principledchiro

For most of the 2.5 years of owning my 2006 CL55 AMG, I never quite understood why with a 600 bhp 700 lb/ft trq. Eurocharged Stage II tune, from a dig, the car never really impressed me. From a dig it had grunt, but not the celebrated hard launching tire shredding grunt claimed by CL55 and E55 AMG owners. Well, this all changed the other day. For the past few weeks, from dead cold, the starting of the engine was greeted with stumbling and an almost a stall. Initial thoughts were; did the 1.5 year old fuel filter clog or is the fuel pump going? Then two days ago there was very little power; the engine started, warmed, then placed in drive. From a start, though the gas pedal was moderately depressed, instead of the usual modest response of power, there was just a weak silky smooth forward movement, very little power. Now I'm thinking; low fuel pressure or whatever. Brought it to mechanic with suggestion to replace the fuel filter. He calls me back; "Do you want to know what the "real problem" is? I pulled a code; "Air intake temperature sensor short". Off I went to the local MB dealer. Gave them $30 for an AIT sensor. It took mechanic less than 10 minutes to install. He cleared the code and hard re-set the ECU...It's a monster! The monstrous torque of this engine has finally been realized. The motor revved differently. It had a whole different response from a dig and through the gears. Wow! With this new, what feels like an additional 150 bhp and trq., evil thoughts entered my head; "I'm hungry. I want prey!". Though none was found, the 19 year old imprisoned in my head marked a few roads with 200-300 foot long black streaks. Suggestion: replace AIT sensor every 2 years. Mods: DTK 77mm clutched pulley w/belt wrap kit, Bosche10 pump and tandem heat exchanger, K&N panel filters in stock intake, EC tune, DTK TCU, Kleeman mid-length headers, 200 cell primary cats, deleted secondary cats, stock resonators and mufflers, Yellow Speed Sport coil-over suspension. Up next: Quaife LSD, 82mm TB, 550 injectors, 3.5" intake mod. This coming winter heads go to Head Games (NJ) for freshening and porting, fresh cams, timing chains, etc.

Dr Matt

Nice to hear it was simple and cheap! That is rarely the case.....

principledchiro

Tell me about it. Finally a 123 diagnosis and cheap part to swap. Now I can't believe how powerful the car is. Stock these things are pretty quick and definitely fast, but mods make them nutty quick and faster, LOL. My lunch break was 75% blasts off the line and mid to top end hauls. It's incredible. Confidence in cars performance level went up big time.

Dr Matt

Sounds to me like someone needs to go to the track or look for an unsuspecting Hellcat on the street.

principledchiro

LOL, during break a dude was blasting away with his 2016 Dodge Charger 392. Stock, they're fast and loud. We both stopped at the same ice cream stand. We chatted, but running didn't come up. He said his monster is 500 hp, i said mines 625.

Dr Matt

You would have slaughtered him...

principledchiro

LOL! These 03-06 CL55's are fast.

principledchiro

Whacked question: can we use Seafoam to clean our engines?

RaceHorse

Great news, cheap fix and more power is a big win. You should be sizing up a set of drag radials or Toyo R888s on a weekend set of wheels. These cars cost enough, you can go through,$800+ of tires every weekend with that 19 yr old behavior.

Dr Matt

To be honest I've never tried Sea Foam in anything.

principledchiro

The reason for bringing up Seafoam was from observing that when the Y-Pipe was off the TB, there was carbon build-up at the throttle plate. Figured; Let's clean the inside of TB, intake manifold, heads, pistons, etc. Watched Youtubes of folks safely cleaning their engine internals with Seafoam.