BerndV

As I posted in another thread, I recently took my car to AMS performance for an ECU tune, their full intercooler upgrade, and their exhaust. The car still has the stock downpipe because I will eventually install the full Weistech turbo-back pipes when I upgrade the turbo. For now I ordered the last of the welded one piece Rado catless downpipes for $1295. However, I have yet to install the downpipe. I had intended to have AMS install their complete intake at the same time, but the part was not in stock. As an interim solution, I thought I would install the UPD intake even if it only yielded 5-10 HP over the BMC's that I had installed around 7k (at 11k now) miles. After final ECU tuning with the BMC's installed, myself and the AMS folks installed the UPD intake for a dyno run. I paid them a bit extra for all of this. Unfortunately, the results were less than impressive. The small crowd that had formed to witness this all watched from the outside rear of the dyno room as their dyno tech Jake made the first run with the UPD intake. Everyone seemed quite surprised that the HP and torque actually declined by quite a bit. We inspected the install and noticed a bit of torsion in the left cylinder bank rubber boot that attaches between the intake and the aluminum piping. We adjusted that and Jake tried for one more run. The HP and torque went up a bit over the previous run, but it was still down considerably from the tune with BMC's. Everyone seemed quite surprised that this was the result. The AMS engineer that designed their intake for this car was brought in, and after looking at the design of the UPD intake, he surmised that the filter area seemed somewhat smaller than stock or the BMC's. He then left for a few minutes and returned with two conical shaped filters used on GTR intake upgrades. One was considerably larger than the other. He asked me which one I thought would flow better. Naturally, one would think the much larger one (a K&N) would be superior in terms of flow and pressure drop. Nope. He told me that the better designed smaller filter provided the same HP and torque as no filter on their GTR, but the much larger filter actually produced a pressure drop post filter and resulted in less HP and torque. He also told me that some of the BMC's they have tested on various cars in which they specialize have dropped HP and torque versus the stock filter. The lesson was that there is a great deal of R&D involved in designing an intake that will outperform the stock MB design despite what might seem like something that will obviously be an improvement.

Geno51

Thats one dyno test i have seen other independent tests showing increased hp and tq. Hey they did get you to buy a new intake though

BerndV

Post them. BTW, did you dyno the intake before and after on your car? I would consider an independent test one that accepted no advertising money i.e. Consumer Reports. I had zero financial interest in the outcome of this dyno test other than the $75.00 I lost for overnight shipping upon returning the intake (UPD sold me the intake for $500 including overnight Saturday delivery shipping). Regarding the purchase of the AMS intake, did you actually read the entire post?

Geno51

Double post

Geno51

Yes I read the entire post. You can look for the dynos they are here in this forum. Im not going to go diggin months back. I have no stake in UPD. I have see 2 dyno sheets that were from private owners that posted their results here in this forum. Not peformed by upd but by guys that took their cars to dynos. An oiled k/n filter will show less power over a dry cone filter media every time. Im actually surprised he had to explain that to you as most gear heads know K/N filters are junk. And with the new dry media filters out there MUCH better options. I am an AMS fan the products they produce are second to none.

However I agree with your statment cant trust someone like ams to not have another motive in selling their product. Ams is not consumer reports. They have competing products its in their best intrest for the upd to not peform well. This is not a challange to your post in anyway just making it clear AMS is hardly a biased test.


In the end your mind is made up.

kponti

I wonder what is different between the 2012 and 2016 year models that we are not taking into consideration. I know the tunes when done in a dyno tend to be different between the years for fine tuning aspect.

I made 18rwhp and 26rwtq over a k&n filter on a Renntech tuned car. IE car was on the dyno, did a few pulls and swapped the intake and re-dynoed.
However gotta respect the dyno results on a slightly different platform

shardul

iTrader: (1)

To the OP sorry they did not work for you.
However we have numerous happy customers who have picked up power on the dyno.
Hopefully you will will have better results with the AMS air box.

gaspam

exactly! not surprised in the results... AMS makes a $4,000 intake, then at their dyno, they dyno a much cheaper and competing intake and it losses 20-30whp while other members here on truly independent dynos (ie not upd's or ams' dyno) make 20whp

PeterUbers

nice been--- great info, glad I passed on this

and I searched and could not find any independent before and after dynos on this forum for upd intake

kponti

This is my car on the dyno, back to back runs

quandary

Thanks for posting those again, kponti. Question, you used 110 gas and saw noticeable gains - the stock ECU automatically advances timing if you put in higher octane gas??

