vdubpower

yeah, who the heck does that.....500sel for 29 yrs almost

chawkins2001

And there you have it Traffic53

MBH are considered one of the best in the business for exhaust work on AMG's.

vdubpower

I wonder how much power you would get by only removing cats and leaving stock pipes.

MBH motorsports

You would pick up some power, however the cost/labor of having to remove 4 cats (primary and secondary) then replacing them with tubing would not make to much sense from a money stand point. If someone went that route, you would still have to remove the factory system, cut it up, then make sure you cut the replacement tubing 100% perfect. If it's not perfect you will have fitment issues. It really could end up being a hassle. In the end you would have a pretty cobbled up system.

vdubpower

Makes sense

Traffic53

don't let a proper comparison get in the way of your argument that Renntech is f**king people. i'm sure MBH does very nice work. however, you are comparing apples and oranges. i have coated downpipes with cats, as my wagon is a daily drive street car for hauling my family. your example is of basic 3", uncoated stainless pipes with no cats. yeah, those are less expensive. in fact, i bet just about any decent muffler shop can piece together 3" tubing to compare with MBHs offering for even less!. cutting and welding pipe is not like sending a rocket into orbit. i bet your "tuned by tony" E55 was also less expensive than Renntech's tune. we are simply not making a reasonable comparison of similar parts.

i will say this: i chose the Renntech system because they tuned the car and seemed to offer the best component available. i also enjoy the fact that Renntech supports the car and Mercedes Benz dealers in my area support and sell Renntech components. it's very important to me that the car and it's added parts function flawlessly together. Renntech and my local MB dealer make sure of it. that, to me, is worth the premium, period.

ask MBH what their best price is on copying Renntech's downpipes with sport cats. just a guess, but i bet it's closer to $3000 than it is to $1600. the extra premium for the Renntech pipes with warranty, install and resale made it a no-brainer for me. i'm really not that interested in bargain-hunting exhaust pipes on a $100k wagon. my analysis of an aftermarket component digs a bit deeper than the price tag. i'm not saying YOU should consider more than the price. that's just me. i'll respectfully conclude that no, i don't believe i got bent over by Renntech. i believe you misspoke on the subject.

now, if someone sold you a $100 HDMI cable at Best Buy, you got bent over.

MBH motorsports

Coating stainless steel is 100% un-needed. Good stainless steel is a poor conductor of heat. Meaning it keeps more heat inside. So coating them is very much un-needed. Also Unless the metal is coated in Cerakote its worthless. Cerakote is very popular in the gun world. Where firearms temps can get extremely high. The automotive community is catching on to just how good Cerakote is on exhaust parts.

In most cases things that are coated in the exhaust world are done for a reason. Weather it is to hide craftsmanship issues, or they are using mild steel, or a low grade stainless like 409. Not saying this is the case in the said companies offerings.

As for being close to 3K? with cats it's more like $2300-ish right now. I've been around the block. I've had RT products on my past car before. Evotech use to do RT tuning back in the day. If I had known that I would have just got an Evotech tune rather than pay for a re-branded tune that was also marked up in price.

chawkins2001 is right. You can go to RT and by an intercooler pump from them for $1395 or you can walk into any Mercedes dealer and tell them you need a Transmission cooling pump from the SLS AMG and they will give you the same part RT sells. Only its $1,000 LESS!!!!!!!!!! Thats right RT sells an OEM part for the SLS AMG and marks it up $1,000 to sell to you. Would you consider that screwing you? It's all listed in this thread linked below.

https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/...now-about.html

Let me just tell you that I've repaired many of header systems for people with Mercedes and the said company was one of them.

Do you know why RT makes Long tube headers now? It's because of me. When I was affiliated with Dyno Comp in Scottsdale AZ I developed our 55 AMG header. Dyno Comp being a dealer at the time for RT, RT was not happy. In fact the owner of RT would call DC and ask "Why are you building Headers?"

