Some AMG Action

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CincinnatiFiero
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Some AMG Action

Post by CincinnatiFiero »

Well I've had something like 40 benzes at this point, but I've never had an AMG. Admittedly this isn't the best example, but it came up for sale and was way too cheap to pass on.

1999 E55. 354hp/391tq 5.4L N/A v8. Magazine tests from 1999 put the 0-60 between 4.8 and 5.1 (Mercedes rating was 5.1) and the 1/4 between 13.1 and 13.5. So it'll basically nip at an E39 M5s heels.

130k miles, two previous owners, stacks and stacks of service records, immaculate interior and totally stock. But it has rust bubbling in the fenders and 1/4s. w210s had a horrible habit of body rust, something about Mercedes early experiences with water based paint that didn't stick to the car. this car has no structural rot, some 210s lose the front spring perches, this cars look great.

I bought some rust free front fenders in California this morning that are already silver, so $180 plus shipping (local friend is picking them up and shipping them to my office freight collect so we will see) will take care of half the rust on the car.

Plan is to do an x-pipe and just abuse it until I find something better.

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I really like this contoured steering wheel
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Emc209i
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by Emc209i »

W211 or bust son...!
CincinnatiFiero
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by CincinnatiFiero »

I totally agree. That's what will replace this, just the right deal on a W211 hasn't appeared. I don't look for specific cars I just look for deals. I need to find an e55K where the air suspension epic failed, pick it up for peanuts and do coil-overs.
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Emc209i
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by Emc209i »

Yes, you do. In the mean time, flog that bitch. How are you doing the X-pipe, you probably know someone right?
CincinnatiFiero
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by CincinnatiFiero »

It apparently a somewhat common mod for E55s I found out about it online. You take out the resonator, which weighs 26lbs, get a Borla/Magnaflow/eBay 2.25" x pipe, and two 45* 2.25" mandrel bends and just have an exhaust shop do it. There is a local exhaust shop I've used to weld up exhausts and even to bend up mid-pipes for bizarre euro only Benzes we couldn't get replacement pipes for and they did a nice job

There is a dyno thread on benzworld somewhere, guys see about 5-6whp across the whole powerband, not insane but for a $150 mod, its better than nothing. And it dramatically increases engine noise under load, but since you're retaining the muffler they still are quiet when cruising.

This is the mod

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You're removing this
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Shaun41178(2)
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by Shaun41178(2) »

nice whip. I like the 210 but like the 211 better. Hard to pull the trigger on one though. I am afraid many things would go wrong if I did and my current daily runs good so its a tough sale even to myself. your interior looks pretty clean.
FieroPhrek working on that ls4 swap for 18 years and counting now. 18 years!!!!! LOL

530 whp is greater than 312
CincinnatiFiero
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by CincinnatiFiero »

Really nice 210s still bring 10-14k. 210 AMGs on the whole are less common than 211s and a rust free 210 is downright rare lol. So I think that keeps the price up. But with 211 E55 superchargeds as low as like 13k to around 25k for one of the best in the nation. Id struggle to buy a 210 over a 211. This car was cheaper a 211 E320 and thus, I nabbed it.

W211 E55K is certainly on the radar but I'm not going to pay up for one just to pay for one.

The W220 S55K is consistently worth less than the E55. More complicated car but really not that much heavier and the same drivetrain rated at more power. Mercedes claims the CL55, S55, and SL55s were rated at more power because of freer flowing exhausts. What I can tell you is the intake ducts on an e55 are smaller than any other 55k and the sl55 ducts are direct bolt on and under $100 brand new from Mercedes. But the S55/CL55 are a viable option if you want to be a baller.

In terms of this cars performance, its surprisingly quick, 5 sec to 60 and a low 13 means it will run down a lot of non-m and non AMG cars that are much newer and given what I paid for the car and its condition its hard to justify any mods. I think the X-pipe may be the extent of it, and that I'm mostly doing for the sound.

AMS used to make a light crank pulley and a cheap ECU reflash for the w210 but thwyve since moved onto bigger and better things. The reflash was actually developed by speedtuningusa and they are still around. But on an N/A car, and renntechs $1,195 tune only being rated at an 11bhp gain, I think I'll skip it.

Guys with Renntech modified N/A W210 E55s run down around 12.5 with airbox, tune, headers, and a mid pipe. But that's a $10,000 package that was developed back when the cars were worth $85,000. Not really viable by today's standards.

