Marcus Frost

So in the never ending saga with these AMGs, I have again discovered something that makes me want to rip my hair out. I won't get into what lead me to take apart my airboxes (irrelevant), but regardless of what got me there what I found just pisses me off. I want to thank DSMED and nick 55 for their always generous input - these are stand up guys always willing to take a call from me. Thanks guys. They are the reason I found this stupid waste of my time.

Benz has been using these injection molded intake tubes since at least the old W210 days on their v-style engines. Well what I didn't know is on the 65 cars (and possibly 600 cars?) they decided to put these stupid "intake screens". Now I am not going to say I am a better engineer than the guys they have at AMG, of course not, but honestly look at this stupid **** and you tell me this was thoroughly thought out. These screens do not even CLIP into place... they are just more or less "snug" in the pipe... and guess what, they do come loose... and they go down your intake tract and CLOG you f'ing intake blocking at LEAST 50% of the pathway. WHY? Who knows! I took these two pieces of JUNK and threw them in the garbage!

If you have these things, do your self a favor... take 60 seconds... and toss them in the TRASH. There may be on some ludicrous reason for them... such as taking the SL off roading through the rocky mountains... driving through the world's largest locust swarm... who knows. What I do know is my E55 doesn't have these screens, along with numerous other MBs with similar if not identical setups... so my 65 doesn't need them and it's NOT worth them coming loose and clogging up my intake track.

There are so many things about this that **** me off. I mean this isn't something that'll throw a code... most techs would never even figure this out (except the good guys mentioned earlier in my post)... and most owners would never know either... yet it's something so simple and STUPID that really can have an impact on your car's performance. What's worse is that it's on a $150k, $200k car! I mean, really, WTF!!! It's like a freaking built-in restrictor plate! THANKS AMG!

Pictures to follow...

-m

Marcus Frost

Here's my driver's side intake tube... screen in place...

Marcus Frost

Passenger side tube... WHERE DID MY SCREEN GO???

Marcus Frost

OH, THAT'S A GOOD PLACE FOR IT... (I removed the entire airbox to show you the angle... the circular part is the part of the airbox that connects to the intake tube and the rectangular part is the end that opens into the actual airbox. You can't really see how much of the tubing it's blocking but it is literally pretty fit at this point and is seriously blocking 50% of the open area... I had to force it out with a wrench)

LZH

Marcus - Nice find, but I hate to say it....that sort of mesh pattern is not going to restrict airflow in the least, especially with FI.

Thericker

I gutted my factory Airboxes w/Dremel straight thru dsign w/no more 90 deg angles, I found those little screens Marcus, luckily in their correct spots, but promptly chucked them as I'm running Foam Cone airfilters on outside fitted snugly up against oem air holes no need for any internal screens to protect against larger debris, after using my new set-uo for a month I opened up boxes to check for light dust/sand? Absolutely sparkling clean not a spec of anything (also remove the plastic fin covering nearly entire oem intake holes on outside of engine bay by Star grill, I'm certain they're trying to prevent water from entering intake path, it's impossible unless you drove into a pool of standing water that reaches your OEM air intake holes LOL)

Both 600/65 share the exact same insipid airbox design, I counted (3) hard 90 deg bends in oem set-up, dremeled free now, but replacing w/True CAI tamara...Half Scorpion style

TMC M5

Jay showed me those screens about 2 weeks after I got my car and popped them out.

Tom

OUTCAST

Nice I am going to remove mine as well. Marcus some of you comments had me cracking up (lol) nice find thanks!

Marcus Frost

If they stay in place, you are right luke... they aren't going to restrict much... the problem is they easily come loose and then fly down your intake tract and wedge themselves at a perpendicular angle to airflow and then for sure they will become a restriction. As I noted in my post the pictures don't do a good job showing how it was clogging the intake track but needless to say it's something I think we can do without.

-m

CA_E55

The problem with you Marcus is that you use too much full throttle whole tilt accelaration until the turbos suck those things right down through your engine....

