So what is the deal...did any tuners ever decide to make the 50hp intercooler (VRP, Kleeman?)to replace the one under our blowers? By the time it comes out the 55amg will be a decade old and the mod will cost more than the car. This would be the mod to push some current 55's into the 10s.

 

My personal opinion, it just ain't gonna happen.

Welllll, for 5-6K like we were hoping anyways.

Weird, it's the mod that I think is nearly most important looking back over the years.

 

Yes, I am working on one.

I will try to make it as affordable as possible.

 

1-2k would be nice

 

You can barely buy a regular radiator for that kind of money. You have to remember, the charge air cooler circuit on the 55s is not an air to air system like typical Japanese setups. They are a very complex system that has to work, and fit in the room granted to us by Mercedes(and there isn't much to spare).

Nick

 

Does anyone have an engine diagram showing the flow of air and coolant.

 

 

SLR style intercoolers are very expensive to build, thus the end-user price will always be high. KLEEMANN can do it, but it'll cost $8K installed and you have to send your car to Colorado, as each set is hand-built. It's a very time consumptive process. We've done one for a local K4 SL55 customer- we saw +60-70 HP consistently. These cars pull fiercely hard in the top RPM range with these intercoolers- that's the largest difference I personally noticed. The gains in the lower RPM range aren't quite as large as those on the top, not that 55K cars need anymore TQ in the low RPM anyway....

 

There shouldn't be much difference from 55 engine to 55 engine no? So if there is a template available, could the intercoolers be made on a one-off basis?? Take into account those who could do the install in thier own garage, what would that price window come out to be??

 

Cory the +60-70 HP. (is that at your altitude and is that RWHP) and is over and above the K4 mods? and would that $8K include a larger heat exchanger?

 

The engine itself is no different from one 55K to the next, but things like engine bay clearances, and hood clearances are. This install would definitely not be a DIY in your garage sort of project. If this were a true bolt-on production quality, all inclusive "kit", it would be right around $11K and this is the reason KLEEMANN decided not to produce a kit like this- it's just too expensive, especially seeing as how you can pick up a used 2003 E55 for less than $30K these days. It's difficult selling a product that costs 1/3 the value of the car for 60-70 HP when you can spend 4500 bucks and get 80 HP with headers, pulley and an ECU tune.

The most important aspect of the entire job is ECU tuning, and this is the main reason we want the car to come here- so we can put the car on the dyno, and map the ECU specific to the car. There are far too many variables involved in cross-country ECU tuning (as in you use a local dyno shop and email dyno plots back and forth), not to mention the amount of dyno time required to do it properly. It's not as easy as doing one dyno run, making an adjustment to the ECU file (or 2 or 3 or 4,etc.) and have it be perfect.

There are somethings that can be done on the bench with templates, but there are other things which require the car to be in the shop for fabrication. We've only done an SL55, so things like intercooler pump (we use 2 pumps on our system) brackets, radiator brackets, etc., are an unknown quantity and will need to be custom made specific to the chassis. This is much, much more than just some bolt-on top mount intercooler core.

I Hope that provides some clarity as to how involved it really is, especially for a company like KLEEMANN who will not put their name on a product which does not meet very specific product quality, performance and aesthetic requirements. It's one thing to slap together an intercooler, put it on an engine and make it work- it's another thing entirely to properly engineer a system, and make it look and perform like it was there from the factory. An example: if you wanted to retrofit intercoolers from an SLR onto your E55, you'd spend in excess of $30,000 doing so in parts alone.

 

+60-70 crank HP at our altitude. We loose approx. 2 PSI in boost pressure at altitude, however, the delta between before and after will remain the same regardless of where in the country you are. Yes, this also includes an additional heat exchanger specifically for the intercoolers, as well as a twin-pump setup-one for each cylinder bank.

 

Pictures?

 

For a ECU upgrade on a SL55 who would you guys go with Kleemann, Renntech or VRP and why ?

 

I would suggest looking into local shops that deal with any of the mentioned products. From searching and reading it seems all are very reputable companies that stand behind their product...which is key! Me personally, I choose VRP because Vadim is only a few hundred miles away and came highly recommended. Good luck with your search!

 

It's yer friend...It's been talked about many times before...

 

07ank You bassn 07

 

60-70 hp is a lot. I assume about 50 whp? Did that SL55 ever make an ET pass? That should add 4 mph on the trap. I bet there would be half a dozen+ 55's that would pay $8k to get their stage 4 & 5 cars from the 11s into the 10s.

 

Thank you very much for this info, only kleeman intercoolers i recall hearing about was the one on the cls55 4matic in russa!

would be cool if you guys could show us how it looks, gains etc. i mean this is the iceing mod for all 55k cars! make us want it

 

Has anyone attempted to port/polish the stock intercooler??

I'm not sure if it's even possible, but just brainstorming here.

 

No, the castings are typical German quality. Good.

Short of chnaging the design, there are no gains.

 

Presumably you are talking about prices charged by MB? There is no way an intercooler is worth $15,000.00 each, even if they are gold plated for the oil Shiekhs. A friend of mine told me MB charged CD$600.00 for his SLR key fob.

 

I know that the German makers in general make their cars difficult to modify and go out of their ways to doing so.

The Japanese and to a lesser extend, the American makers, go in the opposite direction. It is very easy to do headers, pulleys, ECUs, and exhausts and get an extra 30 horses and more.

If not for the Japanese invasion in the 1990s with the high power Lexus, Infinite and Acura sedans MB would still be selling us stodgy sub-200 bhp cars and dictating to us what cars we should be driving. AMG would still be an independant tuner.

German machining and designs are still superior to the Japanese. They can catch up if AMG does not give north Americans what they want - lots and lots of horsepower.

 

I have seen a huge intercooler sitting on top of a large generation Subaru WRX STi. The maker claimed big numbers, exactly how many I do not remember. What about a carbon fiber hood with a large air scoop?

The E55 supercharged is in theory a wonderful car to tune with its supercharger.

 

Introducing FEDOR DEZYN's 55K top mount SLR type coolers!

Vadim made these for me a few months ago. He also made the 190mm pulley to help bring the boost back up since these coolers will drop boost. We will start testing them on my 5.7L in the coming weeks.

These bad boys have double cooling surface area and flows double amount of air compared to our stock 55K intercooler.

This picture is the completed but unfinished version.