1995 e320 ?? stumbling / hesitation / misfiring
Background = wiring harness + head gasket replaced in past few years. Car in perfect shape. Sold it to me b/c of this issue and they said it needed a new throttle body. I took the throttle body off, and sure enough the wiring was toast. I spent this week (at night) rewiring it, which was hilarious test of my marraige given that I did it at dining room table.
Anyways, tonight, put the car back together. Started right up. I was in shock as I was giving myself about a 20% chance of not screwing up wiring or soldering and quite honestly I was expecting the car not to start and I'd mentally prepped myself to buy the new 1500 throttle body..
Here's the crazy thing. Car started right up but has the EXACT SAME SYMPTOMS. Basically, it starts up perfectly. Idles perfectly. if you really granny-like step on gas its perfect, but if you punch it, from about 2000-3000 rpm there is a horrible miss / misfire / hesitation/ chugging that sometimes even results in what sounds like an intake backfire.
So -- maybe it wasn't the throttle body. Sure of that now, but even still, the wiring was completely crap so it was good that I rewired it, I guess. I havent checked plugs, plug wires or coil. Could it be something so simple ? Or could the electronic throttle be bad and this is just what happens/ Other ideas ?
THANKS IN ADVANCE
Repair is very simple. With the appropriate tools -- should be about 10 minutes at most. In addition to that, verify the plugs are non-resistive non platinum plugs. Copper plugs is all you need. Check your throttle body and clean (if need be). Plugs should be gapped at .32mm.
Check around and ensure no vaccum leakage or blockage.
Engine should be very smooth at idle, burn clean and be eager to be revved.
I've been cleaning MAF's (100+mm ones - which are expensive even for Benz people - $700 on up) for years with first carb cleaner (makes them short lived, but can revive them), and then contact cleaner (better), and now they make MAF cleaner specifically for cleaning the wire. It works many times, as the part that causes mis-compares/mis-reads is usually the exposed wire. Occasionally, the divider resistors will also go bad, and then you have to replace the thing. But it takes 10 minutes at most, and works about 90% of the time. Might as well give it a shot - quick and dirty.
What damages most MAFs is not oil from oiled filters, but backstreamed gasses - a cam with large overlap tends to kill a MAF quickly, and running 40 degrees of overlap or more is a recipe for cleaning a MAF on regular intervals. But cams like this only seem to exist on touchy Saturday night cruise machines, and do not lend themselves to idling. I'm not sure what the overlap of the cams on MB's are, maybe Marcus can pipe in on this, but they idle too well to have any serious overlap. Most serious street/drag people have MAF programmers in their garage, they work off your laptop and allow you to adjust the thing pretty easily.
My car has the exact same problem (300# 2.8, 50k miles) got new spark plugs, coils, cables, redone wiring harness, ovp is good. alredy on my second MAF sensor and the car has same problem as your's..
At idle rpm drops 1 seconds and get back to idle again.. driving it easy it shows no problems but when I mash the throttle shakes and backfires and after 2-3 seconds (time to gearbox to reduce 1 gear) it goes like a train!
Any help would be great
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My car has the exact same problem (300# 2.8, 50k miles) got new spark plugs, coils, cables, redone wiring harness, ovp is good. alredy on my second MAF sensor and the car has same problem as your's..
At idle rpm drops 1 seconds and get back to idle again.. driving it easy it shows no problems but when I mash the throttle shakes and backfires and after 2-3 seconds (time to gearbox to reduce 1 gear) it goes like a train!
Any help would be great
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Is the check engine light on?



