Anyone here ever modified the exhaust on a Mercedes Benz W124 E320?

Thinking about deleting the resonator on my E320 wagon, give it a bit more bark, the engine has a nice tone too it, it's just very muffled. Anyone here done this? I'm not sure how picky these engines are, I just want to make sure I'm not going to mess something up by having the exhaust modified.

So yeah, any thoughts? Any experience doing this? Thanks in advance.

 

I don't think it's legal so I wouldn't advertise it.
Personally I'd never do anything illegal...................

 

They do those things all day long, here in Germany. If you want even more horses, simply bypass the cat

 

Hah, nah, it's not illegal here, it only needs one muffler. Technically it's just a secondary muffler.

Heh, now THAT is illegal.


But yeah, the factory system is two pipes into the cat, two pipes into the main muffler, one pipe into the resonator. First thing I"ll do is delete the resonator and find a pipe to hang where it use to be. If it isn't loud enough or I feel I can get better sound out of it, I'll look into changing the muffler its self.

Here is a image of the factory exhaust system layout, thanks of course to rock auto and bosal:





Neighbors be damned, I have six cylinders of terror waiting to be unleashed.

 

My son has a 2004 Crown Victoria V-8. He cleaned out the Cats and replaced the rest with two red cherry bomb glaspacs. Nice and clean and mellow. Cost less than $100 total.
Your car has way too many mufflers and pipes. People expect cars to sound like an electric car now days. :icon_drive:

 

the last piece(278-325) is a resonator for the feds to meet noise regulations take it off put a pipe in with a chrome pipe and enjoy.

have done this on my concord,lhs caravan sport and soon my town&country.

 

The resonator is just a straight through, like those Thrush glasspacks we used to transplant in place of our dearly behated mufflers, back then. The resonator, thus, isn't the power robber. The muffler and cat are. We used to either weld our own catylitic converter replacement pipe or it was also available through J.C. Whitney who used to distance themselves from any legal liability through the small print which said, "For test purposes only" or similar. Maybe, "For diagnostic testing" or what have you.
I replaced the mufflers on my old Starfire with Thrushes and kept the resonators. It wasn't loud enough to attract the cops, during normal vehicle use. However, when it was time to enjoy, the ballsy bass rumble put the fine touch on Oldsmobile's already andrenaline arrousing V-8 exhaust sound qualities.
You could, of course, do this or at least have it copied: http://www.emnotek.com/p-837-mercedes-w211-e200ke240e320e500-eisenmann-exhaust.aspx

 

Jesus those are expensive, I could make my own system for cheaper than that. Cool find but holy crap the price.

Yeah but the coupes didn't seem to have it, I guess it's relative to the amount of seats. That sounds about like the feds logic.

Probably going to have something like this done, though I prefer the Flowtech Redhot glass packs over the cherry bombs. And the 4.6 liter modular V8 in those sounds good anyway, so he did that car justice.


Anyway, I deleted my resonator yesterday, it sounds good, but I want more out of it, so I'll probably get an exhaust system put on when I get it inspected this summer Or I'll delete the stock muffler, put a glasspack where the resonator use to be, and roll with that. Here's a video of before and after:

Stock, with resonator:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptvbDgmAFgk

And without:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKGgeHM4f7Q

By the way if that thing is like a glasspack inside, it's the heaviest one I've ever seen. When that thing hit the ground the rear of the car went up nearly a half inch.

 

I have a '95 E320, and I need a CAT for it. If you are going to be removing the CAT, please let me know. Thanks Junk.

 

If you have a good muffler shop get him to first cut off the rear rez and then start it up.

I dont see anywhere where he says anything about removing the cat it would cause a code anyway.

If that doesnt sound right remove the muffler 2 in one out and replace with a performance car muffler.

they have all kinds not like your doing it in the driveway are you?

 

Yeah. Don't remove the cat. That would be illegal. But there's nothing illegal about removing that rear resonator. I removed the rear resonators on my 2005 Dodge Magnum R/T. Made a huge difference.

Like GN300 stated, remove the resonator to see how that sounds. Also drive it to see how much drone you might have in the car. Do this before you make any other changes (add an exhaust tip, tailpipe, etc). My Magnum had terrible drone. I had to add resonated tips to keep the drone down.

 

My son has a 2004 Crown Victoria V-8. He cleaned out the Cats and replaced the rest with two red cherry bomb glaspacs and 2 1/2" pipes. Nice and clean and mellow. Cost less than $100 total.

His fuel mileage went from around 22 MPG to 26 MPG with that Ford 4.6.

Dead Reckon reread the above...... As a matter of fact our son did his swap in my drive way in less than two hours.
You'll spend longer than that driving to the muffler shop, waiting, paying, and driving home.
Why spend good money at a shop when simple tools can be used and most anyone can do it. It's not rocket science.

 

Yeah, I understand, I've just not had good luck with exhaust. Nothing but bloodied knuckles, rusted on parts that are fused together with the unnatural force that is rust, and a whole lot of creative swearing.

I think I'm gonna leave it like it is for now, don't forget to check out the video and tell me what you think. I've got some evil plans for my 1977 Oldsmobile Delta 88 I'd like to start working on. Let's just say Mad Max has inspired me to want something from the apocalypse since I was a kid.

 

A few points I'd like to make that may save you some grief and cash.
1. This thing is turning at around 3k or so doing 80 right? Do you really want to listen to that six banger droning away all day?
2. Exhaust shops like to cut and torch things apart and use universal type attachment parts. If you change your mind later on this makes restoration difficult(expensive). The mufflers sold at most exhaust shops are inferior by a wide margin to what your car came with.
3. The original MB muffler lasts a very long time. Midas type replacements or inexpensive "performance" mufflers don't. Quality made, well designed performance exhaust for your car will be very expensive indeed.
5. Loud exhaust isn't really appropriate on an otherwise dignified car.