robunicu

we will be attempting this project soon. We are a german shop and work on w220 everyday. We just purchased a 2001 s600 from Texas for cheap. Just needed a rear sam. Have a spare w220 chassis and looking to find a donor engine for mockup.. seems easy. What would be a fair price for headers? Want to know if we should make a few and if will sell

shooffnyc

Good luck with that. I've seen quite a few interested in this, if someone can be successful in the states.

The last shop had a hard time making precision flanges that wouldn't warp. Due to that, they couldn't continue. I've heard that a company called 'Stainless Headers' uses 3/8" thickness for their flanges which is supposed to prevent warping. My plan right now was to order the headers from Japan and have it shipped, (They are charging $4,400 for the headers plus shipping) Then take it to Speed Driven to have them fabricate the exhaust tubing as they have an in-house CNC machine and cater to benzes. BUT, the new S600 I picked up for this just developed valve cover gasket leak. I gotta take care of that first, along with a tuneup, then I'll be ready to order the headers and proceed.

tusabes

At $500-700 they will sell

at $4400 you'll have no customers

robunicu

yea it's impossible to make it happen in the 1000$ range..1 collector per side is 300$.. gonna have close to 800$ In materials. I'd be interested in making 10 complete headers and exhaust and sell in the 5k range.

trustz

That is why no one is doing that in the State ! Most owner got their S600 around $5k-$10k depends on mileage and condition. I don't think they want to spend $5k for a header when they are spending money to keep the car running ! Under $2k you may have some customer, but you can't make money for selling $2k. The market for the S600 header just not big enough to do this !

shooffnyc

Probably around $3K you would get customers. These are V12 headers and all the other cars that have V12s in them except this and the BMW, their market value is much higher. But yeah no one would want to pay that much when its equal to 70% of their cars value, except for a handful. Initially I wanted to do this project for under $10K and I think it's possible now. I was about to pick up an 01 S600 with 72K miles that just needed a voltage transformer from Florida for $3200 but it got away. Had I to get that, and $4k for the headers right now, it would be a possibility.

tusabes

Those prices are insane
Sanderson header in California will make them for under $1500 in tube steel , don't know about stainless

Roman Guzienko

Sound like F1 V12 but 7.3 litre.


Final thermo stripe to cool the under hood but same importance to keep higher temperature inside tubes for faster gas speed.


Not lean look as TG cause very small space in w140 SEC.

shooffnyc

Reviving an old thread...not sure if good idea but here it goes...

Been anticipating to update this thread for some time, but wanted to make sure some things were on place first.

Good news is that the project is still ongoing. The bad news is that the project is still ongoing....for over 2 years...LoL. I shoulda just bought one off from TG sasaki after all the headaches I've been through.

First attempt with someone else on from this forum didn't work out after having my car at his shop for about a year. So I had to end that as it didn't go much far. Sold the Gold S600 to buy another one which I thought would be more show worthy with the headers. That turned out to be even a bigger mistake. Car developed a massive oil leak which I thought was from the oil cooler. Took it to a reputable benz repair shop and they confirmed it was the oil cooler. I was on the verge of just giving up and selling it for parts. For some reason, ZephtheChef from this forum msged me that day asking about how my project was going. So with a massive disappointment, I told him where I was at. He said he had a keen interest to build a set of custom headers for his TT S600 but he knew it wasn't possible and he and wouldn't mind taking on fixing the oil cooler leak and in turn attempt to fabricate a set of headers for the N/A engine. I said fine and ordered all the parts for the oil cooler. Took the car to him. And I was glad I did, He opened up the manifold and it turned out that the oil leak was caused by a ruptured PCV hose. Replacing that stopped the leak.

So now the car is at his shop with the stock headers taken off while he's working on it to take measurements of the ports and order some flanges and eventually go from there. Still some time to go, but hoping it'll get there...somewhere. In case some were curious what happened...

Will update when there is substantial progress.

