OK, I made a recent thread about the availability of manual transmission swap shops, but I got good news on my car today, their belief is that the clutch pack has worn out. Initially they thought it would be much worse, that's why I made the initial post. So because this is a much cheaper repair (I was quoted around $2700), I won't be doing a manual swap. The shop is good for me w/ a great public reputation and has never had to repair something twice, so I trust them. My car has 108,000 miles and is a 2013 so it is the MCT. I personally never launch it but I do drive hard and do pulls in the upper rev range basically every time I drive the car. But I don't do hard launches from a stop. I wonder if the previous owner who put the tune in also did some hard pulls from a stop that wore the clutch out?

Symptoms are:
A) An extremely jerky (like embarrassing level jerkiness) 1-->2 shift unless you get on the gas very slowly - I had this for the whole time I owned the car and thought it was normal, now realizing it probably wasn't. If you took off in 2nd using Comfort, this never happened.
B) In general I noticed a new behavior where the car's rev range and shifting just felt odd -- laggy, hesitating, or sometimes lurching, major hesitating if you hit the gas hard while crusing. No codes. This only started happening recently and it is why I brought it into a mechanic.

My car has a Eurocharged tune (dyno'd at 540hp) though recently I was running it on the stock tune. I've also run it on the AMG 507 tune for periods. Obviously myself and my shop are wondering if that contributed to the premature failure.
So I now have 2 questions:

1) Is there an upgraded clutch packs which can be purchased that folks here can recommend? I would want them to be reliable with good feel. I don't want to have to go through this again, but if it is like a manual transmission where say every 100K you need a new clutch pack, that's normal.
I've only seen this but don't know anything about how good or reliable they are (or if the feel is good):
https://www.blackboostusa.com/products/722-9-transmission-performance-package

2) If I don't get an upgraded pack, do you think it is still safe to run tunes and still get a good clutch life and not burn it out again quickly? Would you use the Eurocharged tune still, or stop with the AMG 507 tune?

I don't want to run into this issue again, but part of me is wondering if the previous owner just did some stupid stuff and I'm overthinking this. I know a lot of people run tunes on their car with no issue, I don't plan to ever run beyond 540HP, and if I had to stick with the 507 tune I'd probably be OK with that.

What do you guys think? OK to just get the OE clutch and run my tune again? Go for a different tune, or is the Eurocharged safe for this transmission?

Thanks

 

That kit from BlackBoost is for the 725.0 transmission (9AT), so not an option for you.

1. Just go with the OE wet clutch unit. Failures are not exactly common and this is on a platform that is generally driven like it's meant to be.

2. I doubt your tune alone caused this. A previous owner's antics, however, are a common root cause.

A high quality tune that performs like it should without weird driveability issues is often safe, but if you want to keep it OE with the stock 507 file, there's nothing wrong with that course of action.

 

AMS/EXEDY used to do upgraded clutch packs but I am unsure if they are still available. I think you will have to check but its a 722.9 trans you need.

https://www.torqen.uk/brands/ams-performance/ford/31606-ams-performance-mercedes-benz-4655l-bi-turbo-7g-tronic-7229-alpha-clutch-upgrade.html?srsltid=AfmBOoqkyz3iZxXyW4igjHgRWX-w68BysghJrE2dvk0G3DKqRVhQKwuF

https://www.automatic-berger.de/Mercedes-7229-Transmission-Lined-Friction-Clutch-Plate-Set-88000-130-001_1

https://mbworld.org/forums/c63-amg-w...k-upgrade.html

Southern hot rod

https://southernhotrod.com/shr-merce...ssion-type-ii/

Blackboost

https://www.blackboost.com/products/...clutch-upgrade

Raybestos

https://www.raybestospowertrain.com/...packs/rcps-240

As these cars age there is alot of clutch and gearbox failures these days, bad previous owners not looking after cars and crap tunes just contribute to the early failures.

Btw even though your car may have said 540bhp no car is making more than 520bhp without headers no matter what the dyno or tune is. The minimum with headers is 540bhp upto 580bhp and the difference with headers is night and day how the car drives.

In regards to tunes, I bought mine brand new and tuned it when the car was 4 days old, then did headers and tune last year so it’s been fine for 13 years but the car only has 31,000 miles. It does get driven properly by myself but it also gets alot of preventative maintenance.

The worse thing to happen to these cars are sticking injectors anyway so thats the only one I would be worried about as if that happens it will cost you a new engine, the rest is just part of the course of owning an amg with a race designed engine.

 

The EC tune shifted funny on my car and for many others as well. They alter the torque management and it caused part throttle "flare". It seems to also be more common on Facelift cars without the torque converter. I went back to the stock tune which immediately solved those issues. Since then, I went with Barry for my tune (eightysixtuned) which works beautifully. I believe he leaves the OEM torque management for the transmission intact and I think that is key for longevity and minimizing wear.

Personally, I would reload the OEM tune and run that for a good long while after the work is complete. Once you're certain that everything is running perfectly and want a little more, reach out to Barry.

 

Alright so it seems the consensus is do just get the OE clutch and run at most the 507 OE tune. If I want to go for more power, go with something like Barry's tune as BalanBro suggested which I have looked into before and thought was quality.

HLG600 -- odd that my link shows the 722.9 but when you click it's the wrong one, huh. Anyway I appreciate you looking out and your comments.

And yes PhilT, I am aware that dyno numbers are often inflated, so when I quote it at 540hp figure I usually tell people "who knows exactly, at least 500, but dyno'd at 540". I appreciate you linking me to all the available options.

Thank you for the comments everyone, I'm going to go with the OE clutch.