Tuning the Mercedes M176

"Comprehensive guide to performance tuning the Mercedes M176 engine!"

We are regularly getting messages about the premier M176 upgrades. So let us look into Mercedes M176 upgrades and outline the best upgrades on this great engine and point out some potential pitfalls along the way.

The Mercedes M176 really good project engines and with the optimum modified parts like remapping, turbo improvements and camshafts you will increase your driving fun.

Our aim here is to examine the options for your M176 tuning and outline the best modifications.

When talking about the best parts for your M176 engine, we are going to focus on the tuning parts that give the best power gain for you money.

Altering your M176 camshaft will make a dramatic difference to the engine engines power. Choosing a higher performance camshaft profile raises the engines power accordingly.

NB: Fast road cams commonly raise the bhp through the rpm band, you might lose a little low end power but your top end will be lifted.

Competition cams, raise the top end band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

For a car driven daily one should, ideally, try to optimize your power band to your usage of the car.

I'd be amazed if you have found a M176 Motorsport and race cam is a pleasure to live with when driving around busy urban areas.

Some M176 engines respond better to extreme cam durations so set your engine up on a rolling road.

The engine timing and fuelling also will make differences on the power gains you'll get.

Altering valve durations can alter the power band and on most engines the exhaust and intake durations do not need to match, although most cams and tuners use matched pairs there are some advantages to extending the intake or exhaust durations.

M176 Tuning Stages

Stage 1 M176 modifications: Fast road camshaft, Panel air filters, Drilled & smoothed airbox, Sports exhaust manifold, Remaps/piggy back ECU, Intake headers.

Stage 2 M176 modifications: Ported and polished head, fuel pump upgrades, induction kit, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust, high flow fuel injectors, Fast road cam.

Stage 3 M176 modifications: Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Engine balancing & blueprinting, Twin charging conversions, Competition cam, Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression.

Mapping allows a tuner to unlock the full potential of all the mods you've done to your M176.

It will usually give around 30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NASP engines, but the end result usually rely on the mods you've done and the condition of your engine.

It is the main goal to any engine modification job to force more air and fuel into each cylinder

Intake take the air during the suck phase from the filter and allow it to be drawn into the engine cylinders.

The size of bore and shape and rate of flow of the Intake can make a noticeable improvement to fuel delivery on the M176.

Many mass produced engine plenum chambers are in desperate need of aftermarket parts, although a few manufacturers provide fairly well optimized plenum chambers.

Adding a M176 larger valve kit, carrying out port work and head flowing will also lift performance, & more importantly will allow you to get increasing the performance increase on other modifications.

Turbo upgrades for the M176

NASP engines need quite a lot of work when you add a turbo, so we have a separate guide to help you take into account the pros and cons of going this route on your M176

The more air you can get into an engine, the more fuel it can burn and uprating the induction with a turbocharger upgrade makes excellent power gains.

When your motor is turbo charged upgrades are going to make more power and you will discover turbo charged engines are built with many forged and stronger components.

However most engines have weakspots

Discover these restrictions and fit better quality components to handle the power.

It's not unheard of guys spending a loads of money on turbocharger upgrades on the M176 only to see the car explode on it's first outing after it's finished.

Big capacity turbo chargers will usually suffer a bottom end lag, and smaller turbo chargers spool up more quickly but won't have the peak end bhp gains.

Thankfully the choice of turbo units is always developing and we are seeing variable vane turbo units, permitting the vane angle is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end power.

Twin scroll turbo units divert the exhaust gases into 2 channels and direct these at differently angled vanes in the turbo charger. They also increase the scavenging effect of the engine.

You'll commonly see there's a limit in the air flow sensor (AFM/MAF/MAP) on the M176 when loads more air is being pulled into the engine.

Going up you'll find 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor was restricting performance at a much lower level.

Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large torque gains, although more challenging to setup. We have this in depth look at twinchargers if you want to read more.

Uprating M176 fuel injectors

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to increase the fuelling when you start extending past 20% of a bhp and torque increase.Don't forget to be generous with your injector capacity.

The rule of thumb is to add 20% when fitting an injector, which takes into account injector deterioration and affords some spare capacity should the engine require more fuel.

We think this one is common sense, but you'll need to match your fuel injector to the type of fuel your car uses as well.

Best M176 performance exhausts

You only need to to replace your exhaust if the existing exhaust is actually creating a restriction.

On most factory exhausts you should find that the flow rate is still fine even on modest power gains, but when you start pushing up the power levels you will need to get a better flowing exhaust.

Sports exhausts will certainly help air flow through the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too large or you could will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches as a rule of thumb.

Common exhaust restrictions come around the catalyst installed, so adding a freer flowing performance alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Problems and issues to look out for on the M176

The M176 engines, if regularly serviced and maintained, are generally very reliable and have few issues.

Regular oil changes are vital on the M176, particularly when the engine has been modified and is putting down more power than the manufacturer intended.

For more information on Tuning your M176 engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss tuning options in more detail with our M176 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

We need your help to complete and improve this page, so do give us your feedback in the comments box below.

We really like hearing from our readers, and hearing about which mods were the most effective for them, it helps us improve our recommendations and articles to reflect current trends in modifications and ensures that our M176 guides and tips are kept up to date.

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This article is flagged for an update, so please pass on specific tips below that I can include. All articles, and content was written by me, Waynne Smith TorqueCars founder. Some outlines are just too general so I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Mercedes. You can leave a response below or join our forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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