TJ55K

Hello everyone, I'm a proud owner of an '04 SL55 and although I love the raw power of this car, I would love to see how far it can be stretched with the Evosport upgrades. I'm in the Los Angeles area and was wondering if anyone here have any experience with the various performance boosts out there. It doesn't have to be Evosport but that one looks like it gets referenced a lot, and they have facilities close to me.

Doing some research I've figured out that I need a new pulley, air filters/cooling, light weight rotors...

Do you also recommend a new transmission to handle more power/torque? Anything else I should consider? The car is already having trouble getting all the stock power to the tires, what can be done to improve that?

Thanks so much for any replies!

CHP_H8_ME

I too have similar questions regarding them. Their power pulleys include an under drive pulley for the A/C, water pump, and power steering. Eurocharged does not. Evosport, $2,500 (Pulley+ECU tune) Eurocharged $1,700. I'm guessing the under drive accessory pulleys are a MUST. Looking for first hand experience with either...

Havoc

A new transmission is not recommended, although you can get a TCU tune and if you want to take it a bit further you can get Maybach upgraded shafts, enforced clutch packs and upgrade the torque converter. However, there's plenty of engine mods to do well before any of this is needed.

An LSD by Quaife or Wavetrac will help to improve traction by making both tires turn equally without having one tire spinning more than the other.

TJ55K

Hi Havoc, thank you for that interesting bit of information. Is the limited slip diff going to make the car less "stable" under acceleration? Are the TCU tune-ups easy to do?

I would love to hear from people what a 50-80hp increase in the SL55 feels like!! A friend of mine drives an SLS and that one has 560hp(?) but feels MUCH faster than my SL55. An AMAZING car, by out of my price range I'm hoping the mods will kick it up a significant amount.

I am also convinced something can be done to bring out that beastly growl from the stock exhausts. Exhaust suggestions anyone? In the car with the top UP the sound is very sedated due to the good sound insulation in the car, and even with the top down it still leaves some things to be desired. Now, if you're BEHIND an SL55 in a car with the windows rolled down the sound is simply magnificent, it's crisp, nasty, growly and extremely angry. I LOVE it. Just wish I could hear some more of that while being in the actual car...

Finally, I've always wanted red calipers. Can you paint the stock AMGs or is that gonna look bad? Any other options?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm just excited about the upcoming mods!!

Havoc

No worries TJ55K and welcome aboard!

The limited slip diff will make the car more stable in the turns and with the right tires will help decrease loss of traction under straight acceleration.

Only a handful of tuners currently beef up the tranny and even less tune TCU's.

I would suggest first to delete the resonators if you want to bring out that beastly growl from the stock exhaust.

TJ55K

I thought I'd give a little update to my project.

I met with Jose @ Evosport in Huntington Beach (Orange County) and we went over the options that I had to modify my SL55.

They're doing everything to my car and I'm loving it! Jose is AWESOME, his passion for what he does shines through in his work, and everyone at Evosport have been very friendly and professional. I could not be happier. The only thing missing on my car now is the arguably most important thing, the crank pulley, but that'll be installed next week and then my car will have the whole evo 3 package.

My only concern now is what I'm gonna do when I run out of options to increase the power.. I guess I'll have to set aside some cash for a 458 and tune the **** out of it

Anyway, just wanted to give a heads up. If you're thinking about going with the guys at Evosport I am absolutely certain you will be happy. Thanks for all the suggestions from users of this board.

cal1

I have only good things to say about the folks at EvoSport. I dealt with Simon. Bought a set of short headers a few years back. As far as exhaust note, a number of people remove the resonators. i had my secondaries removed. I am not sure if you can do this in Cal. and still pass emissions though.

Here is what my car sounds like with headers and secondary delete. You can really hear the SC scream from the big pulley. The sound is actually much louder than my little Flip picked up. The sound difference is hardly noticeable under low throttle, but very noticeable at WOT.