I installed the BlackBoost intake for the M157 platform last week and had the foresight to log a dyno run in advance to document the before and after potential this freer flowing intake provides.

My car, as configured prior to the intake install, consisted of the ECC E40 tune by Slav as well as the EC ATX TCU tune provided by the fine folk at EuroCharged Austin.
To complement this my stock downpipe is decatted and I have a muffler delete. I also have the advantage of the ECE engine mounts. Their importance cannot be stressed enough.

The dyno below shows the pre and post runs.

Prior to the intake install, street logs performed by Dave at EC_ATX showed Turbo Wastegate duty cycle at 100% at top of 4th gear.
After the Intake install, street logs collected showed a reduction in duty cycle to 80% at top of 4th gear. Without looking at a dyno we knew the car was breathing better up top.
To take advantage of this added overhead, Slav of EC Canada tweaked the tune minimally to add a little spice to the equation. He did not touch boost but did add a smidge of extra timing to the tune. The car now shows 85% duty cycle at the top of 4th. The added torque down low is attributed to the additional timing, but the power profile up top is all intake related.

Yesterday was the earliest opportunity I had to redyno the car and document the results.

Ta Dah....



Now before this spirals into a debate on the merits of dynos and the ability for data to be fudged, let alone the effects temp and humidity have on performance, please note the following.

I used the same dyno and operator for both data runs.
The gentlemen logging the runs is an AMG agnostic, meaning he doesn't have a dog in the fight and thus has no underlying motive to misreport anything.
I used the same scaling (STD) for all runs.
If you look at the individual runs on the graph above you will see that a scale factor of 1.04 was applied to my previous run, while a scale factor of 1.01 was applied to yesterdays run. Do the math yourself, but 13 degrees F and 10% relative humidity doesn't account for all the changes noted it the graph above.
If you ignore everything else but just concentrate on the power profile from 4600 rpm onwards you will see the effect the freer flowing intake has on the engine performance.
What's unbelievable is the increase in WHP made at redline... in this instance its 90awhp! It made over 50awhp over peak as well!
How accurate is that value will be the subject of conversations moving forward, but trap speeds don't lie, and last week I did a draggy run over the same stretch of highway where I do all my runs and gained over 2mph in the trap speed. That's huge! Its also proof that I was making more power. The second dyno only confirmed it.

The power does not fall off like previous dyno's. Power continues to be made all the way to redline.

What's a dyno chat without a dyno run video to complement it...


This brings me on to the importance of the ECE engine mounts (or new OEM mounts for that matter).
You'll notice in the video how steady my engine bay is during the pull. Imagine if I had a failed, or failing, stock engine mount.
That drivers side would be lifting under load. Now imagine having this intake installed in your car with failing engine mounts and running down the highway. When you get on it, your engine will be pushed up against this hood of your car. I can't imagine that will be good for your hood. Just something to consider if opting to install this intake on your car.

In closing... I'm a firm believer in the BlackBoost Intake and I'm a firm believer in Slav of EC Canada being able take advantage of the freer flowing intake.

Jose @ Boosted Benz is your local contact for these intakes...
ECE is your go to for aftermarket mounts that work

 

Excellent write up! How much are these intakes?

 

1200 I believe plus shipping.
I was one of the first in Canada, my only regret is not knowing about these sooner.

 

Good write up. I can't help to think the power increase may be vastly different with a closed hood. Now, do a run with the stock piping and remove the filters and you will probably make even more power. Really, the only way to test something like this and compare to stock is with a closed hood. With that said, I think someone did a test with the hood closed and they still made more power than the stock intake.

 

We did runs back to back logging the wastegate duty cycle on the highway and saw an immediate improvement with the addition of the intake. To be honest I was happy with that plus the improved trap in the quarter to call it a day and say "this works", but I knew the majority of forum junkies weren't going to be happy with just that. Everyone wants to see a dyno it seems, so I accommodated that fact.

If anyone else wants to take this science experiment and run with it go for it.

 

How was the hood & intake set up for the "before" run? I assume it was also hood up (since most dyno runs are), but it seems like an equal comparison would be to take off the top of the intake boxes. The extra trap speed doesn't lie though, assuming DA was similar.

It looks like the timing gave an extra 20whp if we are attributing the low end increase to it. Is timing able to be changed by rpm, or is it likely that 20whp of the top end is also due to timing?

How different are the ECC vs ECH ethanol tunes?

 

I am curious about the sound difference with the hood closed as well. Do you get a noticeable increase in induction noise? I am considering these now. As much as I want the Renntech intakes, I don't want to spend $4k nor do I want to cut my carbon engine cover.

 

Was the after dyno with the timing increase and the filters or just the filters?

 

I can't speak to the nuances between the ECC vs ECH E tunes but they are very similar. They perform almost identical as far as performance metrics are concerned.
From my observations, Jerry's tune runs a little more boost and Slavs tune doesn't demand as much fuel from the injectors. I'm not a tuner, but I assume this is because Slavs tune is optimized for a set ethanol content while Jerry's allows for more variability. Don't quote me though as this is only my interpretation.

