need4spd

I was toying with an idea to put turbos on my E55. Did a quick search and came up empty, was wondering if anyone even attempted such a thing. Specially interested in which intake would fit or can be modified to fit. I have a friend that is brilliant fabricator so that part would be "easy" here is some of his work

http://cmracingonline.com/

Any input would be great!

cij911

Do it

efiftyfizzle

Are you talking rear mount turbos?

GregMB

It will never happen.

As you will find, the plumbing for turbos is the easy part. There doesn't seem to be a single person on planet Earth with the ability (or desire) to figure out the software side of this swap.

End of story.



-G

need4spd

Nope, put them in the engine bay
Also i don't think tunning will be such a big deal since computer Is already for boosted engine.

cij911

I agree it should be relatively standard for those that have done conversions before....You could also just go with a standalone - Bosch, Haltech, etc.

GregMB

Quoted for future reference.


Plenty of shops have already played with this idea, and there isn't a single example of a completed car posted ANYWHERE on the web. That should tell you something.....

If you've got unlimited funds and patience, go for it. As a betting man, my money would be against you. There's a lot more to a turbo M113K than making beautiful TIG welds in stainless tubing.


-G

GT-ER

Not necesarily. Eurocharged already did a Turbo SRT-6. The tuning aspects of our engine and the SRT6's engine are nearly identical. All they would need to do is modify what they already did on the SRT-6 for the boost pattern that you'd see on the E55.

cij911

Greg - I know you have been an MB fan for years, but who has really "tried" this before? I know people have asked, but I have never seen an educated post why it could not be done. As GT-ER points out EC did it on the baby benz. I think the only reason it has not been done is beforehand the cars were too valuable and fast enough for owners 1 & 2....Now that we see the cars under $20K with owners 4 +, my money says you will see superchargers start failing and folks opting for turbos and standalones as the fix. Of course, fueling changes and built motors will be required....

need4spd

Just PM my tuner, maybe he'll have the last say in this

loungn14

you build it we can tune it. Its not as simple as you think and it took us quite a bit of time to do the other turbo conversions we have done. (xfire/C350 etc) But now that we have the homework already done, it shouldn't be an issue.

cij911

It is totally doable, just a matter of $$$ and time....You will want to build your motor too if you go this route. Have fun and keep us posted.

GregMB

cij,

I'd have to go back and find the specific threads, but I've seen stuff here from "tuners" bragging (as they often do) about an upcoming "game changer" product for the E55.... the story usually goes something like "we've got the turbos and intercoolers all plumbed in, and now all we need to do is work on the tuning..." Then the thread ends. You never hear from them again and the thread disappears into the depths of the MBWorld archives until someone dredges it back up asking "What ever happened to this?"

Is it POSSIBLE to do a turbo swap?.... yeah, maybe. But the economics of it don't make sense. You'd be lone-wolfing the development of the whole thing and spending ungodly amounts of time trying to integrate a standalone controller into the car without all sorts of errors. In the end, what have you got? A $10K car, with a $30K engine project....

Is there anyone still driving an E55 that has that kind of money to throw around? From what I can see, the crowd here is all about finding the cheapest HP possible.....there's no interest in big-dollar development projects anymore. I'm amazed Weistec even bothered to develop and release the E55 blower kit. A few years ago that thing would have been an epic product.....but I think they missed the window of opportunity with E55 owners and it's just too expensive for the majority of folks still left on this forum.

If someone builds a turbo E55 and gets it running, I'll gladly post a public apology and eat my words. Honestly, I just don't see it ever happening.



-G

need4spd

Now that we have that issue solved , which NA intake would fit?
I was thinking maybe ML55?

urbamworm

Why do you say this since Eurocharged has already tuned a SRT6 crossfire that was converted from supercharger to turbo? They have basically our engine with 2 cylinders chopped off.







Another setup can be found with a google search of "Eurocharged SRT6 turbo," it won't like the picture because it is on the website benz boost which is a hate crime word here so they have it blocked and won't link. The link below with the benz boost inserted with no space.

loungn14

What I have seen is many want to go turbo and assume they can do so for 2-3k. That's just not the case....

