Hey everyone, I have recently gotten a 2018 S450 Coupe (European edition) and with the m276.824 engine which as far as I am aware is very similar to the C400/450/43 (and other MB cars that used M276 3.0TT engine). I am not writing in the W222/C217 or other forums as very few people upgrade their 400/450 vehicles apart from the C and E owners.

Anyway, I am considering, among other upgrades, an intercooler kit upgrade and I have seen quite a few around including:

1) TATechnix: ~$1,100; https://www.tatechnix.de/tatechnix/g...ml?language=en
2) WAGNERTUNING: $1,500; https://www.wagner-tuning.com/produc...200001157.html
3) ​​​​​​SpoolPerformance: $1,600; https://euroklasse.com/products/spoo...kit-sp-ic-m276
4) LogosEngineeringMotorworks: $1,650; https://www.logosengineeringmotorwor...43-intercooler
5) VRPSpeed: $1,900; https://www.vrpspeed.com/product/m27...ade-c43-glc43/
6) TruePower: $1,900; https://trupowermotorsports.com/prod...tercooler-kit/
7) ZACMotorsport: $2,000; https://www.zacmotorsport.com/produc...hoC7lMQAvD_BwE

Do you guys have any experience with the aforementioned or any other brand and what is it? Which one do you suggest?

 

Wagner was the first to market with this for our motors. Many of the other vendors take that same part and either rebrand as themselves and mark it up, or reverse engineered the Wagner setup and offer a similar product made cheaper (not sure if the quality is also cheaper or just less markup).

 

I agree with what you are saying and even if the WAGNER kit is say 5% less efficient as compared to the rest, given the largely similar/same dimensions across them, it is not worth the risk of ordering something else that might be of worse quality. I haven't seen any bad reviews on the WAGNER kit as well.

 

same boat as you, i have a 2015 E400 W212 M276, wondering if any of them would fit, did you end up getting one and did it work as you had hoped?

 

Before dumping all that money into an intercooler, I would suggest you separate your transmission from the low pressure cooling circuit.
Find a hydraulic hose specialist to make you longer trans cooler hoses and mount a low profile trans cooler behind the front grill.

Otherwise you're still dumping heat from the trans into your intercooler cooling fluid.

 

Have you had this done on yours? Any photos?

 

ZAC motorsport has a kit, but it's $1000.

I found a local shop to fab custom line for $200 and a trans cooler and mount kit from summit racing for $200.

I'm currently in progress with it, but am putting more money towards full E85 fuel system first.

 

With the free I/C pump mod, I see IAT's at ambient, 10-12°F over if im sitting stopped. Not sure there is that much heat transfer from the trans fluid. I havnt upgraded the I/C yet but im thinking the best gain would be from less pressure loss across it. Turbos dont have to work as hard to hit the target boost, so you have less heat overall in the system. But you wont get below ambient temps unless you cool the charged air down with methanol.

 

Hey, I haven't had the time to choose one and go with it because I have been busy with some other personal items. What I managed to do is install AMG Line package to the car and now doing some other exterior work. Will post photos in the C217 community group when done.

Anyway, this and next month I am planning on:
1. Choosing an Intercooler and providing some statistics on before/after. By the way I found the CTS intercooler unit and it's the cheapest of them all as it seems at ~ $1,100 (https://www.ctsturbo.com/product/cts...3-m276-engine/).
2. Installing pre-face S63 Coupe exhaust (after the cats to the end, hooking up the exhaust flaps to the existing hardware). No particular reason for this upgrade, I don't expect anything else from it apart from some sound changes
3. Turbo blow-off valve (again no particular reason, just sound).
4. Optional: Intake - none of the manufacturers yet came back to me with some sort of solution for the S450 coupe (I haven't worked actively with ModalWorks, probably they would be the only one with who I would have fruitful collaborationm but I haven't gotten there yet.)
5. Optional: Downpipe - haven't yet decided which one, because I want to preserve the cats.
6. This valve - m276, m278, m157 have it to my knowledge and Tasos notes that it gets wrecked each 70k km or 5 y - I passed both. I bought a few of them - the cheap chinese up to $10 are broken and you can blow air through them as if they are used. Klifex ones for about $40 are good. The ones from the UK which are about $20 are also ok but only 50% of the time - if you get 10, maybe 4-5 would be as good as the one from Klifex.

When it comes to splitting the trans from the turbo cooling - don't think I can rely on anyone to do this in my country otherwise it would be done alongside the intercooler upgrade.

Will record before and after for each upgrade and report.

