E60 RENNTech

[sheward]

I learned today a local shop owner owns a E500E converted E60, supposedly by Renntech. I plan on going to see and talk with him soon and thought i would ask if anyone has any questions or inquiries. I'm told the engine was built using the 117 crank as previously discussed. I will get the VIN and any other pertainent info although I'm told the current owner purchased the car already completed. Anyone interested let me know what to ask or look for to satisfy your curiousities. I'll also get some pics if possible.

drew

 

[gsxr]

Re: E60

Would love to know the year, color combo, miles, and is it for sale...? And as many pics as you can get of course! If it has any extra items (headers, RENNtech muffler, big brake kit, etc) would love to see pics of those as well. Thanks!!

 

[jhodg5ck]

drew, ya didn't notice the RENNtech E60 here @ the shop last few times ya came by

Look forward to hearing the particulars on this fellows example!!

Jono

 

[sheward]

I just talked with the shop supervisor and learned i was misinformed. He tells me the car is indeed a 6 ltr but Renntech used an 034 chassis. Now i'm wondering if it is indeed an M119. White exterior, black int. Just the same i made arrangements to stop by and look at it. I'll post the info here.

jono.... I did notice the E60 but with all the other Mercedes eye candy there i tend to lose fOcuS!

drew

 

[gsxr]

There was a 400E with a RENNtech 6.0L engine in Atlanta area about 5-7 years ago, it was on eBay. Unfortunately I didn't save the info. Wouldn't surprise me if it's the same car. Still would be nice to get photos & whatnot.

I know of another RENNtech 6.0L car that was based on a 92 400E, but it's white with gray interior.

 

[sheward]

I stopped in and talked with the owner yesterday (unplanned without camera). It was an unusual discussion. I know little about Renntech cars and He knows less. I'm told the car was a grey market car (1992 model year 400E), the engine is a 6L "stroker moter" built by Renntech at a cost of 35,000.00 (says he has all reciepts) and makes 550hp at the rear wheels. Although i was clear i wasn't there to purchase, owner mentioned twice He would take 7000.00 for it. The owners personality and lack of knowledge made for an unenjoyable visit however if anyone is seriously interested i will go back as a buyers rep and i believe he will be accomodating. I personally believe the car or at least the engine was built by Renntech. It looks like a 034 chassis without any visible bodywork or add ons other than a Renntech badge. Interior and exterior show little wear. Dave, this may be the car you remember as the owner says He's had it for about 5 yrs. Sorry for the lack of pics and info.

drew

 

[gsxr]

Drew, you might just need to go back with a camera and take a test drive. The 550rwhp claim is obviously more than a little embellished; a realistic number would be about 300-325rwhp (est. 400hp at crank). Would be nice to know if it has the optional cams, the paperwork would indicate this. Bummer it's a '92, in which case it may not have the late timing cover, making a swap into a 93-up chassis difficult. Hmmm.... would be a nice donor for the .036... price ain't bad...

 

[jhodg5ck]

OOoooo....whole car + 6L for 7 is better deal then not 6L M117 bottom end for 1200!

I need to sell some of the lesser cars in the fleet..

 

[jhodg5ck]

hrrrmm...6L M119 w/ rear mount turbo...now that's a thought..;-)

 

[need2speed]

hrrrmm...6L M119 w/ rear mount turbo...now that's a thought..;-)

I like where you are going with this!! Jono, do you have any plans to fab up an STS rear-mount turbo for the M119?

 

[jhodg5ck]

Yup. End goal w/ track rat is STS rear mount w/ some kind of intercooler along w/ a manual conversion using tremec tko 500/bell housing from 722.6 etc, etc..

Manual will likely happen 1st..then turboturboturbo..

Dave and I are hopeful that LH will be able to handle about 8 psi of boost..we'll see!

jono

 

[need2speed]

Put me on your list for an eventual turbo kit! With you and Dave on the project, its sure to be just the ticket.

 

[J-Sauce]

I'd pay through the ear for a rear mount to take the place of this NOS. My car is bat-shit fast as is, but refilling bottles gets tedious!

 

[jhodg5ck]

Will keep you guys posted... yea, bottles are fun, but it's sad when they run dry..;-)

 

[Jelmer]

Jono, just look what you did now! Half the forum sits drooling with sleepy eyes behind their computer, dreaming of their even-faster-car!

