Guys,
What would be the most appropriate power gains I would be looking at with an X pipe install-getting rid of the secondary cats and resonators?
Also, is it worth sending in the ECU to Kleemann or the like for a retune-about 15-17bhp??.
I REALLY need more power , but after the brakes, I am MUCHO short of vitamin M..so...

 

I couldn't even venture a guess for gains on the E240. You could very well end up losing horsepower and torque with the removal of the 2nd cats and resonator.

Just call one of the major tuners, LET, VRP, Powerchip, Kleemann, Renntech, etc...and see what they say. Might as well hear from the experts, rather then a guess from us.

 

Stick on a Eaton/Lysholm supercharger, add a HKS turbo kit or bore out the engine. These are the only things that will give you a noticeable increase in power.

Changing pulleys, ECU tunes, etc will only give you an increase of around 10kw, which is pointless for a car that weighs as much as the titanic.

I have the same car as you and I have been told by many mechanics/tuners/performance companies that this is pretty much all you can do. If you want power prepare to spend more than US$3000, those crap options cost about 1/3rd of the big ones but they will only give you about 1/10th of the power. All in all they are a waste of money.

I come from Australia, and can only assume that whatever country you are from it is (A) not the US and (B) Mercedes are as expensive as they are where I am, hence why you bought the base model. If I lived in the US I could buy a used 2003 E55 for the same price as a standard no optioned 2003 E240 with double the miles in my country.

To bore an engine this can be done by many people you just need to shop around your area. If you want to pay for quality, ship it to Brabus, they know what they are doing though it will cost around US$4000 not including shipping and I don't know what else it doesn't include, call them. They will bore it to a 3.8L with around 200kw (70kw more than what you have), which will get you to 100km in around 7.5 seconds.

Supercharger prices vary, if you don't bore it you would want an Eaton M62 which will add another 35-50kw and get you to 100 in about 8-8.5 seconds. If you bore it get a Eaton M112 and now you will be running about the same kind of power as a E500. The superchargers will run about US$2500-4000 depending on where you get them, second hand etc.

The way I see it is it is worth it as this will all up cost around US$8-10000 to do, and to buy an E500 in my country, with the same mileage and year as my 2003 E240 would cost me another US$25000 on top of selling my car for US$25000 then paying taxes of US$1500 to buy another car.

I hope this has answered your question, if my figures are wrong please correct them but from doing conversions this is roughly the price in Australia.

 

P.s It is cool that you got AMG breaks, usually people only do up the engine, which is stupid because you can go really fast but then how do you stop? Lol...

Also could you email me some photos of your upgrades, I saw some on other threads but I just like looking at peoples Mods, this forum is usually full of some of the best Merc mods I have ever seen.

I like it because no one in Aus mods cars except for Hyundai Excels (don't man).

 

Hi Scraz51,
haha, I guess you could call us brothers in this. That's exactly why I couldn't get the 55.
I live in Bombay, India and as I had mentioned in an earlier post, the E280 costs about US$ 105,000!! That's ridiculous but what can you do..
I would love to send you some piccies..give me your email.
Cheers
Areez