koobagoo

About a year and a half ago I bought a 2002 CLK430 from an old lady moving up north. She wanted to get rid of the car fast and from what I've been told I got a great deal. I bought it for $12,000 and it had 47k miles(Now at 60k and had the 60k service with all new sparkplugs and fuel filter etc.). The car has been an absolute dream and I love it. The performance of this car is well beyond it's years and I appreciate it. I suppose I am greedy for wanting more.

Question 1: Are there any good superchargers out there in a reasonable price range that wouldn't cause reliability issues? (if not superchargers, what about turbos?)

Question 2: I want to have my car sound a bit beefier when I press on the gas but not hugely different when idle. Any suggestions on an exhaust system worth looking into?

Question 3: I'm looking to put in a double din navigation system in which will make the speakers that already sound good even better. My roommate the tech said it's an easy swap with the kit that you can buy to make it fit properly. Any suggestions on a double din?

My roommate is a master tech @ a Mercedes Dealership. He of course advises me to be careful with aftermarket things because they can be hit and miss as far as reliability and can threaten other aspects of the engine.

Thanks for any help!

CLK55_NYC

Nothing for these cars is cheap and that includes superchargers..Doing it right, I dont think you could get it done for under 10k. I wouldn't mess with it.. buy a 55

Josh K

Cutting out the resonator and going with pretty much any cat back exhaust will give you the sound you want.

If you're interested in a supercharger, PM me. I have a Vortech setup that works great. I'm in the process of selling my car and would prefer to sell it as is, but since you're local it might work out to sell you the s/c separately.

mint

+1 on this

i mean, there's not a whole lot of documentation of throwing on aftermarket blowers/turbos on our cars so if you get into a technical/mechanical jam, not many people can help you out. i know for sure the HPS blowers caused massive problems on our engines, so avoid those. there's one guy in the 209 section doing a 32K conversion using OEM parts...and he's been at that for a while.

unless your need to go FI overrides reliability issues then go for it. but it's probably cheaper in the long run to just upgrade to an AMG or go to a 500/550.

koobagoo

If I get the supercharger in; I can have it tuned professionally at http://www.fsrmotorsports.com/ -- The only issue is; besides replacing my exaust/intake system with the supercharger, what else is needed to maintain reliability?

Josh K

HPS was a poor design (both generations). G1 used an inefficient roots blower mounted off to the side and couldn't make enough boost to overcome its friction. It didn't cause blown motors (that I know of) but also didn't make enough power to be worth it.

Their G2's intercooler was way too small and their manifold design seemed to have been designed more for looks than anything. If I recall correctly they also had fuel delivery problems and that's the version that blew up some nice, expensive AMG motors.

Forced induction isn't a problem if done right, and these are internal combustion motors, not very different from any other internal combustion motor - the approach doesn't change. Just because it's in a Mercedes doesn't mean one can't reliably do the same types of things done to Corvettes and Mustangs.

I've had a Vortech on my car for 35k+ miles and have had no problems and the state of Mercedes tuning is in a somewhat better place now. The gains we achieved were done without injector swaps or software tuning using more traditional methods of fuel supplementation (boost-a-pump/superFMU). I'm sure if I wanted to spend the money I could safely run more boost with tuning and injectors.

All that being said, yes, it's probably cheaper to get a 55 (although my car is faster than a 55). I chose to go the custom route because I was doing shows at the time and because I had already spent a lot of time/money modding the car I had and didn't want to start over again on the same car.

Redw20855amg

unles you flat out steal one at an insane price BNIB Like I did