GregMB

I'll stand by my original comment that it doesn't exist on the E55.... if it's out there I'd love to see the pics / video and dyno sheet. My apology is queued up and ready to go.



What sort of ballpark costs would you guess are involved.... parts and labor to get something like this done? What sort of HP/TQ would it make? I'm guessing that by the time you make "substantially better power" vs. what is possible using traditional E55 mods, the costs are way out of reach for almost everyone.


-G

cij911

Well the turbo's and intercooler and piping would easily cost $5K (probably closer to $7K), then you need a built motor $6 - 7K, and then tuning....So I guess if you can find a clean e55 with a blown motor for $15k, it could be a fun project....But like you and I said before, I doubt there will be a market for this...Can it be done, sure....Will someone do it, unlikely....

urbamworm

I didn't say it was out there, I just said why isn't it possible and why isn't there anyone on planet earth that could figure out the tuning like you said since Eurocharged already did with the SRT6 crossfire?

As for power, nothing would change from a 5000whp setup to a 800whp setup other than the turbo, so the only cost to change would be a few hundred more for a turbo to support more power. So I don't see a difference in cost from a mild or wild setup. The only difference would be how high are you willing to go on stock engine before building it, and that is where the money will come in. Pretty much nobody has 600whp though, more around 500 so getting a 600whp setup going would be nice and turbos are way cooler than superchargers. If someone wanted a 600-650whp setup to stay on stock engine you would do exactly like the crossfire pictured and the costs wouldn't run wild.

The most cost would be whether or not you can do it yourself or have access through a friend to get the turbo manifolds made and the downpipe or you have to rely on a shop of some sort and then if you want to use couplers or get the intercooler piping actually all welded together. But then you could also use the stock exhaust manifolds to save a lot and make it more simple. Then simply just run piping connecting from stock manifolds up around back of engine up to the valley for a single turbo setup, or just get a flange welded on them to mount twin turbos down on the sides of engine instead of some fancy manifolds since you aren't trying to make boat loads of power and the stock exhaust manifolds would work fine.

Here is an example from the Audi B5 chassis S4 on a single turbo kit. You can see the piping that connects to stock manifold (actually uses stock A4 manifolds on the S4) then raps around the back to mount turbo. Something like this.



You could definitely do it for less than buying a Weistec setup if you did a single turbo setup.

need4spd

I was thinking more something like this set up

GregMB

All good questions.... but I'm left wondering if the power is so good and the effort is so minimal, why doesn't it exist already.... especially if it could be done "cheaper" than Weistec's kit?

Jerry at Eurocharged is going *****-out on a new motor project with a built bottom-end and a Weistec blower. He mentioned some outrageous HP target like 900 - 1200HP or something crazy like that.

Assuming the ECU development work on the turbo Crossfire is easily ported to the E55 platform, why wouldn't Eurocharged themselves build a turbo E55 instead? They have more resources than almost anyone here... so if it was ever going to be successful and cost-effective they'd have the best shot at it.

-G

AMS_Performance

We have been toying with the idea of doing this here at AMS. I have a E55 and our president has an E55 wagon. It's no secret we love turbos and we do all of own in housing tuning so I'm not worried about that side of things. What scares us the most is the cost of doing a kit like this probably isn't going to appeal to too many people.

Ideally you would do a twin setup and even using a log style manifold with turbos, wastegates, intercooler, intercooler pinging, fuel solution and tuning you are going to be near or north of the $10K mark to do it right using the best parts (the only option in our opinion) We still might do it on our two cars just because we are bat **** crazy like that but making a production piece concerns us with the estimated retail cost of such a system.

Eric

urbamworm

They certainly would, I guess we could ask Jake or Jerry to give their thoughts. Obviously the fab work is "easy" and the only "hard part" is the tuning. But if they got rid of a blower and the boost valve under the supercharger to replace with a turbo on a very similar engine then one would think the ecu couldn't be to terribly different. Only Jerry would know though.

loungn14

no market and it wouldn't be cheaper. It's pretty easy to build up the existing engine and bolt a new supercharger. R&D on a turbo setup for a one off build most likely is not cost efficient.

cij911

And then you would likely have to build the motor and design a new fuel system ....Only a few people would consider spending this kind of money IMHO....