I'm just going to have fun with it and get an e55k when it stops being fun.
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by CincinnatiFiero »

Aaaaaannnnnd the AMG tax begins.

front rotors, from rockauto... are 500 fucking dollars.

There are some eBay drilled/slotted for like $140. I may attempt to turn these first, or tolerate the vibration for a while.
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Shaun41178(2)
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by Shaun41178(2) »

ouch. yea, thats what keeps me away. LOL
CincinnatiFiero
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by CincinnatiFiero »

Now I'm generally the first person to say if you buy a used exotic car ($75-100k European cars are exotic enough) expect the service bills to reflect the original price of the car, not the current value of the car (read: all the clapped out B5 S4s that are chipped but overdue for a timing belt and turbos) but the 210 E55 still uses iron rotors, 2 piston calipers (albeit both bigger AMG versions) and the car came out almost 17 years ago. I figured the aftermarket would have a picked up a little better for something as commonly worn as brake items.

Rotors for a 211 supercharged are cheaper.

For $460 shipped I can get 4 piston C55 calipers (including core, since I don't have cores), factory style drilled rotors, and pads. From rock auto.

I don't know why 210 E55 rotors are so crazy. Rear rotors are normally priced and my rears are the worst. I'm not entirely convinced my fronts are warped, I may have a bad balljoint or something and after reading the prices for front rotors I'm going to investigate pretty thoroughly before I do front rotors haha.

Ordered a cover for it because its probably going to get stored outside at my warehouse. The car is about to get put away for the winter. I have no business in an AMG in the snow, and this car has a little rust, another year of salt and I'll probably have a parts car on my hands.
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Emc209i
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by Emc209i »

That's not that bad for an OEM two piece rotor. The w211 stuff is one piece which is why it's cheaper. I'd retrofit that car so fast if it were mine. The hell if I'm spending that kind of money for legacy performance parts.
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Series8217
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by Series8217 »

My E46 M3 has the competition package so it comes with the same brakes as the CSL. They are two-piece OEM and $500 a pair for "Genuine BMW"... and aftermarket is about the same. I guess there just isn't a way to make these all that cheaply.
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by The Dark Side of Will »

Good rotors are a world apart from crappy rotors with the same dimensions.

http://www.essexpartsblog.com/news/c7-s ... ack-worthy

C5 front rotors are pretty big at 12.75 x 1.25, but use "pillar" vanes and don't pump air through themselves efficiently, and the same part works on both sides of the car.

So rotors with big air gap and GOOD vanes are more expensive to make (and more expensive to buy because of the small production volumes) but do work better than "normal" production brakes.

Is there a Wilwood rotor/hat combo that could replace the Merc units?
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by CincinnatiFiero »

Well, EMC knew my car better than I did. I knew E55/C43/CLK55 brakes were not drilled so I assumed they were standard old rotors.

They are not, EMC is right, they are two piece. Two piece with directional vanes, so there is a left and a right


Normal E430 300mm on the left, AMG 334mm on the right
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Now, R129 SL500s used 334mm rotors that are the same thickness as the E55 rotors but the hats are 3mm taller on the SL500. I don't know if they could be machined down or a spacer could correct for it. SL500 drilled rotors from rock auto are $43. They don't have the fancy directional vanes like the E55 rotors though.

Given that my car doesn't pulse under light pedal and on hard braking you mostly feel it in the rear and in the pedal itself, but above 130mph the whole car shakes when braking. I'm thinking I may have a loose suspension component up front and a bad rear rotors. Front OEM balljoints are like $31. So here's hoping for bad suspension bits.

My front struts are toast, new set and new sway bar links (210s are famous from clunking front links) came in this week, I'll get them put on soon and while I've got it jacked up look for any loose bushings or joints and bleed the shit out of the brakes.
CincinnatiFiero
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by CincinnatiFiero »

Called the dealer, my price on genuine front rotors is $204 each. Still a lot more than I would like to spend, but its always nice when the dealer is cheaper than online. Goes against the Mercedes mentality of "do you have any idea how EXPENSIVE mercedes parts are from the dealer!?" That and my discount account helps too 8) Front balljoints are $30.60. So I'm still hoping for those.

