[dick rockwood]

People love power mods and I've read all sorts of conflicting stories over the years on cold air intake and deleting parts of the exhaust.

Unless you're bolting on a beefed up injection pump, intercooler, and turbo; are K&N type cold air add-ons and straight piping the exhaust a wasted effort?

What's the real skinny from our long standing members?

 

[sbaert]

Not worth doing any of the above IMO.

The only "real" improvements and the ones that I did to my '95 diesel was remove the oxidation catalyst and tune the injection pump. The stock ram air intake cannot be beat. Simple case of sucking in cool air vs. hot air.

I even left the EGR system in place since I run 50/50 jet fuel & diesel along with Liqui Moly SDA at each fill up and the intake stays completely free of soot.

 

[dick rockwood]

Thanks sbaert. Jyeah, pretty hard to beat stock cold air intake with anything but a good clean filter, I think. Haven't done the oxidation catalyst yet but its getting high time; better to delete or gut?

Any pointers on injection pump tuning? I've read all sorts of write ups and tips for other MB IPs but not a whole lot out there on 95 NA OM606s. Haven't attempted anything thus far.

Just out of curiosity, where/how are you getting your jet fuel?

 

[sbaert]

I am using the injection pump out of a 3.5L turbo diesel W126. If you don't know how they work or how to do it, better to leave it alone as the pumps are very hard to find especially the stock W124 OM606 pump.

I just cut out the catalyst and had a couple of stainless steel pipes welded in place. Check your state laws beforehand. Mine was completely clogged when the car was just under 50K miles and as a result couldn't even move out of its own shadow.

The best mod was putting in the full MB Sportline suspension upgrade kit. Made it handle like its on rails without sacrificing ride quality.