CarBahn Autoworks' AMG C63S Takes a Holistic Approach

Better Tuning

Steve Dinan has been in the car business for decades now. And his experience and work are what led him to create Dinan Cars, a highly respected BMW tuning house. After that and a couple of stints elsewhere, his latest effort is CarBahn Autoworks - a company that applies his trademark holistic approach to tuning to a variety of models, including those from Mercedes-AMG.

Mid-Level Magic

Dinan's first such Mercedes-AMG creation is this - the GTS-spec C63S, which was recently profiled by MBWorld. The car has received what Dinan calls a "mid-level" tune, which consists of a series of power and chassis upgrades to increase performance.

>>Join the conversation about the Carbahn Mercedes C63S right here in MBWorld.org.

Start at the Base

That process starts at the core of this car. "I felt like the Mercedes had great styling, a good interior and user interface, and I thought the powertrain was very good," Dinan explained. "But I thought the chassis of the car was lacking. The car has a lot of stiffness, particularly at the rear. That helps prevent understeer, but the car just couldn't really put the power down off the line or out of a corner."

>>Join the conversation about the Carbahn Mercedes C63S right here in MBWorld.org.

Laser Focus

Thus, that's where the bulk of Dinan's focus went. "Adding power is easy—that took six months of development," he said. "Then we spent another year and a half fixing the suspension."

>>Join the conversation about the Carbahn Mercedes C63S right here in MBWorld.org.

Numbers Game

"We wanted to soften the rear suspension, but not the car overall," Dinan explained. "So we added five percent to the front spring rate and the front sway bar, and subtracted five percent from the rear spring. And then we got rid of the understeer by putting a significantly wider tire on the front—the car came with a 255mm from the factory, we moved up to a 285. And because the front end's stiffer, the load transfers to the rear better, which now puts down power far more effectively than it did in stock form."

>>Join the conversation about the Carbahn Mercedes C63S right here in MBWorld.org.

Devilish Power

Of course, there is more power to play with as well. Dinan added bigger turbochargers, larger heat exchangers, a cold-air intake, and modified the ECU to help the GTS edition of the C63S produce 674 horsepower and 666 lb-ft of torque at the crank.

>>Join the conversation about the Carbahn Mercedes C63S right here in MBWorld.org.

Little Compromise

One of the most interesting upgrades, however, is the eccentric bearings that replace the factory rubber bushings. "Everybody thinks that when you put bearings in the suspension, the car will ride worse," Dinan said. "Believe it or not, it actually rides better. It does create more noise, but we felt like the gains in traction and ride quality were much bigger than the compromise in NVH was."

>>Join the conversation about the Carbahn Mercedes C63S right here in MBWorld.org.

No Flash

With all of these upgrades, you might expect some on the inside. But you won't find much here. Not that that's a big deal, as nice as the factory interior is on these cars.

>>Join the conversation about the Carbahn Mercedes C63S right here in MBWorld.org.

Functional Upgrades

This car is all about functional upgrades, which continue on the outside. Here you'll find CarBahn's Street Aero package, which consists of a front splitter and rear diffuser that generate a combined 100 pounds of downforce at 150 mph.

>>Join the conversation about the Carbahn Mercedes C63S right here in MBWorld.org.

Important Stuff

That and a set of 20" Forgeline wheels are your only real clues as to what's going on here. And truthfully, that's pretty refreshing. In a world of flash, Dinan's masterfully redone Mercedes focuses on what's important - performance, and little else. 

>>Join the conversation about the Carbahn Mercedes C63S right here in MBWorld.org.

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