.

Background:
I was getting ready to get rid of the car but decided to keep it after the dealer gave me $7K as a trade-in value. I could easily gotten $10K if I parted it out.

I said, oh well, let's go for another round and continue modding the car. What's next!? The exhaust system...

Parts:
I like to take each project as a package. I picked up all the parts that I felt necessary to accomplish my goals: 20-25 extra ponies from exhaust work... plus some aesthetics improvement since I was getting bored from the back of the car. My original setup was:

VRP Headers -> Prim Cats -> Sec Cats -> Dual straight 2.5" pipe -> CLK BS mufflers -> Kleemann Tips

It took me about 6 months to put together all the parts... Headers from Vadim, mufflers from a forum member (without tips), miscellaneous parts from the dealer (spare tub, heat shields, brackets, hangers, inner plastic liner, etc) and Kleemann tips from another forum member. In the process, decided to grab one of those amg style diffusers from Teo, which I later wrapped in CF.

Expensive Mod:
If you add up all those components, you are looking at around $3K in parts without labor. The installation process went from finding a reputable guy to work on the exhaust, to cutting the bumper, replacing the tub, actual exhaust work, and all in one place. It was very time consuming just putting together the complete puzzle.

Is it worth it? To most people, probably not.

Results:
My first impression as far as looks goes was... Wow! This is exactly what I had in mind... I always thought the back of our cars was too plain and the exhaust tips were too small (even the C55 ones).

The Kleemann tips are huge and along with the diffuser (which has not been install yet) it completes the car to my expectations.

I started it up and the car sounds like an old school V8. I said OK, this was unexpected. Later, when driving at WOT, the car sounded like crap... it's very raspy and I can barely hear the SC.

Driving impressions? I will say about the same. I'm going to dyno the car and retune it a bit more.

At this point, I'm hating the mod, however, some solutions are in the works. I called Machc5's shop and inmediately ordered the same resonator with an integrated X-pipe. This will hopefully tone it down and also compesated some of the back pressure needed.

Conclusion:
I want to tell you all to really think about it if you want to mess with the OEM exhaust. It takes lots of time, energy and a few grands to get an extra 20 ponies after your regular $1500 pulley/tune.

Regards - Carlos

Really good info to know.

I always want to have it dual, but just for the look since I don't like the loud sound and I don't think we gain big on it. But just for the look I don't think we have to spend that much $3K

Thanks again for the helpful info.

no aftermarket dual exhaust because the W203 other than the C55 all have a giant spare wheel well that takes up the space on the right side of the car.

and we do have C32 people that converted to the C55 exhaust including the spare wheel well. with all the parts and labor say goodbye to $4000. Performance wise I doubt there's any gain.

The spare wheel well is a definite and obvious obstruction for putting a muffler on the right side. But we can still run dual pipes from the sec. cats to one muffler. The 2 pipes (after the sec. cats) merging into the the 2.75" section are 2" each. We can run dual 2" pipes from there to an aftermarket muffler. Any HP/Sound gain from that?

sound yes, performance...maybe.

it's been done by a lot of people doing it that way, but you also run into the problem that by putting the muffler where the resonator is that will be the lowest point of the car which over bumps etc it will get scrapped or dented.

Thanks for write up I was considering this.