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W210 E430 2000 Front Brakes Upgrade

Hi W210Source!

In this report i want to talk you about front brakes upgrade on W210 chassis. As you know i have 2000 E430. The car is imported from japan and has the same brake system as W210 E320. I think this isn’t right decision from Mercedes… Car which is heavier, faster, and more powerful with it’s V8 must have stronger brakes than the simple E320 (with it’s one piston floating caliper and 300mm brake rotor).

First of all i want to say that I am not a racer, and don’t love to drive fast. But I bought my E430 because i wanted it to be the E430 (with the different engine, transmission, brakes and e.t. against the E320). You may say: ‘’why you didn’t look at the brakes when you were buying the car?’’, That was my mistake… But overall car was in a very good shape and i bought it.

Now about the job. First as you know from my youtube channel, i was going to install W210 /W208 V8 front brake system on my car and that’s why i bought them. Before facelift W210 and W208 V8 cars were equipped with 4 piston fixed brake caliper and 316mm brake rotor. Whole brake components were made by famouse German manufacturer ATE. Also this brakes were installed on W202 C36 AMG from 1995 year. Specally 1995 year C36 had different brakes.

Then i asked some advise to my friend, which knows Mercedes technical better than me. My friend said that if i would upgrade 300mm rotor to 316mm i wouln’t feel any much difference in the brake performance. He advised me to put on much bigger rotors and finaly said that he had for sale whole brake system from W209 CLK550, with 4 piston fixed brembo aluminium caliper, and cross drilled 345mm brake rotors. Then he showed me his car (highly modified CLK230 Kompressor) with this brake setup and i was deeply impressed. (The brakes looked great and the braking performance was better). And i finaly decided to buy these setup from him. Don’t know about rotors, but i think, this calipers are also installed on W203 C32 AMG, and W203 C350 (Sport) too. My friend's CLK:

About two days ago we’ve started to upgrade my cars front brakes. First of all we removed old calipers, than removed brake lines and finally removed brake rotors. Every screw we removed very easily, thy weren't rusty. Then we installed new brake components, everything is bolt-on upgrade. We’ve modified only brake pad sensors, we took sensors from my old brake calipers and put them on the new calipers, here you may need some longer screws, stock caliper screws don’t work. And of course i must say that the old rotor screw hole didn’t match with newer, but for me this isn’t big deal. After installing brake components we made brake air bleeding, and add some brake fluid. My new setup with 18 inch carlsson rims:

Now the result: first i must say that Mercedes brake pedal was and is soft. But my car's braking performance is changed, car brakes much more better now, also it looks awesome with this brake setup. When you push the brake pedal you feel that calipers grab the rotor much more early than it was on old brake system. Overally i am very happy with my new setup.

So guys if you are going to upgrade brake system on W210 chassis (specially on E430) i highly recommend to install W209 CLK550, W203 C350 (Sport) or W203 C32 AMG front brake system.

Gruppe M Carbon Intake on my Benz…Yeah...

Hello guys. As you know from my previous posts here, I do some reports about interesting mods that I add to my car. After modding exhaust system, changing front brake system, air flow sensor (I installed proper bosch maf for m113 V8 engine), and some interesting mods which i’ve already done with my car, i was going to upgrade my car’s air intakesystem.

There are many solutions online how to mod your car’s intake system. Some say that it is proper to install aluminium tube with cone filter and that’s all. Some say that you must put your filter under the front bumper, close to the fog lamp to get true cold air and e.t.c.

Doing this job, first goal for me was to get more cold air for my engine, I know that more effective cold air and more effective exhaust system allows car to breath better and it’s = more hp, better performance. P.S. Also Ecu tuning has a big meaning in this job. Also I didn’t want to modify my cars intake system so that it has a whole custom look, I prefer factory look or brand parts (which aren’t cheap).

My car is 00 E430 with factory 279HP 400NM V8 M113.940 E43 engine. But it has the same air intake setup as W210 E320, E280, E240, and I think it isn’t right. Other side on W208 this engine already has 2 tubing intake (AMG style). For Example E430 has 109 hp more than e240 and both them have same air intake setup…. ‘’Mercedes Marketing’’. Same filter, same air box, same tubing, only M113 MAF is bigger. That’s why I decided to modify it to open my engines potential.

Before starting report about new intake install. I want to talk about air filters. On my car after removing cats and resonator, I installed AFE Magnum Pro dry S air filter, it is drop air filter. Against to the stock man filter I want to say that there was 0 difference in performance. I paid about 70$ for this filter without shipping, and get no gains in performance. I haven’t done any dynos and e.t.c. but I can feel my car, and it’s truly that this filter didn’t work for me. (P.S. I've this filter for sale now, if anyone is interested PM).

Many years ago I read online that Gruppe M makes awesome intake systems. As i know they are oriented on BMW’s but also have some stuff for Mercedes. So I started to search Gruppe M intake for my car. Also i know that there is installed rechargeable K&N air filter inside of carbon fibre box. After long searching i finally found one whole setup which was for sale in my country – Georgia. It was installed on BMW E39 which was imported here from Japan. Only thing about i warried was will it fit to my Air flow sensor housing? When i met to seller we measured everything and it fitted perfectly, everything was bolt on, i only have to make mounting piece of steel longer to mount the carbon fiberbox to my car.

Two days ago we installed this Gruppe M intake on my car and what a difference. When i fired up my engine after installing and push my accelerator, i feel that car idles more easy, accelerator is sharper and what a sound it makes…. Superb…. Then we went on a test drive. The seller was with me and when i did kick down the esp lamp was blinking even on 70km/h. On lower gears car speens it 18 inch wheels like crazy, even with esp turn on. So i am very pleased with this mode. Online some guys say that Gruppe M doesn’t add performance on car, exactly same told me the seller, but when we were driving in my E430 with this intake installed he told that he wasn’t right about Gruppe M’s performance abilities.

ON E39: