Mercedes E63S thread

[kevm14]

1 camber bolt installed (completing the set of 4 bolts, two camber, two caster). Unfortunately, the adjustment is only good for like 0.25 degrees which is about what happened. Went from that -2.7 to -2.5 or so. Max spec is -2.2 and it really wants to be more like -1.8. He thought maybe the strut was the issue and said the car was "immaculate."

Unfortunately the steering wheel is off to the left. So when going straight, it is a bit to the left of center. Turns out I can't stand this and I will adjust myself. I'm not bringing it back a third time.

[kevm14]

Recentered myself. I did half a turn on the tie-rods and that was about right. It's SLIGHTLY off to the right (instead of to the left) but not worth another tweak. The driver's side jamb nut required heat to loosen. Actually I think I used heat on the right but it was definitely not squeaking like the left.

[kevm14]

I moved from the S550 over to this to both see how the battery charger handles ignition on stuff (seems good, about the same as the S550), and check some more parameters in Xentry. I did not start the engine and it hasn't run since late Dec.

Injector trims. Unfortunately this is a hex value but I'd like to see if I can decode these to show if any injectors are out of bounds. Either that or these are just the original trims (BMW does something similar on their direct injection). If these are new injector trims then I could not find the learned trims, which I was looking for, to determine the health of them (carbon build-up, et al).

Cam adjuster correction factor. Three of these look decent and the left intake is slightly concerning. It has been like this since I bought the car but I hadn't documented it then (I do remember seeing this, though). I want to say when it gets up toward 5 or 6 things start to get sketchy in terms of a CEL and necessity of replacing....parts. For now it's just noted.

All ECU coding. Lots of stuff in here.

- Item 28, extended throttle change damping. Well, what does this do? Sounds interesting.
- Item 37. I seem to recall this from the other discussion and I guess I will need to look into it.
- Items 45 and 46, limitation of engine torque. This also sounds interesting.
- Item 50, low fuel grade. My attempt at German suggests this is NOT active, unlike in the S550. Also unlike the S550, this is not tuned (as far as I know).
- Item 72, throttle characteristic. KLD 1 I think is the same as the S550.

I got itchy fingers and decided to take a look with the Launch. I changed two things on the first go-round:
1) Extended throttle change damping was set to 3. Turns out the options are not enabled all the way to 7. So I disabled it, naturally.
2) Limitation of engine torque. I disabled this. My expectation is this is similar to a setting on my S550 that makes the throttle go limp under certain low speed circumstances.

Results? Throttle is very crisp but it was doing something weird. It was hanging the revs like pretty bad. I knew it was the throttle change damping that did it. So I ended up trying every single setting, 1 through 7. Only setting 3, the original setting, resulted in what I'd call overall normal drivability. It's actually pretty good but when this setting was disabled the throttle reacted almost instantly, even after coasting. It was pretty awesome. If I could figure out a way to keep that while getting rid of the weird throttle hang when you let off, that would be perfect. As it stands it is still quite pleasing in the original setting.

As for the limitation of engine torque, that seems to have done the trick. It no longer goes limp after you do like a 2-4 mph "stop" and get back into the throttle. This was a big annoyance so glad that is gone now.

[Adam]

Throttle hang after letting off? What is this, a rental car? I'm almost ready to look at this stuff on the CLK...

[kevm14]

It still does a delay when you try to get on the throttle from a coast. That's what seemed to be gone with the extended throttle change damping set to disabled. I wonder if that is all about emissions. Like if they are going to let the throttle be that crisp, they also have to let it hang (this was really common with dashpots back in the 70s and 80s) longer than usual to compensate.

Anyway, this is all still an improvement. The parameter I changed seems to impact throttle response like in stop sign scenarios and I'll have some of those on my way home in the heat. That'll be a test.

[kevm14]

Coding checked in Xentry. Also a screenshot.

[kevm14]

Random stuff for fun to look at later. By every account this engine is healthy. Though I have to laugh at the fact that the electronic compression test is no longer available for AMG vehicles.

That first one was a diagnostic offered for some stored code about cat efficiency....I scanned it last night and it's just gone and obviously never seen a CEL. Anyway, I was previously hunting for some kind of individual injector adaptation and couldn't find it. But I ran the diagnostic offered and it seems to show injector adaptations.

It translates to Cylinder equality adaptive pre-tax value. Most of them are under 1% but #5 is at +1.2%, #4 is at -3.3%, #8 is at 4.8%. I feel like the #4 and #8 are.....somewhat questionable?

[kevm14]

With the great success I've had recently I think I am getting closer to pulling the trigger on new front struts, strut mounts and another alignment. I think I will just suck it up and pay the dealer to do it properly. I'll tell them I had a camber problem on the right front, it may or may not be resolved with new struts and mounts (hopefully is), and the car has all 4 caster/camber bolts in the locations - figure it out. Hopefully this works, because while we are talking about $2000 here, I think it would pay dividends in enjoyment. It will ride/handle better, track better, occasional clunks and squeaks will be gone, and it will not wear out tires as quickly. This is all good stuff.

The crappy alignment gift keeps on giving. Finally had enough of the sketchy clunks from the front suspension. So I got under it and pried on stuff. The worst offender seemed to be the right front lower strut arm. I would pry the arm toward the knuckle and it would kind of creak. Couldn't really figure out what was causing it so I just decided to check the torque of the nut. Not very tight. Good lord. Spec is 74 lb-ft + 180d which is quite high. Suffice it to say I was unable to make this torque with the car on ramps with the limited access and weird angles. So I just made it as tight as I could. Found two others not super tight.

Test drive showed that the clunking seems to be gone. Imagine that. I think this car deserves a dealer alignment. It has that ECM software recall so perhaps I combine them.

Went on a joy ride and decided to try race start. It kept kicking me out but sort of dumped the clutch for a second as it did. Kinda weird. I tried a bunch of times and decided just to see if I could get it to launch before it kicks out. Well, it did but it launched kinda violently. Like, I think harder than it is supposed to. Suffice it to say, this is why I was always nervous about this mode. I don't know if I'll try it again. Don't want to break anything.

[kevm14]

I think I never paid for the Monroney because I had a hard copy. But if I took a picture of it I didn't upload it to this thread and I'm too lazy to find the photo or find the hard copy so I just bought one for $10. Unfortunately, they made me select the options manually. But I was able to do this with VIN decoderz and the MSRP does match the $104k that I remembered so this must be accurate.

The main reason I did this was because I thought I remembered that it had some kind of black out package. And it does. That is why my strip on the front diffuser is black. I never really knew what this package did so it's nice to have the explanation.

In unrelated news, the optional 811 system was B&O and was $6400.

20250329_165607.jpg

[kevm14]

Saving for later.