BerndV

Personally, I do not believe that AMS somehow rigged the results. I was there and they actually all seemed quite surprised. I had a small group of techs and one engineer scratching their heads trying to understand how installation of this intake could result in a loss of HP and torque. I think they were all expecting at least a few HP gain, not a loss. However, another conclusion we could draw is that BMC's in this particular application are superior to the UPD and K&N's. I never tested the stock air filters.

PeterUbers

Thank you!

raudiace4

Nice post, thanks for the dyno results on the UPD intake. Lots of people were skeptical about this including me. It is only one dyno test, maybe more people with UPD intakes can come forward with their own independent dynos.

kponti

Yes it does, first run was after 4 mins of driving on the dyno, I lost power, then 2nd two runs were closer to 10mins. I bet an hour of driving around with the mix would have yielded more power, but I only had the dyno for an hour

sleeperZ96BT

This guy goes out of his way to do an independent test on his own dime, paying full retail price overnight shipping (both ways) plus the cost to dyno, and people seem to be alleging he somehow is cheating to the detriment of UPD, just because the dyno he was at was owned by a competitor (that loosely make a competing product that costs 8X as much and is a full intake replacement versus a spacer)?


I appreciate that he took the time and money to do this for us. Thank you. I am planning to do this on my E550 over the winter, but some of the responses here make it a total turnoff to do before/after dyno's (which always cost money).


Hell, I posted a review with before/after dynos of the Speedriven exhaust on my car in W212 (E550) and barely catch any responses......I can't figure you guys out because everyone is ALWAYS asking for dyno results. (ps I know it's the AMG forum, but still, results are results).


Thanks again BerndV for taking the time and money to do this and post a review.


Brian

sleeperZ96BT

I am curious if you have a theory as to why it didn't work well on this car but it has on some others (obviously with the results posted). Is there something (as someone eluded to) with this vintage versus the others?


Thanks for any insights, and for the professional response to a critical review.


Brian

kponti

Agreed there! I am wondering if there is something other than the hardware swap that is causing his power loss. I made power, and even more torque than a typical catless downpipe with a retune with the UPD intake. I wonder if there is a reason his didnt

shardul

iTrader: (1)

I have no idea, We were not given a chance to see what could be the issue.
We were just contacted asking for a refund, which we issued. The request of the OP was catered to.
When I saw this thread I realized who the refund was issued to.

PeterUbers

+1000

thanks BerndV!

BerndV

Your welcome. I don't have any complaints regarding UPD. They shipped fast and refunded just as fast. I simply did not get the hoped for results and thus felt justified in returning the product. Had I gotten even 5HP over the BMC's, I would have kept it until I was able to install the AMS intake.

Stereolab42

I also have a 2016 E63 S AMG and have also installed the UPD kit. I've never done a dyno. Has anyone with a post-facelift S AMG reported positive dyno results? If not I'm inclined to just remove it based on BerndV's results.

SSleeper

It's nice to see someone post results (even if the results aren't what they wanted) & still give props to the company on the customer service end.

Out of curiosity, did you try the BMC filters with UPD's spacers since you had everything there to do so? I've read UPD tried it once (think Shardul's post), but they determined the filters shipped in the kit netted better results.

BerndV

No, I did not. The dyno runs were at the end of the business day and there wasn't time for experimentation. Personally, the quality and construction of the BMC filters seemed much better to me than the filters in the UPD kit. I'd never had a set before, but when I received them a few months ago, the BMC's immediately impressed me with their quality construction and their very snug fitment.

Juice1979

Thanks for taking the time to do this BerndV