Mercedes Benz C Class Tuning

"Thank you for reading our Mercedes C Class tuning article."

An AMG tuned version of the W202 was the safety car in Formula one during 96/97 and raised the profile of the C Class. The W203 was released in 2000 for a 7 year run where we see variable geometry turbos on the Diesels and a 6 speed gearbox offered.

Released in 1992 to replace the 190 the C Class made it's debut and had an id of W202.

Mercedes also did away with referencing the engine in the model number with the W203.

In 2007 we saw the release of the W204 version, a little more rounded in design and performance and teardrop headlights.

The W205 replaces this in 2014 and the W205 chassis was branched off into new body styles, a Saloon or Sedan, Wagon or Estate a coupe and a very nice looking Cabriolet.

The C Class is a good project car to have. If you do your research then you can create an awesome C Class but don't be fooled there are lots of tuning kits out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.

Don't just look at the peak power figures, you need to see the whole torque curve when determining if a mod is right for you C Class.

The best power gains come from larger more powerful engines sizes, think of each modification adding a percentage power gain.

Engine Tuning.

This list of the stages and modified upgrades are usually installed by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get started.

Getting the correct grade of performance upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 competition upgrades just won't work well on the road difficult in stop start traffic.

Please watch TorqueCars Video tutorial on car tuning. And be sure to subscribe and support our new channel.

Stages of Tune

Stage 1 mods: Remap, Sports exhaust, Lighter flywheel, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Alloy wheels, Panel air filter.

Stage 2 mods: high flow fuel injector, fuel pump upgrades, Ported and polished head, Power/Sport clutch, Fast road cam.

Stage 3 mods: Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Competition cam, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Sports gearbox, Engine balancing.

Your aims when tuning the engine should be a wide torque range. You don't want all the torque to be at the top end unless you are creating a motor sport car.

The whole point of our pointers is to give a little insight into the world of tuning modifications and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your modified car project, the best performance kits and all aspects of modding cars.One of the biggest mechanical uprated mods you can do to your NASP engine is to fit a fast road cam .

The intake & exhaust flow play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car difficult to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a performance chip for the best performance gains.

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to pay attention to the fuelling.

If you find you suffer from flat spots and power surges after your sports parts you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Bigger injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.

Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned C Classs uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Induction kits only help to add performance if your air intake is restricted! Adding an induction kit to most stock engines will see LITTLE LOW END POWER GAIN AT ALL. If you have heavily modified your engine and it's need for air INCREASES DRAMATICALLY then an induction kit is the answer and will help remove this restriction.

Derestricting the airflow into the engine is a primary goal of tuning so get a better flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound sporty but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and actually rob you of power.

Sports exhausts can help equal out the flow of gases through the engine. But if the exhaust is too big, ie: it's over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the exhaust flow rate and end up losing power and torque.

Getting a professionally gas flowed head with larger valves can fully maximise your power gains. In nearly all cases of C Class tuning your clutch will start to suffer and this needs to be uprated - read our overview on clutches for more information. The best mods we would do for your C Class are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements.

NASP engines do not achieve big power gains if you remap them, unless you have done extensive modifications. With turbocharged engines this is another story. A remapped turbo will give large power gains and fully release the potential power of the engine.

We've also come across some owners toying with twincharging conversions and making some impressively high power gains.

Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give large power gains. It is generally easier to bolt on a supercharger than it is to fit a working turbo. It is difficult to map fuelling with a turbo as the boost builds exponentially with revs.

It is easier to map a supercharger because the boost is proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the compression ratio of the engine .

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are the thing most do first for the C Class.

If you set the toe out to around 1.5 degrees on the front, and add a little negative camber then cornering will dramatically improve.

Drop the car by as much as 24mm - 36 mm and fit uprated stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

As alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they help to cool the brake disks. We can't go into too much detail here about tyres but they are how the car puts the power down on the road so are a critical choice. soft compound tyres work well on C Class, and make a big difference over budget tyres. Please note although they can look cool on the C Class big alloy wheels will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this to the change in your effective final drive ratio.

Although some people have installed larger rims without issues we would stick to a 17 inch rim size as the maximum.

There is a more updated version of this Mercedes C Class Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

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

We need your help improving this article, so please send us your feedback in the comments box below and pass on any tips, points or facts we have wrong or have not covered.

We really do love seeing our visitors car projects and which mods work best for them, this site is very much a community effort, and we remind our visitors of our non profit non commercial approach to running this site.

All of your comments are used to improve the accuracy of these articles which are continually revised, tweaked and updated.

Please Check out my YouTube channel, we're regularly adding new content...

Click to accept YouTube Cookies & Play.

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.

If you liked this page please share it with your friends, drop a link to it in your favourite forum or use the bookmarking options to save it to your social media profile.