McGuireV10

What does the stock exhaust system look like on an 03 E500? I'm talking about the order and number of resonators, cats, mufflers, and O2 sensors. I'll be getting one within the week, and I'm thinking if it's anything like my friend's C230 Kompressor (which had something crazy like 4 cats, 2 resonators, etc), there is probably a lot of room for quick and dirty improvement while I review my longer-term options.

DWP

Define "improvement." If somebody can come up with a quick, clean-or-dirty and legal way to improve (i.e., macho-up) the idling exhaust note of the E500, I would sure like to hear about it. The car has a hair-raising roar/howl at WOT, but at idle it sounds like a Buick. I recently got to hear a new Infiniti M45 at idle - now that is one mean-sounding burbling and rumble.

McGuireV10

As far as I'm concerned "improvement" is synonymous with making more power.

If it sounds better, too, that's cool, but from the little bit I've seen, Benz exhausts tend to be overly restrictive and heavy -- which isn't surprising given the conservative image they choose to cultivate. Obviously removing some or all of these components would change the sound a lot, and probably for the better, but that isn't necessarily an overriding goal.

"Legal?" Let's not go there.
Fortunately I live in a state without emissions testing.

(Cats are a scam anyway. There is far too much sulfur in all pump gas to permit cats to have the beneficial effect they were originally intended to provide. Currently fuel runs about 540ppm to over 900ppm sulfur. The oil industry itself says it has to come down to about 150ppm for cats to be effective, and the auto industry, who is trying to defray some of the costs of meeting legislative emissions requirements, says it should be 30ppm. The EPA wants anywhere from 80ppm to 40ppm depending on who you ask. "Big oil" doesn't want to deal with the considerable expense. Sulfur bonds with most of the catalyzing surface before a cat reaches operating temperature, and it can't be filtered by the cat since the sulfur molecule is so similar in size to the platinum molecules used in the catalyst itself.)

DWP

Not in California. The current sulphur averaging limit for California gasoline is 30 ppm, reducing to 15 ppm shortly. That's probably why cat converters aren't a scam in California. They are one of the many regrettably necessary gummint requirements that allow 35,000,000 people and a like number of motor vehicles to co-exist without the latter killing the former.

McGuireV10

I had no idea -- interesting, thanks.

jangy

How about just removing the resonator? It's the piece that connects each pipe to the other, thus subsiding the thump thump sound a real V8 would have. Has anyone tried this and if so, what effects in sound and or performance does it have?

kyee

I wanted more grunt in my exhaust sound, and also quad pipes. I installed the Brabus exhaust on my E500 and couldn't be happier. Well, let me rephrase that, I would be MUCH happier if it were an E55!