|
Rebuilt Arnott strut. Getting it put in on Friday morning. Part and labor, $1200. I hate spending unplanned money like that, but I have to have that air ride. So smooth and comfortable. Mercedes of Augusta is a very nice little dealership. Not very big, but they have a very good selection.
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 20:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 10:41 |
|
|
GPF posted:Rebuilt Arnott strut. Getting it put in on Friday morning. Part and labor, $1200. Pretty good. Whats labor, 3h?
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 21:09
|
|
|
kimbo305 posted:Pretty good. What’s labor, 3h? Probably 2.5, but three is close enough.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2020 21:25
|
|
|
Went out to Bandimere last night after the shop had the S65 for a month. Goal was to get Weistec meth kit (actually AEM parts...) and 'upgraded heat exchanger' (more on that in a minute) and Quaife LSD and lowering links installed plus a Kleemann tune, while also repairing the driver's side turbo coolant leak and upon digging into that the shop also found it needed a motor mount so they did both. Welp my wallet Turns out as it's all buttoned up that the AEM controller died, so no meth last night, but the tank install is cool:  That spot isn't in the way at all, retains the spare (unlike the ice tank I ran in my E55) and overall is awesome. Bummer that the AEM controller is dead but they're sending a replacement this coming week. Part of the reason the shop had it so long is that they had to get creative with a couple things. One of which was the Weistec heat exchanger that upon calling Weistec they told my guy wasn't even for the S65 even though they market it as such on their site. So he dutifully got it working:  In retrospect I think we may change this down the road. More on this later but my IATs are still so massively high that I think the only real solution is going to be to build custom CAIs with cone filters that sit in that space.  Bolt is where the injector will go.  Attempts were made to test the injector controller, but alas. So off we went to the strip. Dude who runs the MB shop is awesome, I have known the guy since 2013 when he first did some work on my E55, and his shop is crazy busy now. Nevertheless he too came out last night with his auction steal S600 with a Kleemann tune that he has all of $4k total into. He also happens to be swapping an M275 into a '68 Barracuda in a very  sort of Project Binky. Anyway dude's awesome. Ze Germans always get quizzical looks from the unwashed Challenger masses. So after an easy tech off I went to do some test runs:  It, uh, still runs hot. This was just before starting the car in line:  I did some HPTuners datalogging on each run, and looking at my last run of the night which was by far the coolest air, IAT was sitting at 183 before startup, dropped to 167 briefly a minute after startup before I did a brief tire scrub, momentarily dipped to 150, and then as I rolled up to stage at the lights, had climbed back up to 165. At the end of the strip it briefly hit 156. At one point I saw the temp at over 200 10 minutes after I had parked the car.  TLDR holy poo poo IATs are way too high and this is why I wanted to get the meth kit. But the more digging I do it seems like building custom CAIs and maybe even putting some heat extractors in the hood is warranted. I question how effective the intercoolers are too. Incidentally, cool dude who runs the shop is also looking at using a Haltech standalone on his Barracuda V12 TT mutant, so maybe we go full retard on this car as he too makes discoveries. I think with sufficient cooling it could easily pull 11s up here.  Anyway family came out too and we all had fun. Here are the slips (2 test runs and then the first round of competition, welp:)  First three runs down the strip, gotta work on my RT, but even hot off the freeway, 12.778 at 109.19, then more or less hotlapping (got right back in line but it still takes 20 minutes) and this time did 12.902 at 107.62. The competition round was nearly 2 hours later, the car had cooled off quite a bit, and as I was up against a guy in a '98 Chevy with a 12.55 dial, it turned out my 12.75 dial was too low. After the 60' I jumped out in front of the guy and always had more than a car length on him until the 1000' mark, where watching, I backed out of it thinking I was likely going to break out - and sure enough, I did, running 12.712 at a measly 102.56 mph because I think I even braked briefly to try and keep only a fender ahead of him. If I had dialed a 12.6 or maybe even a 12.5x I would have been much closer to where the car wanted to be with cooler air and time to cool down. Fairly happy with 1.9 60' - the LSD hooks up really well and is a clear difference from before. Guy I raced was real cool; we talked through windows down while rolling down to the tower, and then he came and found me on an electric golf cart after the race and was all excited about how good of a race it was and how much he liked my car which was nice of him and totally unnecessary. Turns out I had spoken with the dude almost a year to a day ago when I had brought out my E63s wagon just before its ill-fated end in my garage, and the dude also has a CTS-V wagon. Fun to run into similarly-minded cool people at these events.  So there's some work to do, but even with the meth kit not working, I think the car has a lot of potential. I'm cautiously optimistic that the meth might knock off something like .3-.5 off the quarter and pick up some MPH in the process. If that works then it's on to redoing the air intake and maybe even the heat exchanger setup and punching some heat extractor vents in the hood. We have gone this far, so why not?