Good find - I never thought they would come loose, mine are kinda glued or molded into the tube, but I will remove them now anyway.

BTW - did anybody else remove the charcoal filters in the airbox? One of mine was loose and definitly restricting airflow big time.

CWW

So along these lines, what about de-screening an MAF sensor? Does that do anything?

nick 55

CWW, I wouldn't do anything with the MAF. Those screens actually do help straighten out air coming into the sensor for proper measurements.

Nick

komp55

In addition, if the MAF is a fine wire design (instead of hot film), the screen helps protect the MAF from destruction in the event a large piece of debris somehow manages to make it into the airstream (like a K&N filter coming apart ).

LZH

Well that would be a bummer !! Funny how they spend so much time and effort developing these expensive motors only to put some mikey mouse crap like that in there. I'm betting those pieces are only for US cars ?

Marcus Frost

Interesting Update:

Talking to my technician today, DSMED, Mercedes found a way to make this relatively small issue like the one in question here really have more an effect on things than I had thought.

Unlike traditional airboxes, the V12s actually have pressure sensors on both of them. These sensors are in place to make sure that the amount of vacuum generated from each airbox is equal. Why does MB want vacuum to be equal? Well, both turbos feed a single intake manifold, and since this manifold is where our MAP sensor is located, it's looking for a target amount of boost. If there is a situation where there is an obstruction in one of the intake paths (like, a loose screen filter) theoretically one turbo would create a bit more pressure in order to compensate and meet the target boost at the single intake manifold. Nein! says Mercedes. In my case, since my passenger side intake was generating significantly less vacuum, the airboxes noticed the difference and it restricted boost from my driver's side turbo to match that what my passenger side turbo w/ constricted airflow was making. This is done in order to prevent one turbo from spinning too much and "I guess" causing damage to it from overboosting.

So you take what is a relatively trivial problem - a slightly obstructed intake tube - add a complex airbox pressure measurement system, and you've now turned this trivial problem into something that could have a noteworthy effect on how much power the car is making!

Learn something new everyday. I've never seen an ECU monitor airbox pressure before.

-m

Reckless

Thanks for posting this! I'm having it removed from my 600 today (its in the shop getting upgraded brakes and turbo gauge installed).

My buddy is checking to see if the turbos give more than 14 psi boost right now.

patrick_y

Very good discovery Marcus Frost; thanks for sharing this valuable piece of information with the forum!

(I don't own a 600 series, but it's still valuable information.)

patrick_y

Very good discovery Marcus Frost; thanks for sharing this valuable piece of information with the forum!

(I don't own a 600 series, but it's still valuable information.)

Busa196

I replaced my OEM filters about 4 months ago and when I did I came across those chincy screens.....one was banged up from someone trying to "jam" it into place and the other was slightly "turned" restricting airflow into the passenger side airbox.....I immediately removed both and have been without them ever since.

Interesting enough, I told my brother who owns an S600 about my find.....he came over that night and we had a look at his screens......one was demolished and the other was 2" deep into his intake tract and it was turned 90 degrees- we removed them as well

TMC M5

+1 One of mine was nicely dented as well....those things are a major B!tch to get back in and keep in place if you try to put them back in after taking the snorkel/sleeve off. You could unbolt the airbox to get some more room to maneuver...but that is alot of work for nothing.

BTW don't throw the screens away...they could make great "bug eyes" for a Halloween costume...

Tom

Busa196

+1 for sure

Thericker

Something interseting I found on mine, though they were in correct positions, both were heavily dented obviously from lilttle rocks they kept from getting to intake filters. I have custom filters on outside now. There's a good side to them as well when properly installed, mine have grooves which when turned lock into postion on aft air inlet.

Akademiks

Charcoal filters in the airbox? What do you mean? I don't think the V12s have charcoal air filters... mine doesn't anyways.

Where are yours located, maybe my car just didn't come with them?

contigo

I have Renntech intake do I have to check for them too?

E55AMGFan

Great find and informative read! I wonder how much power it was robbing from the car?