[sub]including me[/sub]

 

[500AMM]

Yup. End goal w/ track rat is STS rear mount w/ some kind of intercooler along w/ a manual conversion using tremec tko 500/bell housing from 722.6 etc, etc..

Manual will likely happen 1st..then turboturboturbo..

Dave and I are hopeful that LH will be able to handle about 8 psi of boost..we'll see!

jono

Hello jono.

Manual and turbo - now are we talking here!

A turbo installation is challenging due to limited access for making the headers. I've discussed with a guy to make down tube headers (which he already has done on one .036 here) and not too surprising he points out two main obstacles - the oil filter housing and the steering box. Have you considered to rebuild to a remote oil filter housing, and also converting to a steering rack to help out the access problems?

Btw. what torque does the Tremec TKO 500 take?

Cheers
-arnt-

PS. I'm now far off topic here, sorry, but mods is really interesting!

 

[gsxr]

Arnt,

The remote turbo would mount in the rear, where the resonator is located... lots of room there. No need to mess with headers, oil filter housing, steering box, etc. The long charge pipe back to the intake would eliminate the need for an intercooler at low boost levels, although an intercooler wouldn't hurt... there's just not much room for one, especially if the factory oil cooler is installed. I'd prefer a remote/separate oil supply for the turbo to eliminate any connection to the engine oil sump. The pipe from rear to front would hang below the car more than I'd like, not sure there's any way around that though. I think that is probably the biggest drawback, the reduced ground clearance.

</threadjack>

 

[Jelmer]

Wouldn't you get insane turbo lag with a setup like this?

 

[jhodg5ck]

What dave said, and No, turbo lag is about nil. It's boils down to a properly sized pipe feeding the turbo. The amount of time it takes for a molecule to move from the exit of the exhaust to the turbo is a blink of an eye... so with the velocity/hydraulics of it all setup properly the car will be on boost almost instantaneously. Check around on you tube etc, and you can see/read about installs and how well they work. It's a proven design philosophy.
Re-locating the oil filter housing is NP, converting out to R&P...if one from a 210 would Fit w/o going nuts that would be one thing, but that would still be a Lot of work regardless.

As for clearance, oval tubing helps with that a Lot..

I was even thinking of a horizontal cooler, or one like the diesels, off to the side of the the car, We'll see. @ the very least I'll set up the car w/ methanol injection running off the windshield washer reservoir.

The tremec TKO500 will take 500hp/500ft lbs, w/ what I imagine is a bit of fudge factor per most manufactures. Which is Just right for a low boost M119.

Glad ya'll like this plan, makes me want to push for it that much more/get it Done!

jono

 

[gsxr]

Yup, what Jono said! I too was thinking oval tubing would help with the clearance problem. If the turbo & plumbing is sized correctly, turbo lag will be minimal, or at least acceptable for normal driving. There may be room for a small side-mount intercooler in the bumper pockets, behind one of the fog lights. Again, for lower boost levels (up to 5-6 psi?) most likely no intercooler would be necessary.

When you start moving towards 10psi, then yeah, it's gonna need an IC... and possibly an extra injector, or full standalone engine management (not fun to set up). There are pics of an Albrex supercharged W140/M119 on my website that used an extra injector with a piggyback controller, which I suspect added fuel based on boost pressure. Neat idea, but not ideal as then you'll have atomized fuel going through the intake, where there's no guarantee it will be equally delivered between cylinders. Also with higher boost, the stock compression ratio may become a problem - but if you lower the compression ratio, that will hurt power off-boost... not a good compromise, IMO.

I think 5-6psi may be good for a 30% gain in peak power (??), which would be maybe 400hp at the crank from a stock-compression 5.0L motor. With a well engineered & tuned system we might be able to get 425-450hp with the stock LH injection and stock 5.0 long block, which is preferable to keep the cost (and complexity) down. This is on my list to experiment with, but it's likely to be a few years down the road, and I'd prefer to get a cheap/beater 500E to use as a guinea pig (like the TrackRat™ that Jono just picked up!). I'd start with low boost and a wideband O2 gauge on the dash to keep an eye on things, along with a boost gauge and EGT (sadly, AutoMeter discontinued some/all of their IAT gauges).

 

[jhodg5ck]

There is a fellow who did his 97 500SL w/ a rear mount.. swapped out to Megasquirt which Helps, but I bet he's still only running 10PSI max...rear mounts don't do so Well above that level based on my reading.