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2020 21:48
|
|
|
Tremek posted:Part of the reason the shop had it so long is that they had to get creative with a couple things. One of which was the Weistec heat exchanger that upon calling Weistec they told my guy wasn't even for the S65 even though they market it as such on their site. So he dutifully got it working:
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2020 23:24
|
|
|
I didnt talk to Weistec, dude who runs the shop did - so I doubt they will do anything. I think some of that is/was empty space previously. Will need to experiment for intake stuff. Moar content: video of my 2nd practice run: https://youtu.be/ZQs-YG33sFs
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2020 22:27
|
|
|
Is your track going to require a cage if you hit the 11s?
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2020 05:30
|
|
|
Steely Dad posted:Is your track going to require a cage if you hit the 11s? 11.50 is the cutoff. If I get this car to 11.5 at Bandimere it will be a miracle.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2020 05:32
|
|
|
Tremek posted:11.50 is the cutoff. If I get this car to 11.5 at Bandimere it will be a miracle. How would that translate to a sea level run? Forced induction helps to compensate for the altitude, doesn't it? But how much?
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2020 11:49
|
|
EVERYWHERE 
|
Depending on density altitude (for example Friday was ~8600 because it was hot) I think most forced induction cars still run like +.5 seconds off a sea level quarter on the best of days. Sometimes closer to .8-1 second off and usually 5-10mph slower at the end of the quarter. A couple data points off the top of my head; my 2012 CTS-V wagon, stock, ran a 13.098 at 108 on its best day out at Bandimere:  C&D tested a manual V wagon (mine was auto) at 12.3 @ 118 after 40k miles. Wifes 2011 X5M ran 13.5 @ 104 stock:  C&D tested a X5M at 12.5 @ 112. So yeah... Altitude and heat is a bitch. Almost all the magazine quarter times are after lengthy cool downs, probably on a strip with a lot of VHT, with a seasoned driver, etc. Nevertheless things are quite a bit slower up here. Recovery from heat is the biggest thing I fight and have fought on all my cars since none of them have been serious drag cars or even true sports cars. Big fat saloons with lots of HP typically suck at dissipating heat.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2020 13:50
|
|
|
You're in that really dry air at that altitude, I wonder how effective a spray with distilled water on your heat exchanger would be.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2020 14:09
|
|
|
And so it begins
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2020 04:21
|
|
|
Mr-Spain posted:You're in that really dry air at that altitude, I wonder how effective a spray with distilled water on your heat exchanger would be. I assume Mercedes come with windshield washer jets.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2020 04:41
|
|
|
Tremek posted:And so it begins v12Icpack.com. Clarks a legend. Sent him my poo poo friday of memorial day weekend and got it back monday a week later. If it makes you feel better it took me almost a year of daily driving before the bank completely shut off so you got some time to recover from all the poo poo you just did.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2020 06:09
|
|
|
After a good two months or so of sitting under lockdown, I had to move the car for street cleaning. Once I got the car back from the last shop trip, I spent some time trying to top up the battery using a portable power source and my Delta battery tender. Got it to go green once and then I let it sit til a few days ago. This time, I had the fancy CTEK 4.3 that I learned about from Bajaha's Cayenne work. I thought I'd just go over with the portable power and the CTEK, pop the trunk, top the battery off, and move the car the next day. Car doesn't respond to the trunk open key press. Uh oh. Recall: kimbo305 posted:I was waiting cuz the car's battery was flat (on account of being extra taxed by the PSE, according to dealer and probably true). They were trying to open the trunk, but the tumbler wouldn't turn with the key blade. I popped the hood and looked around for whatever posts the dealer techs used, but couldn't find anything, and didn't turn anything specific up on Google. Then I read about the access panel in the passenger footwell. But as I read that, I spotted a post that mentioned that opening the trunk required turning the key counterclockwise, not clockwise. Sure enough, the trunk tumbler turned CCW without much fuss. Ok, got access to the battery. I spend a few several-hour sessions with the power supply and the CTEK, but never got out of the the initial slow charging phase. Unbolted the battery, dragged it home, and plugged the CTEK into an outlet overnight. Finally, the CTEK showed the error light -- the battery wasn't taking a charge. Really disappointing for an AGM battery I got in late December. This whole time, I was charging the