AMS Performance

That's because they USED to be Tri-Y.. there are 2 generations of kleemann headers. The Tri-Y was the early one (not a very good design), and then the later 4-1 headers (significantly better).

Hope that helps.
~AMS~

Tump43

TVT has my old manifold, let them port, polish & bake it, buy it, they'll ship it to you, 3 hours later you'll have a new manifold installed. Ship them your OE manifold and your done. Only down side is that they will put a hold on your card until your OE manifold arrives. No real down time, you just have to wait for them to make a new one.

Regarding the TB, I bought one from Potomac, pretty cheap and then ship it out to have it bored, let's wait to see if mine will work.

RLx02

I will definitely keep that in mind as it seems to be the most cost effective way to produce more power after the headers. Not to steal the thread but how do you like the evosport UDPs? I normally have steered clear of UDP because of the issues that many cars have with them. The AMS crank pulley i know is just light weight and not under driven so I wouldn't be afraid to install it. One more thing; what kind of rear diffuser do you have on yours?

Tump43

No prob. I transfered the evosport UDP pullies from my C43 to my C55. I have had no issues on either car in over 5 years. The only potential difficulty is replacing the non-OE, shorter drive belt when the time comes -- you will have to tell your dealer or mechanic. Write down the Continental number of the evosport belt when you get it or order two or three extras. Same with my AMS crank pulley. No issues what ever. These mods just make the engine more usable and efficient -- nothing dramatic.

Ohh -- I bought the black plastic rear diffuser sold by Teo on this forum. Fits perfect looks great, just wish it was CF but, that wasn't available when I was buying.

TVT_DESIGN

We will have 2 more manifolds and a potential test client for immediate before and after tests in the next 2 weeks.

suicidal4life

So the runners that were shortened were the longer path. I thought those were for low end torque and when the flaps opened the air would bypass the long route and take the shorter path. Does shortening the longer paths really help the top end? I would assume that once the flaps are opened the majority of the air would take that shorter path but I could be way off base here. No doubt smoothing out the rough areas and the ports near where it enters the cylinder heads has to help out (probably gasket matching an inch or so into the heads as well so as not to create a step would help too) and the thermal coatings are a good idea but does the shortening of the runners do more good then harm? I think Speedybenz (could be someone else) took the shortening to the extreme and even grafted in velocity stacks on the runners but I think that mani had the normal innards removed including the flap mechanisms.

RLx02

Ah, ok thats the only person who I know was selling a 3-fin cf dual diffusers for the c55 and c32. It was just a little pricey at the time...I just bought a replacement headlight assembly so there goes my money for the diffuser

Please keep this thread alive! I'm highly interested in the results and product.

TVT_DESIGN

We shorten where the air enters in initially before it has the chance to go long or short runner route. So basically each runner length is shortened. Due to the extremely long runners of the long route, this has no bearing on torque, but does help slightly with the upper RPM breathing. There are far more drastic measures you can take, but they greatly effect the low end.

AMS Performance

Sounds good, then torque loss should be minimal (although there still may be some slightly). I agree, going too extreme would not be the wise route.

SETSEROCK

interested to know how this works?

Every car ive ever put a short runner manifold on has lost considerable low end torque (but made up for it up top). Manifold design, shape and runner length and shape are a mind numbingly complicated science....

AMS Performance

This was explained in a previous post, there are two sets of runners, long and short. The long runners are not touched, the short ones are shorted additionally for better top end response. Pictures were provided as well. All makes sense and should perform as described. Dynos really would be a huge help though.

I wonder if later 55 AMG V8s had these removed get the extra factory claims or if they are still in place on all 55 AMG models (TVT can you confirm?).

suicidal4life

Exactly the reason I asked the questions I did.




I think you've got it backwards and I have a dissasembled mani sitting in the garage so I'm fairly confident I'm correct on my assesment.If the parts that I circled are the parts that were removed or shortened then it was the long runners that were shortened. The shorter path thru the flaps would be much harder to shorten without a serioius redesign of the mani. I'm wondering how much of the air even flows thru the long path at high RPM's. I would assume that once the flaps open most of the airflow would take that shorter route and completely bypass the long route.

No doubt cleaning and smoothing the runners (especially near where they enter the heads) as well as the thermal coatings should show some gains but I'm still not 100% convinced on shortening the runners unless you went totally extreme for top end only like speedybenz did.

SETSEROCK

i wasnt saying that to cast doubt on his idea... just stating from experience. and i do have a little experience with dual path manis (VW R32 and a Vario-Ram 911). Was this mani for someone who planned on raising the rev limiter, by chance?

Sorry if i missed this, i just skimmed through for the cliff notes....

SETSEROCK

Runner length is much like camshaft design in regards to its [sometimes drastic] affect on the powerband and the way it is all trade-offs between mutually exclusive properties...I did a ton of research before making a SR mani for an old big turbo 1.8T Audi i used to have...

Either way, it nice to see people doing things to these motors. i just got back into the marque when i bought my C32 today. last time i owned a benz (a clk430) there was basically nothing to speak of in the way of NA mods and no one was really working on much...

Dyno chart would be interesting to see next to a pre mani one to see how the power band changed and where the gain comes in......

TVT_DESIGN

We have a C55 scheduled for before and after dyno, but we just starting adding an addition to our shop and that will have to wait until after we are done.

With a typical ling runner manifold design you are looking at 18-20" tops. MB decides to use some of the longest runners in the industry, even for the AMG cars and the new DOHC engines. The short runner path is still "long" at roughly 14". Usual short runner manifolds are under 8", usually closer to 6". The loss of 2" of runner length really just makes the change over point more noticeable. You will not see a large loss of low RPM power in exchange for a massive amount of HP, the runners are still far too long and the change isn't significant enough.

We've done one manifold in which we removed the entire bottom set of runners and flaps and left just the top induction points. That manifold was a Top End only manifold. The runners were right aroung 8" and once you got the motor over 3K it screamed to red line. For a track motor, this is the way to go!

Havoc

Now this I like, but is the power loss at low RPM that noticable on the streets?

AMS Performance

If that's the case then a good set of headers should offset any loss in torque. Same is true of the power pulley. But in conjunction with this intake manifold should make for a fantastic power band as the top end was always the M113s Achilles heel.

TVT_DESIGN

If you lose 5 ft/lbs I'd be surprised. You will not notice any difference in torque loss. On a smaller engine (3.0L and below) the decrease in torque would be noticable as it would be a higher percentage of overall torque.

On the M113K/M112k you can port the intake manifolds and runners and see more power as well and much better throttle response. On a SRT6 we did these with supporting mods and it dynoed 10RWHP less then a stock CLK63!

Tump43

Per TVT and AMS, I run the headers, the UDPs & high flow cats with the TVT intake manifold. I did not notice any decrease in torque. The car's sweet spot, however, did move up the rpm range a bit. On the overall, the first week after its installation tells me that this was a great mod to do. The car is faster on the backroads and has much better acceleration at highway speeds. If you drive like a granny, you will see a 1 to 2 mpg improvement. However, with aggressive driving, you will see a 2 to 3 mpg decrease (simply put, at wot with more air you burn more gas). The ecu is still adjusting to the revised air flow rates/pattern and the car is improving. Can't wait to see what the BBTB will do. TVT any news on the BBTB?

TVT_DESIGN

TB is being looked at by my guy, should have an answer soon. He's good, but not exactly quick, lol.

Tump43

No problem.

RLx02

Any dyno updates for before and after with the ported intake manifold?

TVT_DESIGN

We will have no updates until the flooring for the addition is built. Unfortunately I need to concentrate on that first or it will keep getting delayed like it did last year.

TVT_DESIGN

Well finally a little bit of info to share with everybody.

I decided to heat 2 manifolds up and watch the temp decrease over time. I also looked at the temp on the inside of the manifold, as that is what will best mimic air temp.

The coated manifold was baked up to a temp of 265 and the uncoated manifold was 227. I wanted to get them equal, but the size of my oven required one to go on one shelf and the other to sit on a shelf below it. The most important thing is delta.

Coated:

Out of Oven: 265
5 mins of cooling: 160
10 mins of cooling: 135 Air temp 150
15 mins of cooling: 119 Air temp 124
20 mins of cooling: 104.4 Air temp 107


Uncoated:

Out of Oven: 227
5 mins of cooling: 136
10 mins of cooling: 118 Air temp 143
15 mins of cooling: 107 Air temp 121
20 mins of cooling: 96 Air temp 106


It's interesting to note that the coated manifold dispels more heat per minute passed and that it keeps the intake air cooler then the uncoated manifold when compared to surface temp.

Hope everyone finds it as interesting as I do!

betrezra

This test must really be done at the same starting temp for both mani's then measure the rate of heat loss per minute under the same ambient conditions (Same outside air, same wind, etc...)

Another way to do this would be to measure the temp of the mani over time with a constant heat source aimed at the bottom of the mani (where your coating is)...... if the coating is repelling heat it'll heat up slower.... I suspect over time they'd both be the same temp... it all get's more complicated with air flowing through it...... you could do that also blow some air through it at the same time.

You've got a few sources of heat here: conduction through the metal to metal of the manifold mounts to the heads, convection through the air inside the manifold (cooling) and outside the manifold (heating), and radiation from below the mani from the engine to the intake mani.

Your coating below the mani is prob aimed at the radiation/convection from the engine to the intake mani bottom.

Phenolic spacers will help with the conductive heat transfer from the heads up to the intake mani.... this is a LARGE source of heat......


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer

Coated:
Out of Oven: 265
5 mins of cooling: 160 {105DEG IN 5 MIN OR 21DEG/MIN}
10 mins of cooling: 135 Air temp 150
15 mins of cooling: 119 Air temp 124
20 mins of cooling: 104.4 Air temp 107

Uncoated:
Out of Oven: 227
5 mins of cooling: 136 {91DEG IN 5MIN OR 18.2DEG/MIN}
10 mins of cooling: 118 Air temp 143
15 mins of cooling: 107 Air temp 121
20 mins of cooling: 96 Air temp 106