I was looking @ one of these Apexi units, does wideband O2 and EGT..all routes it through your wifi capable phone/ipod-thing.

We have access to an LH burner here, so we May even be able to burn a chip just for boost, I'd like to make a 7-9psi setup...the nice thing about running Road Atlanta is your LONG haul @ WOT down the back straight gives you Plenty of time to watch your gauges..Great for real world testing.

I wonder if I can become an STS dealer...hrrmmmm....;-)

jono

 

[Ruf500e]

It's funny how this post came up because I actually want to do a turbo setup and Saturday I visited a shop to inquire about it. These guys do nothing but turbos. They had skyline motors laying all over the shop. They are very reputable and know what there doing. They took a look at a friends 500 I had taken and concluded that a setup wouldn't be hard at all, they would do internals as well all custom cams and would push out 500-600hp, but the only problem they faced was the actual tuning. So they brought the idea of swapping out the motor with an LS1 or LS3. I just like the idea of the actual 500 motor with a turbo so if this idea actual gets going I, definitely in if I'm patient enough......

 

[jhodg5ck]

if they don't do Mercedes regularly they will likely find there is a Bit more to a Mercedes engine then what they are accustomed to. I've watched it happen time and time again w/ tuner shops..."Ohhh, this is easy, we'll just do this, this and this, No Problem..!" which is then followed by lots of expense and frustration

Plus, everything they want to do is custom...
You might mention all the internals are already forged just to bring 'em a bit more up to speed

jono

 

[Ruf500e]

So after viewing that sts setup I'm wondering why we can't do that same setup on the sl500 that Mongillo Motors did on the 500e?

 

[500AMM]

Arnt,

The remote turbo would mount in the rear, where the resonator is located... lots of room there. No need to mess with headers, oil filter housing, steering box, etc. The long charge pipe back to the intake would eliminate the need for an intercooler at low boost levels, although an intercooler wouldn't hurt... there's just not much room for one, especially if the factory oil cooler is installed. I'd prefer a remote/separate oil supply for the turbo to eliminate any connection to the engine oil sump. The pipe from rear to front would hang below the car more than I'd like, not sure there's any way around that though. I think that is probably the biggest drawback, the reduced ground clearance.

</threadjack>

Thanks.

I've now read about the rear end turbos. It sounds great, but is not for high boost pressure since the heat expansion in the exhaust gasses are not present back there, only the exhaust flow drives the turbo. But for low pressure boost on a large volume engine, i.e. V8, would work fine. Nice for street cars.

-arnt-

 

[gsxr]

So after viewing that sts setup I'm wondering why we can't do that same setup on the sl500 that Mongillo Motors did on the 500e?

You can, it's just not easy or cheap. Note that Mongillo used standalone (Megasquirt) engine management and ditched the factory ME injection. It's almost guaranteed that this eliminated the factory ASR (traction control) system, which some people may find acceptable, but I personally do not (especially with 416rwhp on a street car). It's possible this also disabled ABS which I'd find absolutely unacceptable. Not sure if they found a way to keep ABS intact or not. Would be nice to get more info on this setup, including a dyno graph. Details below from their website:

http://www.mongillomotors.com/Pages/STS_Mercedes_SL500.html

http://www.mongillomotors.com/Pages/Pictures.html
(scroll to bottom)

1997 Merecedes SL500
416 RWHP & 478 RWTQ
Owner: Rob Hancock

Mongillo Motors/STS Custom Remote-Mount
Turbo System
67mm Garrett Turbo
2-Nozzle Methanol Injection System
Mongillo Motors Tune
MSD Boost-A-Pump
Mongillo Motors 35mm Blow-Off Valve
6000K HID Headlights
Digital Wide-Band
Vari-Cool Controller
Digital Boost Gauge with Peak Recall
MegaSquirt Engine Management Computer​

 

[jhodg5ck]

So after viewing that sts setup I'm wondering why we can't do that same setup on the sl500 that Mongillo Motors did on the 500e?

That's my plan...now, they were ME, which is a bit different.. but something similar, albeit hopefully mroe close coupled to the chassis for ground clearance sake. Also, do plan on trying to put it in place of the resonator as to shorten the run just as it looks like we Can/that much less to fiddle with. Will also be exploring the stand alone oil supply for the turbo..one less headache/issue/possible complication in the future.

And again, if we need a different map, I can get that done locally replete w/ dyno..and once we have the map it'll be Easy to burn future chips.

Jono