also flat battery in the Element and managed to get that charged back up. Drove the dead battery (Duralast H8-AGM, if anyone was thinking of getting one) to Autozone, and got a warranty replacement, which was a pleasant surprise. Topped off the new battery at home, dragged it out to the S65, put the cables back on, heard a variety of pumping sounds going in the trunk, and fired the car up. Got an ABC too low error which went away on its own, though who knows what being that low did to the calibration / components. Moved the car. Outcomes: - learned that I can in fact open the trunk, which is great. - I left a note on the car dash because I was also parked in the reserved zone for a moving van. Somone interested in the car texted me, and I'm gonna show the car Monday, hopefully. - made friends with this street kitty during the reinstall  It was not deterred by the V12 firing up and followed me home, where I gave it a couple treats.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2020 05:42
|
|
|
Congrats on the new cat
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2020 13:21
|
|
|
kimbo305 posted:Carvana recently announced they were buying again. Same settings, and the car is now appraised at 3400. Checked in again a month later, cuz what the hell. 4,389 Buyer couldn't do Monday, and we rescheduled to this Friday, but I'm already pretty skeptical.
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2020 17:41
|
|
|
kimbo305 posted:Checked in again a month later, cuz what the hell. Take startup money and run. As much fun as the thread is to enjoy in the adventure, the repeated electrical gremlins are bound to cast this an "inoperable heap" to most, if not all prospective parties. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2020 22:28
|
|
|
If that guy who is coming Friday does come and is for real, I'll dump this thing so fast.
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2020 22:31
|
|
|
In happier S65 news (w221 seems to comport itself with substantially less bullshit) the meth injection is working and I went out to the track. I briefly let off on this run at the end thinking I was going to break out (I would have with my dial) but my crappy .3xx RT at the light doomed me from the start: https://youtu.be/QXH61Q1B2-4 Longer story, a month ago I had gone out but the AEM meth injection controller was dead, so in the ensuing month the car also turned out to need plugs, all 24 of them, so at the same time per AEMs nozzle chart I also asked the mechanic to put in the largest nozzle (1000) that came In the kit. That triggered CEL under load as Im sure the tune didnt know wtf was going on. So I drove the car out to the track with the meth injection disabled and did a run right off the highway and with IATs in the 180s it was predictably slow. After the first run the mechanic (who brought out a newly-acquired 2008? C63 that needed head bolts that he picked up for a song) swapped out the nozzle for the smallest (250) nozzle and I went out and did another run. Significantly better result:  About the same DA (over 9000, yuck) car was still super hot (ambient temp read 98f on the first run, 96f on the second) but with the small meth nozzle spraying the IATs dropped under load significantly and the car picked up half a second, 2/10ths in the 60, 3 mph, and drove completely normally, no CEL or anything of the sort. Thus far I consider this a success. Next step is to yank out the stock air boxes and figure out a real CAI solution, and maybe eventually do some radical surgery on the intercooler system. Its running a speed density tune so no MAFs to worry about. If I can get cooler air into this thing I think it might actually make some power. TLDR I dig this car. 
Tremek fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Jul 12, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2020 19:43
|
|
|
Tremek posted:Next step is to yank out the stock air boxes and figure out a real CAI solution, and maybe eventually do some radical surgery on the intercooler system. Its running a speed density tune so no MAFs to worry about. If I can get cooler air into this thing I think it might actually make some power. Hard to not dig that car. What are your options for cold air intake? NACA ducts? Please let it be NACA ducts. On the other end of the spectrum, I went full cold air intake on my MX6-GT by cutting a flap in the hood and using a Yugo hood scoop (flap kinda wrapped around a K&N in an airbox inside, so there was built-in water mitigation, but full atmospheric air temp) . Feel free to copy my design if you'd like. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2020 21:19
|
|
|
Yup, been looking at NACA ducts and some heat extractors.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 03:04
|
|
|
And the drivers side airmatic strut went bad. Figures.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2020 00:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 10:41 |
|
|
GPF posted:And the drivers side airmatic strut went bad. Figures. 2/4 aint bad.
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2020 00:19
|
|