SL-Class (R231) 2013 on: Discussion on the SL550

SL/R231: Pause in acceleration

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Old Sep 5, 2020 | 10:44 AM
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Pause in acceleration

I recently installed an OE Tune and am so impressed with the increased performance. Best money I ever spent.
This is my problem and I inquiring if any of you with an SL 550 have experienced this. As you will see in the video, when you accelerate at full throttle, the vehicle pauses, as in "shuts down".

Then after 1 to 3 seconds, the car continues. Now understand this, because this will be your first question; YES the traction control is OFF while this is happening.

I was told two things by others; 1) Turbo Lag and 2) A possible "Stability Control" issue.
After reviewing the video and reading this, I welcome any of you to share with me any remedies answers or suggestions.

Thank you MB Family.
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Old Sep 5, 2020 | 10:49 AM
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Originally Posted by josephdonofrio
I recently installed an OE Tune and am so impressed with the increased performance. Best money I ever spent.
This is my problem and I inquiring if any of you with an SL 550 have experienced this. As you will see in the video, when you accelerate at full throttle, the vehicle pauses, as in "shuts down".

Then after 1 to 3 seconds, the car continues. Now understand this, because this will be your first question; YES the traction control is OFF while this is happening.

I was told two things by others; 1) Turbo Lag and 2) A possible "Stability Control" issue.
After reviewing the video and reading this, I welcome any of you to share with me any remedies answers or suggestions.

Thank you MB Family.
Appears to me the first thing to go would be contact OE Tuning.
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Old Sep 5, 2020 | 11:11 AM
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Thank you, I did, they stated the tune has nothing to do with the hesitation and as well, the hesitation was present prior to the tune.
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Old Sep 5, 2020 | 01:03 PM
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Originally Posted by josephdonofrio
the hesitation was present prior to the tune.
Had the same issue (not SL specific, but rather most MB specific) in pre-facelift car (maybe it was fixed with facelift, as it was for W212 facelift). SprintBooster is the cure/fix I use(d) on all MBs displaying hesitation (pre-facelift W218 CLS and W166 MLs were the worst).
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Old Sep 5, 2020 | 04:36 PM
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Ok, so I just did the homework on the Sprint Booster. This may eliminate my OE Tune. It definitely alters the OBD/ECU so I am not sure this is the fix. Yes, the company does say the right things, however, I am concerned about it eliminating the OE Tune as I stated.

I will reach out to both companies to find a resolution.

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

Joe
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Old Sep 5, 2020 | 05:58 PM
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Not sure I understand what you're saying. SB is physically and permanently attached inline between the accelerator pedal and its harness. It is designed to greatly reduce (if not totally eliminate) throttle delay. It should not interfere with anything else.
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Old Sep 6, 2020 | 01:18 AM
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Originally Posted by josephdonofrio
I recently installed an OE Tune and am so impressed with the increased performance. Best money I ever spent.
This is my problem and I inquiring if any of you with an SL 550 have experienced this. As you will see in the video, when you accelerate at full throttle, the vehicle pauses, as in "shuts down".

Then after 1 to 3 seconds, the car continues. Now understand this, because this will be your first question; YES the traction control is OFF while this is happening.

I was told two things by others; 1) Turbo Lag and 2) A possible "Stability Control" issue.
After reviewing the video and reading this, I welcome any of you to share with me any remedies answers or suggestions.

Thank you MB Family.
there's no video
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Old Sep 6, 2020 | 08:43 AM
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Thank you for your response Three MB and Billy. Here is the video as well. Three MB's; You stated that the SprintBooster is installed between the accelerator pedal and its harness. What I reviewed on their site was; it is installed via the OBD Port, not an installation as you suggest, however, I will return to the SprintBooster site again.

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Old Sep 6, 2020 | 08:57 AM
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There's some kind of click sound audible on the video. Is it backfiring or misfiring?
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Old Sep 6, 2020 | 12:35 PM
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Originally Posted by josephdonofrio
Thank you for your response Three MB and Billy. Here is the video as well. Three MB's; You stated that the SprintBooster is installed between the accelerator pedal and its harness. What I reviewed on their site was; it is installed via the OBD Port, not an installation as you suggest, however, I will return to the SprintBooster site again.
Negative. Do not know where you're getting that info from. Sprint Booster (as well as all other such devices, like pedal box, etc.) is installed inline as I've described. (Just remove the "permanent" as of course one can as easily uninstall).






