AndrewEclipse

Ok, well I just got off the phone with Kleeman Headquarters in Colorado Springs. I asked him about upgrading my 2003 CL55 that will be arriving in a few short months and if they were planning any upgrades for the car. Well, they are. Replacing the whole supercharger unit and he says they have a prototype on a SL55 in Denmark right now that has 610h.p.!!! He told me Mercedes' supercharger is very inefficient and the engine is very capable of more power without any risk of harming it.


How much is still being determined. Its going to be arriving in January though.

rroberts

I thought Kleman offered a simple pully replacement to get more bost on the SLK. I might be willing to do that on a 55-Kompressor engine in an SL or E-type but a complete Kompressor replacement sounds too expenisve and problematical.

I am considering an E55 to replace my current CLK55. A pully replacement and chip change is acceptable, even at Kleman's prices (I am an engiineer and I appreciate developement costs) but I will balk at any major parts change out. Besides, a "cheap" pully-chip bost to, say, 540 HP will put MBZ's feet to the fire.

blueSL

Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? (that the SL55 supercharger is inefficient). They're hardly likely to say it's a great implementation.

I just do not believe that increasing the power and torque will not have some impact on engine life and durability. Mercedes have probably done hundreds of k miles road testing and thousands of hours bench testing and I wonder how much testing Kleeman have done. And what about upgrading the chassis and transmission as well? No point in having the extra power if the first thing it does is strip the teeth off the gears and cook the torque converter.

Unless you have money to burn, you're going to be interested in resale value. 3 years and 40k miles down the road, who is going to touch a car with this history?

Sorry to rain on their parade but what's the point?

AndrewEclipse

BlueSL, I agree with you. I guess we will just have to wait and see. However, I definitely feel the performance data will be dramatically changed. Im sure Kleeman is taking into account all the factors you listed and I was told the testing is very rigorous and thorough on any major upgrade that they do.


If in fact, the performance #'s are say for example 0-60 in 3.6 seconds as opposed to the tested 4.3-4.6 seconds (motertrend).
That, in my opinion is a DRAMATIC improvement, which will alter the 0-100mph and will change the quarter mile time to be somewhere in the range of being faster than a porsche twin turbo.

If reliability is not sacrificed, well then, sign me up because now this car is in a whole different league. (sub 12 second quarter mile times)

bobafett

I can not believe that this car is capable of a 0-60 time of 3.6s. Not on a great day with perfect roads and a tire coefficient greater than 1. No way, no how.

In fact, even if they got it resoundly close (and I mean accurately, no BS test numbers) to 4 flat, I would be genuinely impressed.

--Dan

blueSL

Well count me out, I'm having enough trouble getting insurance coverage for the standard car without having to say to the broker, oh by the way, the engine's been modified and, no, you've never seen one before.

Shine

Same here, in my much lighter CLK50K, I can't launch well
due to the seriouly spinned 1th~2nd gear.
After cutting weight my CLK50K, (advanced light brake system)the weight/power ratio is quite matches these two.

To be under 4" you need 4WD & lighter body.
Yet, once you're holding the road, said 50+ mph, you're the king king, king ................. till when you wanna stop it.

dNA3D

True I suppose the theories are. You can have so much HP, but you can only do so much to get from 0-60 before excessive wheelspin kicks in a slows you down. Weight will be another factor, the SL55 weighs just as much as a fully loaded S500 Long Wheelbase.

AndrewEclipse

Yeah, I know its nearly impossible to drop this thing to a 3.6 second 0-60. But, I still think, anything is possible. Sure it may not be a 3.6 daily driver, but if I put some nice slicks on the rear tires for a day at the dragstrip, I can easily shave a few tenths of a second to compensate for wheelspin. When you are talking this much power and this much money invested in the car AFTER the purchase, Im sure the owner wants true performance data at the strip. If this is a daily cruiser, with the sole purpose of flooring it occasionally on the street, then this is definitely not the direction to go in.

As for me, Id serioiusly consider this upgrade. Mainly because Im young and I can afford to make ill-advised decisions at this stage in my life. Plus, I think it would be nice to have a crazy fast daily driver and a car that will surprise the hell out of people at one big drag racing event per year. Sometimes you have to go against the laws practicality to keep things interesting.

absent

CL600 should be easier(cheaper) to modify,you just play with boost only.But even in stock form it will be quicker than Cl55 or even SL55:CL600 has 287 lbs torque to 1 tonne vs CL55's 259lbs
and SL55's 264 lbs.

dNA3D

People, don't get too carried away with torque... you need to keep HP figures in mind too. Otherwise you might as well stick a truck engine inside that Benz of yours.

Caliz_Finest

I was lookin at renntech specs for their SL500 superchargers, 420hp will get you 0-60 in 4.8, 530hp gets 4.3 (i got the motortrend that has the SL55 specs and says it does 4.39, maybe renntech is being conservative with their specs?), 575hp high boost sc does 0-60 in 4.0

i think 610 hp can you get you 0-60 in 3.x seconds

http://www.renntechmercedes.com/news...r%20times1.pdf

pauld

I've just bought a car that will beat 99.99% of the cars on the road 0-60....but now I need to beat 99.999%....sounds like a case of RSD (work it out!) to me.

If you really want a car to go faster try and track down the Metro Rally car....0-60 in about 3.0 stock...costs about $20k.

And let's face it guys no matter what you do someone will always have a faster/newer car, bigger ti**ed/more g/friends, more money in the bank...etc etc..

The REAL beauty of the R230 is that they've got so much quality and refinement in a stock package. It's your car do what you want...but ask yourself why you feel the need to do it.

Paul

absent

well said.

Caliz_Finest

if i wanted a car that could beat everything i would get a corvette and fix it up so that it does a 1/4 mile in 10 sec

AndrewEclipse

You might want to replace everything, with ALMOST everything.

dNA3D

Lingenfelter's Top of the Line Corvette does 0-60 in 1.97 seconds and outruns a F-14 on the 1/4 mile.

http://www.motortrend.com/june02/vette/vette_f.html