I dont really want to bag on them, but it's kind of personal. I've seen the owner of RT try and attack my friend (RT west coast rep) at Dyno Comp. I mean physically assault, because he no longer wanted to work for RT anymore.

All the good guys that worked at RT have left. Steve Jones, Ken Rudy, Joe Borres, Jeff Katz, Wade Williams. They have all left RT. Most have started their own shops or work for other shops.

Davidiii

Has anyone ever done back to back 1/4 mile runs with tune only vs tune/downpipes? Based on some videos I've seen adding downpipes may add 1-2mph on trap speed. Would this be a fair assumption?

Davidiii

Anyone?

TX E55

Hey MBH, how much of a pain is it to put cats in and out for track events? I run three or four events a year (Texas World Speedway next weekend, baby!) and being able to switch these out is pretty intriguing. I can put up with the smell for a while, and I am really good about idling slowly down the street in my neighborhood early in the morning. But it would be great to set off some car alarms in the parking garage at work and hear more noise at full-tilt!

gaspam

downpipes arent going to really make your car any louder...our car's stock exhaust system isnt like the M156 system that a lot gets eliminated in aftermarket exhaust system.... as you can see in pic below comparing aftermarket dp's vs stock, you can see not much difference other than getting rid of the cats, and cat removal isnt going to give you much sound...

if you just want sound go for mufflers on our cars

TX E55

[QUOTE=drop997stop;5820233]I have mbh dp x pipe and 300 cell high flow cats and eurocharges new tune.

I started catless and then added the cats due to smells.



Soooo, how bad is the smell and can you detect it from inside the car?

Thanks!

Jbe63tt

Xtyper... when u had the renntech tune were you using stock plugs?

Jbe63tt

[QUOTE=TX E55;6755660]The smell is not that bad at all imo.the only time you would even notice is standing outside the car or if you were at a red light for a while with the windows down, but as soon as you get moving it's gone. I've never noticed the smell except in said situations

BerndV

This seems to contradict what everyone that has installed catless dp's states about them. If the sound is truly not much different, I would actually be more interested in installing them. I would like the performance increase without making my car obnoxiously loud. So, for those of you with catless dp's, is the sound really that much different or not?

kponti

Not much difference in sounds at part throttle. Definitely louder a WOT

chiromikey

Cruising at any speed sounds OEM, it's only under decent throttle application does it sound beautiful...

Jbe63tt

It's a little louder on cold starts and sounds great at WOT but under normal driving it sounds oem.

gaspam

cats dont really muffle sound... resonators and mufflers do... that being said, is there gonna be a change in sound with catless downpipes? sure, but not near as much as removing resonator or changing mufflers... (once i install my catless dps i will make an in cabin vid and post)

when i changed DPs on my audi's didnt notice any diff in sound... now when i went to long tube headers (which also required resonator delete) in my c63 it became crazy loud... like your in a nascar race loud lol!

here is catless dp drive-by on our cars... not really much louder than stock


here's my c63 just pulling out of parking lot at like 10 mph

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chiromikey

I was surprised at how much of a difference catless downpipes made. OEM was boring even under throttle but now it sounds absolutely amazing.

johnnyblaze

Agreed. Compared to my LTH C63 this was quiet. After the downpipes the spool + sound is awesome

Exotic-metal55

There are a lot of people with mid pipes and think they have true downpipes, so that may be some of the sound difference. Several of the people on this thread that I know, have the full turboback exhaust and not just mid pipes. Mid pipes with no cats will not make much power or change sound very much.

Zod

and where is the solution for the AWD E/CLS to get the full turbo back and a decent rate

johnnyblaze

I still have yet to see any gains on turbo back vs "midpipe" downpipes. From all my searching I've only seen MAYBE 1-5hp.

gaspam

This is what would of thought as well but member on the forum just posted dyno before / after midpipe ( dps that connect to bridge pipe) and he picked up almost 40 whp... Saw similar results on Benz boost forum where guy went from 600 to 632 whp after mid pipe install/ retune