What you just described is exactly why I'm against mods, what if I find myself on a large grade in 110F heat with a trailer? I'm sure the lower horsepower car would do it it'd just do it slower. I'm okay with slower and keeping my car going as opposed to faster and throwing a rod.
-Curt Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 10:47:12 -0700 From: tyler <casi...@usermail.com> Subject: Re: [MBZ] Mercedes 240D Manual Turbocharged To: Mercedes Discussion List <mercedes@okiebenz.com> Message-ID: <4a201fa0.3070...@usermail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed There's no reason to have an inherent aversion to performance modifications if they're done properly. As Marshall said, Mercedes probably knows more about how to engineer a Mercedes than any of us, but they didn't have hindsight, 30 years of technological advancement, or specific knowledge of how the vehicle would be used. They had to make specific tradeoffs to make a cheap, and general purpose vehicle. I've seen plenty of highly customized vehicles which are certainly more reliable than your average stock 30 year old car, especially if the customizer has a lot of knowledge and experience. Personally, I think Mercedes would have been better off using a turbocharged and intercooled OM616 in place of the OM617. It would have been lighter, smaller, more fuel efficient, and just as powerful. The extra factory mods on a factory OM617 turbo are certainly worthwhile if you're designing a turbo diesel from the ground up, but not absolutely necessary to have a long lived motor. The Volvo 740 Turbo (as mentioned before) is a good example of the factory tradeoffs. Volvo chose to set up those cars very conservatively, at about 165 horsepower, when with some slight tuning they would have had a reliable 200-250 horsepower. But a stock 740 Turbo can pull a 5,000 pound trailer up a steep grade in 110F heat all day long on "regular" gasoline, year in and year out and last for decades. If the car were boosted to produce much more horsepower, it would probably pre-detonate under those conditions and throw a rod. If the vehicle were never used under those conditions, it would still last decades at the higher horsepower level. Tyler -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://okiebenz.com/pipermail/mercedes_okiebenz.com/attachments/20090529/1ed074a9/attachment.html> _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com