Justsaymo01

I have a 02' c32 and was reading an old post about 02's twisting the lobs on the camshafts, and destroying engine. Is this a really common problem or somewhat rare. My car has 70,000 miles on it with a s/c pulley, ecu tune, and a tcu tune. I love driving the car and feeling the power it has, but now after reading this post I feel like everytime I punch the gas I'm playing russian roulette, and have somewhat lost interest in the car. Come on Mercedes, a multi piece camshaft .

lizardjack

I have seen it two times. In both cases 1st cylinder exhaust cam moved. And again, both cases happened at max speed with stock cars.

Justsaymo01

I take it yours is an 02', just wondering how many miles yours has, and how often do you run it at the track with out having any issues.

430

If you are worried about it I have a set of stock camshafts from my 2003 SLK32 just sitting on the shelf I am willing to sell. I had ~25k-30k miles on my car when I upgraded to a set of Schrick cams.

lizardjack

I'd better buy Schrick cams for my self than spendin' $ o stock crap. My car has around 120k miles on it and I race it frequently.
How much are the Schrick cams set by the way? I bet they are 2 times chipper than kleemann's...

Lenin

Good luck sourcing Schrick or Kleemann (which was made by Schrick). Out of production. If the 2003 cams from 430 are the right newer part number, and if the price is right, people with the 2002 cars should strongly concider it.

Justsaymo01

I,m very intrested in your stock cams I,m assuming the 03's are some sort of a one piece shaft, just throw me a price. Did you do the cams swap yourself or take it some where, just wondering if it was a pain.

GT-ER

I know someone that had this happen to him as well...crazy stuff.

lizardjack

Contacted Kleemann. They have 'em on stock, askin' 1800EUR for the set

Justsaymo01

I dont see where they sell them in the US. Do you know how hard of job its is to change them. Just wonder if its easy as just taking the valve covers off or does the front of motor have to come off. I hope its something I can do myself.

lizardjack

Here is DIY from kleemann

Justsaymo01

Well, I called Kleenman and they said they have plenty of them in stock for $2,260 yea a little pricey. He said it's not that bad off a job, and requires some special tools that he thought could maybe be bought on ebay. After looking at the file you sent me now I see them, hopfully he's right becuase the stealership is probably going to sock it to you for these. He said he has heard of a couple of the 02's having the problem but not many. I'm sure after its all said and done it will cost atleast $2,500. Considering I just bought a dashdaq, and zt-2 for my car the money is adding up. Is the cam change something you're considering doing or just keeping the stock ones.

430

I think I paid $700 for the R&R on the camshafts.

loudandheard

I think the main reason why the camshafts were not that popular, besides being so expensive to buy and install, was that they didn't make much gain for the price invested. I think there are a lot of other mods to see the true benefits of cams, but it may be worth it to keep our engines from dying.

Jerry had all sorts of mods on his C32 and he saw maybe 10hp gain from cams, could have been his ported heads though. What kind of gains are you seeing 430 from your cams?

Zeppelin

If I was so worried that the camshafts might fail in my 2002 C32 I would sell the thing before changing camshafts.

If I had changed all the POS items on this car as a precaution I would be out $5K or more.

Intercooler - could leak
Radiator - could leak
Camshafts- could fail
seat modules -could fail
...
...
...
...
...
...
every control arm and ball joint in the front

Luckily none of the above has gone bad and I have not spent a dime on it.

Lenin

Agreed. There was no significant gains and drivability as a daily driver was reduced. Even the new updated part number cams are $1300 plus R&R and I would not recommend swapping them unless there is a problem already. However, if you are planning to keep your car for some time, and if what 430 is asking for his cams is reasonable, it may be a good buy.

Justsaymo01

Yea, I diffenitly see your point there is alot of what if's with these cars or any other car for that fact. I heard Jerry's on youtube with the schrick cams and sounded awesome. I guess I need to weigh pro's and con's. Pro's, sounds good, small increase in power, and avoid "possible" engine damage. Con's, might not ever happen, and $2,500 .

lizardjack

Could you link me to RR cams?

Lenin

Remove & Replace cams? It's the same as what you provided in the Kleemann link. I can send you you a file from MB WIS system that dealerships use but it is the same. Kleemann even uses the diagrams that came out of WIS.

loungn14

I wouldn't waste the $ on cams...

Jerry's picked up 10whp over mine when he did the cams. I spent the money in other places, and we all know how that turned out...

Lenin

Hi Jake, is your old C32 still alive? I haven't heard anything about it since the time you sold it.

loungn14

no clue ...heard a rumor he blew the engine running a big shot, but had it rebuilt.. but that could be off...

02C32guy

I also remember reading that the more aggressive cams made the car seem like it was idling rough. Who wants that every time they stop at a red light?

FrankW

Happened to mine. You can read it in my thread in the sig if you can find it in the latter pages. Not very common.

Schrick cams move the timing around. I dont see how it can increase power really. You get better power band out top.

Justsaymo01

Did anything internaly get damaged in your engine, and what did you replace the cams with. I wouldent be doing it just for the power increase by any means but mainly for an insurance policy. I wouldent think drivability would suffer much unless its a real radical lift cam. Kleemann said the ecu wouldent have to be altered, but my wideband that im installing would tell me if thats the case. I'm still up in the air about the whole thing, its just something that would be in the back of mind.