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Hello MBworld! I haven’t posted to this site in a long time but I have used it a lot to help me with working on and modifying my Mercedes’. This forum has been extremely helpful and I’d just like to share what I have done to my most recent Mercedes. This is my 2008 CLK550 that I have owned for a little over a year now. I bought it in 2019 with 75k miles on it and daily drove it until just a week ago when I bought a GS430 to use as the new daily. This has been my favorite car I have owned and even though it isn’t an AMG the 5.5L V8 is a powerhouse that makes the car a blast to drive. I haven’t had this CLK very long but it has been super reliable. The only non-maintenance thing I have done was a thermostat at about 80k miles, currently it sits at 90k miles. I have thrown a few parts at it to make it fit my style a little better though. I’ll list the parts I put on the car below with some before and after pics. So far I don’t have any plans on more modifications but I can’t say that they won’t happen. The thought of a turbo V8 has crossed my mind more than once...
Mods:
- Electric cutout before muffler
- Carbon fiber diffuser and splitter
- TSW Clypse wheels 18x8.5 front 18x9.5 rear
- Continental Extreme Contact Sport tires
- Black vinyl wrapped trim around body and grille
- Leather diamond stitched floor mats
Pics of CLK mods litter the internet. I’m not a huge modder, I think Benzie does a pretty good job. But your CLK looks great. Mine has the dove gray upholstery and dark stained ash. I like your combo.
Thanks for the compliments everyone! My goal with modifying this car so far has been to make it look as if it could have come from the factory like that. They may not have chosen diamond stitch leather floor mats but hey, at least they help protect the carpet.
MT, Just curious and you may not want to quote. But how much did that muffler job cost? Benzie could have done a much better job with the exhaust. Hell, my wife's C300 has a better guttural rumble than my CLK.
tons of work on your CLK. If you had to do it again would you and which mod gave the biggest bang for the buck. I would move to quad the exhaust but my MB indie advised me to leave it slack.
The only mods done that I would not do again is the front lip spoiler. The spoiler itself was good but since my car is lowered it made the front just too low. It is no longer on the car. ( I got too close to a curb while parking after a dental appointment and broke it. I removed it and did not replace.)
I've tried LED lights in a couple places but have given up on LEDs other than the DEPO tails and LED fog lamps.
The mods that I've gotten the most "joy" from have been the tune and headers, the exhaust, and the sprint booster. They are all "go faster" things.
The K-Mac change has saved me money on tires.
The H&R, Blistein, and strut brace mods improved the handling; particularly when being juvenile.....
Zill, the shop I took it to charged me $500 for the work. That’s $400 for labor and about $100 for parts. The electric cutout was $200 and the tip was $50 so $730 all together. I brought the cutout and exhaust tip to the shop because I wanted to pick out the cutout and the exhaust tip I had to buy from China off of eBay. I couldn’t find anywhere else that sold a matching tip for the left side. Maybe because AMG is stamped into the tip....
Turns out the tip didn’t match though! The one I bought was pretty close but it was actually a little taller than the original. I didn’t realize it until the cutout was already welded up so I had the shop go ahead and install it. Most people don’t notice but it sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I bought new matching tips that I have still yet to install. The shop I took it to did an okay job for the price so I think I might weld the new tips on myself next spring.
I don’t know if other people that have done this have ran into the same issue but if anyone is thinking about installing AMG tips to match their original on a W209 then pay close attention to the size. Even the other aftermarket AMG tips I bought do not match the factory AMG tip on the left. They are a bit wider than the originals. Those were the only 2 sizes I saw online.
Also, I ran the cutout wiring to a receiver hidden by where the battery is located so that I can use a remote instead of finding somewhere to put a switch in the interior.
Here is a pic of the cutout and how it is routed. A
little hard to get a good pic from underneath ramps.
MT, how does it sound?
I think the fabricator should have been able to weld it better. I would also have used a Y pipe before the cutout. I think when you open the cutout it will sorta act like an H pipe and cause an initial sucking of air into the exhaust stream. I think it will then flow exhaust to the passenger side but the volume will be less than that on the drivers side. I believe the muffler is essentially straight through and exhaust to the passenger side will be driven more by increased/excess volume in the original pipe.
But none of that matters if it sounds the way you like. If possible, post a sound clip.
Fatz,
I think it sounds really nice! It is a V8 so I feel like it is almost hard to make it sound bad haha. I agree that the work done on the exhaust isn’t the best but since I plan on redoing it I’m not too worried about it. I have done muffler deletes on several other vehicles I’ve owned and with the cutout open on the CLK I can’t tell that it isn’t just a normal muffler delete. Of course it is hard to tell without having another CLK550 that has just a normal muffler delete to compare it to. The only thing I might be able to notice is that at higher RPMs it doesn’t seem super loud so maybe when the exhaust flow increases more air is passing through the muffler and not the cutout. By the time I am past 4K RPMs it gets a little hard to pay attention to anything other than the road though haha.
I don’t have any exhaust clips as of now but I’ve been meaning to make some. If I get the opportunity this weekend I will try and get some clips to post.
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