C63 Lightweight and N/A Power Build vlog
 

Hey guys!!

After lurking around this Forum for years and imagining what it would be like to also own a W204 C63, I am now finally in the club! And I couldn´t be happier with the car, it´s already an absolute blast to drive!

I do plan to mod the car quite extensively over the course of the year and also take it to as many tracetracks, dragstrips and possibly drift events as I can.

Currently the plan is to:

1) Take as much weight out of the car as possible
- remove rear seat divider
- replace front seats with light recaros
- remove rear sunshade
- remove parts of the big Stereo
- CF hood and trunk
- delete the sunroof
- lightweight battery
- hopefully magnesium intake and single throttle body from the SLS
- anything else that I can think of, and maybe you guys can help me with that as well! Always looking for more ideas to shave weight off the car. :)

I hope to get at least 150 KG (330 lb) out of the car, more if possible.

2) Moar power!!

- Complete IPE exhaust incl. LTH
- if budget allows: porting of cylinderheads
- if budget allows: Magnesium intake and throttle body from the SLS
- Tune at Simon Motorsport (very good german tuner and expert for the M156)
incl. different air filters, full exhaust, sparkplugs and 102 octane tune

I hope to get the over 600 crank HP.

Anyway, I have started with the first baseline test Video today, so I figured it would be a good time to start this thread.

I will do three baseline test: Fuel consumption, acceleration and weight

Today I started with the fuel consumption and as you guys know all too well, it´s a thirsty car:


I also did a driving video with the car here:
Anyway, I am really looking forward to start the modding journey! I have always loved to mod my cars and I hope that the C63 will be the first one that I won´t have to sell but keep pretty much forever. Time will tell :)

If you guys have any tips about saving more weight I would very much appreciate it!

This is it for now, I will update this thread with the latest news. You can expect a bi-weekly (the "two times per week" kind, not the other one) video on the cars progress.

Cheers,

Alex

600 bhp is possible without the SLS intake mani. PNP heads with FBOs and a dyno tune should get you there, especially on 100 octane. The SLS intake mani put the powerband higher up in the rev range, which I heard can hurt you on a road course since you lose some of the midrange. Couple that with PNP heads that will likely shift the powerband up higher as well, and the car might not be as fun. I know I enjoyed the borad, flat torque curve of the M156. Plus it's really difficult to get it to fit in there. I would just do LTHs/exhaust, dyno tune, and maybe PNP heads. What are you doing for suspension too? The rest of the build sounds good though! Enjoy.

Thank you for the reply!! Good to hear that 600+ HP is doable without the intake, and also a good point about losing torque in the low rpm range.

I am really very happy with the suspension as it is right now, both in terms of chassis balance (sooo much front end grip, the car doesn´t understeer at all which is rare for a merc) and road feel/comfort.

So if I would go for a different suspension it might be for weight saving purposes only. That being said, if I could save at least 10 lb per wheel with a lighter damper/spring combo, then I might go for it.

Hmm does the girodisc brake really save all that much over the P30 brake which is already a 2 piece rotor? Plus the brakes are among the best parts on the car, it would be a shame to change them.

I already have 19 Inch OZ wheels ready for the summer (with Michelin Supersport tires) they should save a bit of weight hopefully.

The modelyear is 2009, so it probably still has the heavy hood. I have already seen that the weight of the CF hoods can vary by as much as 10 pounds! I will have to do some research about that that before buying one.

I´d like to go for a Black Series/Edition 507 hood, so it pulls a bit of hot air out of the engine bay. Don´t care about a high gloss finish since I will be wrapping the car anyway.

If I could start all over I would just supercharger it and cut out the second cats and call it a day.

Congrats on the new car !

I do think the Giro's may be lighter that the RB's I used - both save a decent chunk over even the 2pc OEM versions.

A braille battery and removing the spare and tools can net you about 85lbs in savings.... Underdrive main pulley may be worth considering, and even E85 if you aren't too cold there.... it's a bit rough starting on the few 30 degree days we get here.....
600hp at the crank is doable for sure..... add in POP and/or SLS and likely the related intake needed, and you could push all of that and more... but the curve and Tq behaviour will shift... my car with most of those mods is at 517 rwhp currently. Hoping to get her to the dragstrip next Friday to see how she fares.

Cheers.

E

Interesting to hear that some weight can be shaved off from the P30 brakes! I will have to do some research on that.

I heard different opinions about the pulley swap, I assume you save a little bit of weight and increase crank hp a bit? Are there any disadvantadges to that (increased wear)?

I think the real issues on the pulley would be lower AC power and a bit less Alt but for my use I'm okay with that..... I'm not tracking it alot - and if I run Big Bend road race I'll survive in April without ac....

hard to know what gains it alone provided, as I did that plus the headers and E85 all at once.... but worth considering doing it along with the Bullet Pulleys ( UPD) and new Tensioner as PM.