Side note: recently a friend of mine just tuned his 2015 C400 sedan (Canadian) to 450 HP and 580 Nm, even without any other mods this car wrecks many on the road. This engine is one capable unit. I am worried going down this path yet - trans etc. For now I am doing only mild hardware upgrades.

 

Yes the C400 is definitely the forgotten model of the M276 powered cars (since it was offered for only one year and I think less of them were made than the C450).

Judging by the weight of my car with me in it (4050 lbs), I'm close to 400 horse power at the wheels, so probably ~480 crank. This is calculated based off of weight and speed/elapsed time on several quarter-mile passes down my local dragstrip. Fastest so far was an 11.91 @119 mph.

 

The intercooler choice has been made - TA Technix. Uploading here some images and videos before installing it. It has WMI ports which I will not use. It costed me total of 1034 EUR (999 EUR for the intercooler and 35 EUR for the delivery).

I will use gold heat reflection foil on the turbo pipes (like Brabus did in the past for their m157 upgrades - they offered carbon fiber intake pipes or gold heat reflection foil on the intake pipes and always gold heat reflection foil on the turbo pipes). I am not sure how much more helpful (if at all) it will be for the m276 platform but I will do it anyway.

Videos
Turbo pipe 1: Turbo pipe 2: Intercooler core 1: Intercooler core 2: Intercooler core 3:
Images

 

Do check yours, this hole should should be drilled about 10mm deep just for the bracket hole to sign and slot in.

My AliExpress intercooler was drilled through and required welding and re-drilling of the hole; else the boost will leak as the provided bracket does not have O-rings to stop the boost from leaking through this mounting slot.


Hole is drilled through - will leak boost

 

Just checked mine, not drilled through.

 

2015 C400 sedan to 450 HP? That's way too aggressive. Isn't that C63 territory? C400 uses the 7G-Tronic transmission which is not designed for that type of torque demand. One could reliably squeeze more power but he'll see expenses. Better to trade the car for a C43.

390 MPH is probably safe for the C400 with stock hardware.

 

This is...incorrect.

First, there is ZERO functional difference between a C400 engine and a 2017 C43 engine. None.

Second, the 7gtronic+ transmission has held up to much more hp and torque than what I'm throwing at it across numerous different MB models. As long as you keep up with maintenance (which I do) it's no more likely to have issues than any other tuned Mercedes with a 7Gtronic+..

I actually feel much more comfortable with the 7 speed than I would with a 9 speed car. The 9 speeds are blindingly expensive to repair (compared to the 7 speed) and also more difficult to maintain yourself.

 

To be clear, I wouldn’t be comfortable tuning to 450 horse without making modifications. There’s elevated risk of running the turbos too hot and reducing the lifespan as well as stressing other components. The C400 factory downpipes and exhaust are too restrictive IMHO. The 2017 C43 is 362 horse. Renntech has a tune to 392 if memory serves correct.

I’d have to upgrade to high flow downpipes, intercooler, and catback exhaust. To each his own.

 

Each to their own, but to be clear on stats - Downpipes are the same across the C400/450and 43. The newer C43 has 385 stock (same motor still), where the C450 had the 362hp. The extra 50hp comes from 5psi of target boost over the C400.

Essentially the C400 was nerf'd from the factory, either to test its reliability in the real world or to allow for the inevitably increase needed as they moved to an "AMG" titled model the following year.

While downpipes would be needed to get the most of our platform, there is not enough restriction to prevent you from getting into stage 1 C43 power levels.
As for the turbos, while they are small turbos, they have more than enough head room to make well over 20psi (much more than you would need to make 450hp). This is not a failure point on the M276, the connection rods fail when pushing too much torque through the motor.

 

OK gotcha on the hardware. I mistakenly thought 450 horse was stage 2. Good to know! I'll probably upgrade the intercooler then. Just got to deal with the CV axles first. There is the dreaded clicking. Thanks.

 

All accurate and excellent points. Servicing the tranny on the 9-speed looks nightmarish compared to the 7G or even 7G+ trannies.

 

I have a c400 stage 2 custom tune intake down pipes exhaust and mine was dynod just under 500 hp and had zero issues for years I still drive it to work 180,000 miles i have a newer car coupe that just sits at home

 

500 Horse. Whatttt daaa Fawwwwk. Which ECU tune did you go with? That must be really nice.

 

Having a hard time believing this without an upgraded fuel system. Im custom tuning my 43 now and fuel rail pressure is dropping in the upper rpm and im no where near 500whp. Im adding meth to add fuel... dont see how youre even close to 500whp without something to add fuel.