1999 W210 E55

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1999 R129 SL500

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Will, Steven, Paul, anyone with a better understanding of brakes than I, could I space the caliper carrier 3mm? Wouldn't a 3.5mm taller hat move the rotor face back 3.5mm, and putting 3.5mm spacers between the spindle and the caliper carrier move the caliper back 3.5mm? That is assuming the mounting surface of the rotor is the same thickness between the two rotors. I would also need to make sure I've got clearance with the backing plate. But 3mm really is not all that far, shouldn't affect the hoses, or the wheels.

Like I said I'm not sure I even need front rotors, but I am just sort of thinking aloud.
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by The Dark Side of Will »

You should be able to pop spacers between the caliper bracket and knuckle (@$$uming the calipers aren't radial mount) to take up for that difference.

Worst case, you can use normal washers, but check out McMaster-Carr for ground washers with better flatness and parallelism.
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by Emc209i »

CincinnatiFiero wrote: could I space the caliper carrier 3mm
Absolutely! That's an awesome find on that rotor! Everything lines up except the height.

I don't know if its safe to use the height of the floating rotor as a reference, since the disc could technically be anywhere in relation to the caliper, opposed to solid rotors. But there's also a flipside to that. Your car has caliper carriers that allow the caliper to float forward and backward in relation to the rotor! Is it possible that the carriers have enough variance built in to allow the caliper to slide back an additional 3.5mm? I would definitely try that as an option first before spacing the carrier or disc.

If the above doesn't work, you have two options.
1. Put a 3.5 mm spacer behind the rotor. This will push your wheel out an additional 3.5mm. You'll need long enough wheel studs.
2. You weld a 3.5mm washer the back of the aluminum knuckle and machine the face the same amount.

I did a little googling and found that the w210 E430 uses the exact same knuckle as the E55. You could pick up a used set of knuckles cheaply and have them machined, given there's many more E430's in yards than AMG's.

Here's the left knuckle for a car without 4matic:
P/N: 2103300020

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The caliper mounting tabs are at 9 and 7 o'clock. Looks like the face is raised enough to be able to take 3.5mm off without going into the base material, which would promote stress fracture in aluminum (If that's what it is. The oem parts appear gray like aluminum, so I figured the aftermarket stuff is Al with black paint. If it's steel that's even better for machining). But if the carriers allow for you to use the oem setup without any machining, I'd definitely go that route and keep it simple.

Losing the directional rotor vanes will be a loss in high temperature braking. But from what I've read, your car already has class leading braking power, so a little off the top won't be that much of a loss. I'd go with Will's advice and use high quality or OEM SL500 rotors vs aftermarket.

Edit: Just thought of something. The new rotor might need a concentric ring or machine work to fit onto the hub.
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by The Dark Side of Will »

The SL500 rotor is deeper, so the caliper has to move inboard. I had @$$umed that the caliper or bracket bolts to the inboard face of the mounting ears, and thus a spacer could accommodate a deeper rotor. Is that the case?

Also, are the AMG calipers fixed 4 piston or floating? I've seen plenty of fixed calipers on Mercedes cars, so I had assumed these would be fixed as well. If that's the case, they most likely won't be able to take up for any variation in rotor hat depth.

The floating rotor can't move axially... it just means that the rotor can heat up and expand independently of the hat, but that is the only degree of freedom that it has.
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by CincinnatiFiero »

Posting from my phone so I'll respond more meaningfully later.


My car uses a floating 2 piston. The C32 in 2002 was the first with fixed 4 piston calipers and one piece rotors. That's what I mentioned earlier. Using all new parts from rock auto I could convert to 4 piston calipers and one piece drilled rotors for around $460.

However my goal is to not spend $400 at all, but if I were to, I'd do the c32/c55 bolt on conversion for a little more clamping power and cheap rotors down the road.
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Re: Some AMG Action

Post by CincinnatiFiero »

The Dark Side of Will wrote:The SL500 rotor is deeper, so the caliper has to move inboard. I had @$$umed that the caliper or bracket bolts to the inboard face of the mounting ears, and thus a spacer could accommodate a deeper rotor. Is that the case?
Until I pull the wheel I won't know for sure, I to am operating under that assumption. Given these brakes will bolt on on a 124 and the way w124 floating calipers work I would think they bolt to the back of the spindle and a spacer between the carrier and spindle would move the caliper inboard. However the picture emc posted has be questioning that.

Hopefully tonight I'll have time to put my shocks on and scope out the brakes
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