E

Hey guys!

Thank you for all the replies btw!! :)

Just uploaded a new baseline video where I weigh the car and do a juicy 3rd gear burnout just for fun.

The car was weighed with a full tank of gas and obviously oil, water and washer fluid were in there as well.

The result was 1820 KG or 4012 lb! It´s a heavy car, but hopefully that will change very soon.

Next up will be the acceleration test on the Autobahn. I just have to catch a day where it is not raining…

Anyway here is the video about it:

Nice to see an ambitious soul with a 63...there's a distinct lack of those around here.

As Chris suggested above, don't worry about the SLS manifold - I thought about it too, but our cars are too heavy to justify having such a peaky motor. Will this be a daily/town car, or will it be more for the track?

If I was to do it again...or advise somebody else...it would be...

Option A:

• Supercharge for the sake of being easy and for your sanity....but if you must remain NA..

Option B:

• Light wheels (no bigger than 18") and tyres
• Light brake rotors (consider a W204 non-AMG rear brake conversion if you're not overly concerned about maximum braking power)
• 3.06 final drive
• Bigger throttle bodies
• Cams
• Rock solid VVT tune with 8000rpm rev limit
• Headers if you must have another 40hp or so to take you to 600hp

That combo on a lightened W204 will rip! My guess is it'll be like...125-126mph kinda fast. I never took mine to the track, but for a fat heavy W212 63, it was pretty special. Easily enough to take out P30 M157 E63s

The left one started to smoke first but it´s a proper two wheel burnout :)

The car luckily has the P30 package including the rear diff.

Thank you for the detailed reply Celicasaur!!

I plan to track the car a lot but I also use it as a daily at the moment.

I think the SLS manifold will probably not fit into my budget anyway, I just really like the idea of saving a bit more weight on the front axle. But I agree that the powerband would probably be a slight disadvantadge for a daily.

I thought about the supercharger, but to be honest I doubt that you could really use that much torque in real world conditions. At least not in the first two gears, and probably not even in third when road conditions are not ideal. I also made saving weight my number one priority and the supercharger would add quite a bit of that, and all of it on the front axle.

And lastly, I would like to keep the naturally aspirated spirit of the car. It´s the last big n/a engine that we will ever see in a merc and I kind of like to keep it that way.

So I will go with option B :)

I already have a set of 19 Inch OZ wheels with Michelin SuperSport tires, so I will use those in a few months when it gets a bit warmer.

I like the idea of the rear brake conversion! I will also swap the front rotor to a lighter one when that wears out.

Final drive is planned as well, I hope to do that mod myself. Not super experienced with wrenching but I want to learn and document the whole process for other people. So far all I have done is installed a few cold air intakes on previous car.

I heard the standard throttle body already can deliver more air than the engine can use? Not sure about the actual gains from a larger one.

Cams would be interesting, I gotta do some research on that.

The car will get a full IPE exhaust and a 102 octane tune, there is a pretty good tuner here in germany who knows a lot about the M156. First time that I heard about upping the rev limit. Can the M156 take those high revs even in stock form? I do have the P30 pack, so that should help in that regard.

Really looking forward to start the whole process of making the car lighter!! Next up will be the acceleration test, and after that it´s go time :)

You can see the right tire start to smoke immediately. It was just a bit wet in the middle where the right tire was, and the left tire stood on dry ground. Trust me I checked afterwards, there were two black lines.

@AMGonFire Well mine already has that :)

The right tire stood on slightly damp ground while the left one was on a dry part, which is why it looks different. You can clearly see the right tire spinning and starting to smoke as well.

"The car will get a full IPE exhaust and a 102 octane tune, there is a pretty good tuner here in germany who knows a lot about the M156. First time that I heard about upping the rev limit. Can the M156 take those high revs even in stock form? I do have the P30 pack, so that should help in that regard. "

The 2009 P30 (in North America at least) does not include any SLS engine upgrades. The engine is the same as the base engine with the speed limiter raised to 174MPH (278KPH). So that will not help with engine durability as it is concerned with raising the rev limit.

I have done quite a few burnouts in this car, trust me the diff works. The middle of the road is a bit wet you can see that in video. You can also see the tire marks on both sides a bit clearer a bit further from the start. The only reason that you can´t see them as clearly is because the road is dry on the left. And you can see the right wheel spinning right from the start.

Oh that is good to know I was not aware of that. So I might think of forged pistons/rods as a possible upgrade.

I know what you mean but I won´t test things that I am sure of. I can clearly tell that the car has a LSD when driving it. If it´s on jackstands anyway at some point in time, I might test it.

But I very much know how an open diff feels, and this car doesn´t have one.