AlexMercedes

Instead of dealing with the major problems of the M137 engine, why not just do this exhaust project on a M275 V12? This guy removed the turbos off his SL65 in favor of a rear mount turbo, and removing those restrictive turbo manifolds really made a difference in the tone of the car. The engine note now sounds identical to that of the M137, I would say it sounds even better. Take a listen:


Here is his thread on removing the stock turbos off the M275 and installing custom made headers from the M137 engine:

https://www.youtube.com/redirect?red...event=comments

ZephTheChef

Not really the same sound at all. It also sounds pretty wonderful, but very different from equal-length with no turbine damping the pulses.

ZephTheChef

I did actually consider doing a rear mount on my 04 M275. But ultimately decided the stock computer/fuel delivery is going to be an issue well before the stock turbo limits anyway. And from what eurocharged told me there's no way to adjust the primary fueling for larger injectors in their particular editor...so it was going to get real expensive real fast.

shooffnyc

That SL65 sounds pretty nice. Those headers do not look equal length though. I wonder how much the sound would change had it been equal length. It does not sound like what the NA M137 produces with the headers. Take a look at the video below and compare. I'd say it's quite different.

feets

Have people not realized those F1 sounds were laid over the original sounds on the Japanese videos?
You can still hear the deeper tone of the M137 just sneaking in under the F1 V12 sound.

The reason you can't get the F1 sound is that you can't spin 15,000 rpm like those engines did.

Yes, an equal length header with the proper pairing would really change the sound but you're still missing the rpm and cam timing to get that famous sound.

Aim for copying the sound of the Zonda. That's pretty close to the F1 and should be much easier to duplicate.

shooffnyc

That video I posted above was originally taken from TG Sasakis official Facebook page. Unless you believe the sound in that video isn't genuine and dubbed over with high pitch modification which he did on purpose from the get-to. That would be a bold claim as he's got a reputation with a shop he operates. Either way, there is only one way to find out.

feets

Yes, I am talking about the TG videos.
Listen closely to them.
You can hear a lower pitch exhaust note that Is being covered by a dubbed in F1 soundtrack.
It takes far more rpm than a 137 can give to hit those frequencies.

tusabes

feets

It will sound similar to the video but only to a point.
Stressing either an M120 (like I own) or a M137 to 6,000 rpm will get you half way there.
The higher screaming pitch of an F1 V12 is only possible due to the extreme rpm they spin. The exhaust note of a V12 at 6000 rpm will, at best, sound like an F1 engine at half speed. You will not get that famous scream.

markriccioni

That's not an F1 noise being dubbed over; that's just the noise from the engine/intake side (which like you said is at max 6000rpm) as opposed to the exhaust side where the equal-length manifolds make it sound infinitely higher than it really is. If you listen to a stock Ferrari 360 vs. one with say Capristo manifolds fitted, you'd assume the engine speed was much higher in the modified one whereas in reality they're just the same.

I'm by no means saying that any of the Sasaki cars sound exactly like an F1 car because of the engine speed/rpm differences, but the high-pitch 'style' sound is 100% there. The Aston Martin Rapide they've done - which revs higher than the M120/M137 - sounds even more bonkers. Still not a 'legit' F1 car, but i don't think anyone is actually suggesting the two sound the same side-by-side.

Apologies for the big thread bump. Having recently visited TG Sasaki in Japan (and fortunately bought the W140 S600 AMG he build) i can categorically say there's no noise being dubbed over at all. Video i took below if you're interested.

markriccioni

ZephTheChef

Oh no. Now I'm gonna have to get off my butt and get back to work on "my" version. When you get it home get us some detailed pictures. I was really curious what the heck the did for ignition because in the original pics it did not look like there was going to be room for the coils with where the exhaust was. Or that they would be tight and getting heat-damage if not really well shielded.

shooffnyc

That's right Zeph. Get off that slumber and get on it ASAP. This is your motivation.

soon2brb240

I’ve been wanting to do the same thing on an off for years, basically the same as most others here, after I heard that infamous video. I actually think I’d like to swap one of the v12’s into another chassis, maybe non-Mercedes.

