I was checking this shop out because my other indy, who is Benz trained and old
enough that he worked on them is less than helpful in nailing down the full set
of issues the car has. The new to me shop is more modern and clean. Instead
of a simple hand written explanation of what they did, the
Ahh D-jet hell, does this German car shop have good knowledge of D-Jet?
However generally backfiring is unburnt fuel exploding in the exhaust
pipes, thus it's most likely ignition related.
Perhaps ask around and see if you can find an old school Merc tech who
actually worked on these cars back i