SL/R230: Exhaust Rumble
01-06-2019, 11:33 PM
#1
Member
Thread Starter
Exhaust Rumble
I've read though a lot of threads on exhaust on these boards so I thought I would share my current situation.
I bought my SL500 about 4 weeks ago. I did the brakes today and while it was up on stands I took a good look at my exhaust. It's got a mean *** rumble to it. It would appear I have front and rear cats only. No resonators, no rear mufflers. It's straight pipe after the rear cats. That explains a lot. It sounds obnoxious on first start up in the morning. It sounds like it knocking like crazy, but all the noise is coming out of the tail pipes. Once it comes off of fast idle the knocking goes away and by the time it's warmed up it has a real nice purr at idle. With regular driving it gets a bit of a resonance through the car at lower RPM's under load, but the higher the RPM's go up, the less it does it. At highway speed it's really pleasant. Drop the hammer and it sounds flat out amazing. Especially when the tach gets up around 6,000.
Anway, like I said, I've read bunches of threads on exhaust, mainly because I was gonna do something with mine. I see remove read cats, remove resonators, remove both. I've only seen one guy that said leave all four cats and remove everything else. Not bad advice if you want it to sound like a mean *** V8. After seeing what I got, instead of upgrading I think I'll just leave it as it is for now.
On a final note, the manual disabling and reactivation of the SBC to do a brake job works. No STAR needed.
I bought my SL500 about 4 weeks ago. I did the brakes today and while it was up on stands I took a good look at my exhaust. It's got a mean *** rumble to it. It would appear I have front and rear cats only. No resonators, no rear mufflers. It's straight pipe after the rear cats. That explains a lot. It sounds obnoxious on first start up in the morning. It sounds like it knocking like crazy, but all the noise is coming out of the tail pipes. Once it comes off of fast idle the knocking goes away and by the time it's warmed up it has a real nice purr at idle. With regular driving it gets a bit of a resonance through the car at lower RPM's under load, but the higher the RPM's go up, the less it does it. At highway speed it's really pleasant. Drop the hammer and it sounds flat out amazing. Especially when the tach gets up around 6,000.
Anway, like I said, I've read bunches of threads on exhaust, mainly because I was gonna do something with mine. I see remove read cats, remove resonators, remove both. I've only seen one guy that said leave all four cats and remove everything else. Not bad advice if you want it to sound like a mean *** V8. After seeing what I got, instead of upgrading I think I'll just leave it as it is for now.
On a final note, the manual disabling and reactivation of the SBC to do a brake job works. No STAR needed.
01-07-2019, 12:50 AM
#2
Member
I've read on these forums that the rear cats are prone to failure and the stealer charges heavily to replace them. The most informative post that I've read is from a member named Aussiesuede, he really went into detail with how it sounded and performed post rear cats removal. It's a great read, I'd recommend it highly. I am going this route in the spring.
01-07-2019, 06:56 AM
#3
Member
Thread Starter
I had one rear cat go out already. For some reason the innards come loose and start rattling something fierce. The local muffler shop put an aftermarket stainless high flow performance cat on for $180 installed. I have a G-Tech that I'm gonna use to get some performance numbers once I get new tires on it.
01-07-2019, 04:46 PM
#4
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2005 R 230 SL350 (M112 3.7). Sold the 1966 W113 230SL recently
>>On a final note, the manual disabling and reactivation of the SBC to do a brake job works. No STAR
<<Can you please explain about the manual method?
01-08-2019, 12:21 AM
#6
MBworld Guru
The SBC system does need an re-calibration performed after replacing the pad and/or rotors. This is so that the system can pre-apply the brakes and also use the auto-dry function. I do not know if than manual procedure will perform the re-calibration bur I do know that using SDS to deactivate and re-activate SBC will do this. Since the procedure is an MBZ document listed as an alternative to the SDS actuations. I would guess that it does the re-calibration. Without SDS, i would definitely use this instead of just unplugging SBC when servicing the brakes
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danaw007 (01-08-2019)