Anyway, my thoughts are odd, but could possibly get the sound we’re all looking for, at a much more reasonable price. Now I’ve never actually personally been in front of ANY of these engines, so I could be completely wrong. But I found some cheap headers, which look to be equal length, for certain Mercedes v6’s. The flanges look to be the same as the ones on m137’s and m275’s. Is the port spacing the same? Are the flanges actually the same? I know none of the answers. But I thought if you could essentially get 2 sets of these headers, they could “bolt” on, and get you the sound you’re looking for. Here’s the headers in question:

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?m...2F183426651170

IF that idea works, or even comes close to working, I’m sure minor adjustments could be made to make them work perfectly. Once you have the headers on the engine, you’d need to fabricate an equal length y pipe to join each bank of 3 cylinders together. THEN once that’s accomplished, a closely coupled x pipe under the car should be all the rest it takes to achieve the sound. 2 or even 3 x pipes further smooths the sound, and could help bring out more of the high pitch. Here’s an example: this is an e36 BMW with an old carbureted Ford 5.0, but with equal length headers and 3 x pipes. It sounds almost nothing like a typical 5.0 Mustang


My idea would be to get an M275, remove all the turbos and associated manifolds, install these headers (again IF those cheap v6 headers work) and then supercharge it with a Rotrex unit of some sort. You’d still have all the power that the M275 is loved for, but you’d ALSO get the amazing F1 scream everyone wants.

Thoughts?

nkautz1

Funny , I was just randomly reading through this thread and the last post has a video of my car and the exhaust I made. The TG sasaki v12 sound is 100% real. Their website doesn't seem to exist anymore but I know they were going by "Brilliant Exhaust" about a year ago. And weirdly the Kreissieg exhaust site has the same font that TG used and there's japanese characters all over the place. But that stuff is so expensive.

Anyways , the headers are mainly the reason for the sound. 6-1 on each bank is probably a 20-hour job for a gifted exhaust fabricator. 40+ otherwise. 6-2-1 seems more reasonable in terms of packaging and making things much easier. I believe almost the same sound can be achieved. The length of the primaries and secondaries (equal length within an inch) to the final collector on each bank is important , because the sound starts to shriek when the negative pressure wave from scavenging is reaching the exhaust port at a certain time. Ideally you'd have camshafts with sufficient overlap so that the negative pressure can suck fresh air/fuel into the cylinders and help extract exhaust. The collector causes the negative pressure wave so the distance to the collector determines at what rpm the scavenging takes place. That's why shorty headers can help with flow and sound somewhat but you don't see much power gain , they aren't scavenging properly. Beyond the headers , you want symmetry (or at least equal lengths bank to bank) and at least 1 merge of both banks (x-pipe). The type of material used for the headers and exhaust would be inconel or titanium, like top tier racing exhausts and .... formula 1. It's possible that thin wall steel could work but is harder to weld and won't last as long. Muffler selection is also important... would be curious to hear what type of muffler TG used. Exhaust tip shape and design also affects sound dynamics. Anything conical that tapers from small to larger will amplify mid and high frequencies and also focus the noise in a sort of beam inline with the exhaust exit.which can be heard from a surprisingly long distance if in the sounds path.

American V8's can also have a similar type of sound with a correctly designed header/exhaust system, but that's another story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuOt31rpPM0:

ZephTheChef

My thoughts are go with what I "know" and just see how it sounds. From what I know about the theory, the smaller the diameter and shorter the total length to the final merge/dump the higher the pitch will be. The equality of length should be less and less important as the frequency increases, and it dramatically increases the total length to go with actual tubular manifolds. I would also go the "other" way with piping...make it as heavy and thick-walled as possible to avoid the potential resonance and issues you get into with tubing contaminating the sound. So basically, I'm looking at doing a very simple, compact, stainless pipe log manifold for each batch of 3 cylinders, that will be very nearly equal length, easy to build, and inexpensive. If it sounds good and doesn't seem to hurt power too bad then we just roll with it. If it doesn't, then consider alternatives such as going to tubular manifolds. Based on how my M275 sounds with just stock manifolds, turbos in the way, and an open merge...I think this project will sound great even with logs.

The OBX headers linked above would be an interesting option if the flanges are compatible...but you're still looking at $1,000 for a complete set and still have to merge/build the rest of an exhaust on top of that.