EDIT: Just watched the above video. Not clear what the issue is, nor if Sprint Booster will address it. From the video it sounds like you've got an initial response, then delay (or backed off the throttle), then got power back. The issue that SB fixes is delay in the original response (which you said you had even before the tune), which is impossible to see/hear in the video since only the driver knows when pedal was pressed and car responded.

Last edited by threeMBs; Sep 6, 2020 at 01:01 PM. Reason: Video.
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Old Sep 9, 2020 | 08:47 AM
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Thank you for your feedback(s) and photos. On hard acceleration, the vehicle does go, then suddenly pauses, then picks up again as you should be able to see and hear in the video. I did reach out to OE Tuning who we received the tune from. They concurred is it not the "tune" and also stated that SprintBoost should/might resolve the problem. I was under the understanding that SprintBoost was installed via OBD2. Not the case as you confirmed.
I sent SprintBoost an email, no response yet.
I appreciate all the individuals who helped me here.


Thank you,

Joseph
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Old Sep 9, 2020 | 08:50 AM
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3 MB's: I appreciate your answer and photos. The driver did not deaccelerate on the gas pedal so the pause you see and hear is pedal to the floor at all times.
Can you please tell me what the small "Key Fob" is and its function?

Thank you,

Joe
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Old Sep 9, 2020 | 09:41 AM
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Originally Posted by josephdonofrio
Thank you for your feedback(s) and photos. On hard acceleration, the vehicle does go, then suddenly pauses, then picks up again as you should be able to see and hear in the video. I did reach out to OE Tuning who we received the tune from.
Did you have this happening before the OE tune?

Originally Posted by josephdonofrio
They concurred is it not the "tune" and also stated that SprintBoost should/might resolve the problem. I was under the understanding that SprintBoost was installed via OBD2. Not the case as you confirmed.
Sprint Booster "fixes" delay in the initial response. Does not seem this is the issue, so do not see how SB will help.

"Key Fob" is a SB controller to switch between stock(no light), sport(green light) and race(red light).

If it were me, I would revert back to stock to see if the exact situation as with current tune can be replicated.
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Old Sep 9, 2020 | 09:56 AM
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ThreeMB; Thank you. I did review several videos on You Tube. I do agree with your view that Sprint Boost may not help that secondary lag after the initial start. I did send in that video to Sprint Boost. Waiting for their reply. Will keep you updated.

Thanks again!
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Old Sep 10, 2020 | 12:50 PM
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Is the hesitation or pause while accelerating or when the car is shifting and dropping from peak HP to lower RPM's

I have this situation when hard accelerating that the car will upshift from 1 to 3rd and skip thru 2nd which causes the RPM's to drop way down.

Also if clicking off the shifts using the paddles if the tranny and I click at the same time it will jump pass a gear and cause this.

I took the car in 3x for this issue. They said nothing wrong. They gave me a BS story that the Transmission does that to protect itself. They even told me that pushing the car to shift past 3500 RPM's was damaging to the car. I put a service manager in the passenger seat and showed him what was happening. He then drove the car immediately after and saw it was happening as well. They did a Transmission firmware update and that seemed to get rid of the problem most of the time.

However, last week while doing some really serious windy mountain roads in the S+ modes I found that after coming off a fast straight and slowing down for a tight turn when I went off the brakes to the gas the transmission would be sitting in 4 or 5 when the car had slowed down to 15 and the car would not downshift unless 100% throttle applied. This was with the tranny in both D and M modes. I also found it doing this when the car was loafing on the freeway in the 80's in D8 or D9 that the car would not downshift to accelerate until you put down so much accelerator that it dumped itself from D8 or D9 to D4 and then it shot off like a rocket - but also knocked the hell out of you.