Both dyno runs were done on the same DynoJet and both were logged with the hood open.

I asked Slav at EC Canada what effect the additional tweak in timing had on the overall post dyno run.
According to him, and I paraphrase here, "the increase in torque down low can be attributed to the additional timing, but the performance up top is all intake related"

 

See my comment directly above this one... Slav did tweak the timing a smidge, but didn't touch the boost at all.
The post dyno does have a slightly spicier tune.

 

With the windows down, and music off, you can detect an increase in intake sounds, but with my exhaust, once you get on it, the exhaust drowns everything else out...

Video shot down in Tijuana....

 

I just came back from the Lake and decided to log intake temps on the drive home under normal traffic.

Ambient temps flickered back and forth between 88°F and 90°F during the drive.

Some observations.

When stopped at a light, intake temps would start to climb and understandably. Max I saw was 130°F.
When moving, intake temps would start to come down over the course of a mile of so to around 115°F/118°F and eventually settle around 111°F, or a delta of 23°F above ambient when driving at 30 to 40 mph.



Once I got off the B roads and was able to stretch its legs on the highway, the intake temps improved...



I'm assuming here, but the ram air effect at speed and the free flowing design is contributing to the improved intake temp deltas.

At higher speeds I saw a marked improvement in intake temps... off boost of course.
Ambient temps were still 88°F and the delta improved to 14°F over ambient when running in the 75 mph to 85 mph range.

I'm really happy with the performance of the intake. All data collected has shown a marked improvement over stock.
Prior to this intake I never saw a delta of only 14 degrees above ambient with the stock intake at highway speeds.

This is one upgrade I've been happy with.

 

I'm sold.

 

The waste gate percentage says a lot. Less gate will mean cooler temps simply because of less shaft speed necessary to make target pressure. I'd be curious where the restriction is in the factory system.

 

It is curious that the intake channels cross-section stays the same. I believe both Alpha, Weistec, Brabus increase the air supply to the turbos from (a) increased cross-section and (b) decreased filter restriction. The BB intake uses factory piping and still achieves top end improvement. I wonder if the air starvation at high RPM occurs partly due to the inadequate cross-section. In addition to being bigger volume, the BB intake boxes appear to allow some ambient air to enter the box, which helps mitigate the front leg of the restricted duct. Ram pressure helps on road, but not on the dyno. Suspect it could be verified by running the engine without the intake ducts, by the turbos taking air from ambient.

 

Good review thanks @brutus_tx and as always good to see great results and happy customers.

 

I personally had a set installed in My car and got very similar results up top and yes hood was closed.(I was preached about side to side comparisons and close the hood)

And yes hood closed during blackboost pulls

 

Wow! That sounds amazing! What exhaust are you running?

 

I'm running stock exhaust though they are decatted, plus I've removed the rear mufflers.
The majority of the sound is because I'm catless, but the E40 tune has an impact on sound too I think.
I also have a TCU tune so gear changes are quicker now, which contributes to the "Brap" at gear changes under WOT.
It all adds up to a pretty sweet sounding car in my opinion. I'm glad you agree.

 

Did you keep resonators? It's glorious. I may have to do that instead of down and mid pipes. Did you get an off the shelf or dyno tune and what tcu tune did you get?

 

I still have the resonators.
I started with EC Canada's OTS E30 tune prior to going catless, then Slav tweaked it to an E40 tune to account for the freer flowing exhaust, and lastly, after install of the BB Intake, timing was tweaked slightly to further take advantage of the increased turbo efficiency brought about by the intake flow up top.
All these tweaks came about after logging data on the street as opposed to a dyno.
The dyno was only used to graphically display the difference in power profile brought about by the addition of hardware.

I'm running the EC Canada TCU tune, offered in the US by the fine folk at EC ATX in Austin, Texas...

 

Great write up my good friend.

If you like, ill add some logs showing what happens when you run this kind of power and the factory boxes become restrictive. And what happens with the wastegate when you make the turbos life much easier by providing more and easier flowing air. Ill post those up shortly.

 

I thought Jerry was the tuning guy? All these different EC locations and products is getting confusing

 

There are two tuners operating under the EC banner.

The majority of people are familiar with Jerry and his work, out of Houston, but there is one other tuner, Slav, who operates out of EC Canada in Toronto.
They both offer E tunes and TCU tunes (recently).

When I got my TCU tune, it was via Slav at EC Canada. At that time, Slav and EC ATX were the only EC shop offering TCU tunes outside the NY area (5Soko had NY area covered). This was prior to Jerry announcing availability of his TCU tune offering.
I opted for switching to Slav's E tune at that time to complement the TCU tune I received from him to make the upgrade path more seamless.

I still have my EC Jerry E50 tune on my spare ECU as back up.
Jerry has subsequently come out with a TCU tune of his own.

 

Please add you logs... you can never have enough data, especially when its someones elses backing up your findings...