Dave B
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Old Sep 10, 2020 | 01:30 PM
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OP's car is pre-facelift with 7SPD. 7SPD behaves very differently from 9SPD.
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Old Sep 11, 2020 | 09:17 AM
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Update: I ordered the Sprint Booster after speaking with the company. I will keep all of you updated on the progress within a week. Sent him the video link as well, he did appear puzzled and stated their 30 day return policy.
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Old Sep 12, 2020 | 10:45 AM
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To me, the video isn’t that useful. Ideally there should be a test from a stand still (not coming off a parking lot onto a street).
Straight line from 0-60 or so.
Reset the ECU to stock and just go in Manual mode on the tranny to eliminate shifting as a cause.
This should be showing you what the engine does.
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Old Sep 12, 2020 | 11:15 AM
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Wolfman; The vehicle does the same from a standstill. I did purchase the Sprint Booster, it arrived yesterday. I plan on installing it today, however, I am not convinced this will satisfy my issue.
Sprint Booster will refund my money if this is unsuccessful.
I did in manual mode as well, removed the traction control, same issue. I will update you when I install the Sprint Booster.

Thank you,

Joe
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Old Sep 12, 2020 | 12:02 PM
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Originally Posted by josephdonofrio
Wolfman; The vehicle does the same from a standstill. I did purchase the Sprint Booster, it arrived yesterday. I plan on installing it today, however, I am not convinced this will satisfy my issue.
Sprint Booster will refund my money if this is unsuccessful.
I did in manual mode as well, removed the traction control, same issue. I will update you when I install the Sprint Booster.

Thank you,

Joe
We have the Pedalbox so I am familiar with what these devices do. Love them btw. It won't make the car faster but does make it more responsive. You will love the sprint booster wether it fixes the issue or not.
I would also strongly recommend doing to the old-school ECU/TCU reset. This resets the learned behavior on adaptive transmissions (like the MB G-Tronics). The transmission gets lazy (so does the car as well) when driving in normal traffic which is usually slow and dense. The reset will restore factory defaults.
This has been around for decades... A quick search will help but this one may do the job: https://mbworld.org/how-tos/a/merced...set-ecu-387028

I typically remove all variables when trouble shooting so definitely do all testing without a tune or sprint booster. The issue could still be related to the engine (injectors, etc,) and some further diagnostics maybe needed. Have you checked for any codes?
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Old Sep 12, 2020 | 02:19 PM
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Thank you Wolf. Installed, going to test now.
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Old Sep 13, 2020 | 09:14 AM
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UPDATE: Sprint Booster installed, did not solve my hesitation issue. Bottom line; keeping the Sprint Booster installed (crazy response, works great!), bringing it to the dealer after taking Wolfman's advice about resetting the ECU if that does not help.

Thanks all!
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Old Sep 14, 2020 | 08:47 AM
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UPDATE: After taking the advice and following the link from Wolfman, "reprograming" the ECU for a more aggressive driver did not work. So in short, the Sprint Booster did not eliminate the pause, resetting the ECU did not either. With the OE Tune, The Sprint Booster, the car is a beast. I'm guessing this SL 550 is just as fast as my previous SL 55 and SL 63 that I owned a few years back. So I am pleased with the performance of both, the dead lag is killing me.
The car blasts to 50 in 3 seconds, shuts down HARD throwing your front teeth into the steering wheel, you remove your teeth that are now part of the steering wheel and drive away.

Someone has to have the answer to this lag. Those of you that have not viewed the video, here it is again. Hard accel, (Again, traction control is OFF) stall, jump on it, goes again, then pauses once again, then finally after the second or third time, the car rockets as it should. Anyone here have this issue and found the cure?

(Link of Pause)

Thank you,

Joe
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Old Sep 14, 2020 | 10:08 AM
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As stated before, SB would not resolve your car's behavior because it "fixes" the initial lag in response, which is not the problem here. I've never heard of this behavior in SL550 or in any other 4.6L TT V8 278 engine. The only differential here is the OE tune. I would uninstall it, then re-test.
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Old Sep 14, 2020 | 11:19 AM
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Thank you Three MB's. However, the hesitation did occur prior to the OE Tune
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