Tuning the Mercedes M272

"Comprehensive guide to tuning the Mercedes M272 engine!"

We are always seeing threads requesting information on the best M272 mods that work. So let us look into Mercedes M272 modifications and outline the best modifications on this great engine and point out some frequent tuning mistakes along the way.

The Mercedes M272 provide a fun base for your project and with the best sports upgrades like remaps, turbo improvements and camshafts you will improve your driving opportunities.

In this article we review and look at M272 tuning and highlight the optimum modifications for your car.

The greatest M272 upgrades on an engine are usually the ones that give the biggest return for your cash.

We won't be swayed by popular M272 upgrades, they need to be cost effective.

Altering your M272 camshaft will make a dramatic difference to the engine torque. Choosing a higher performance camshaft profile raises the torque accordingly.

NB: Fast road cams commonly raise the bhp over the rev band, you might lose a little low end power but the higher rpm power will improve.

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

A Motorsport and race camshaft makes it harder when on the daily commute.

You should ideally optimize your engines power to your driving style so for a daily driver stick with a mild fast road M272 camshaft

Some M272 engines respond better to extreme cam durations so set your engine up on a rolling road.

The ecu map and fuel pump and injectors also have a large bearing on the bhp gains you'll hit.

Extending exhaust or intake durations can alter the bhp 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.

M272 Tuning Stages

Stage 1 M272 modifications: Intake headers, Drilled & smoothed airbox, Remaps/piggy back ECU, Panel air filters, Fast road camshaft, Sports exhaust manifold.

Stage 2 M272 modifications: induction kit, high flow fuel injectors, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust, Ported and polished head, Fast road cam, fuel pump upgrades.

Stage 3 M272 modifications: Twin charging conversions, Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Engine balancing & blueprinting, Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Competition cam.

ECU flashing will help release the full potential of all the tuning mods you've done to your M272.

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 will depend much on the tuning mods you've carried out and the condition of your engine.

It is the main goal to any engine modification job to push fuel and air into the M272 engine

Headers carry the air during the suck phase from the filter and allow it to be sucked into the engine cylinders with fuel for the squish phase.

Shape and flow characteristics of the Intake manifold can make a noticeable effect on to fuel mixing and power on the M272.

On popular production engines air intake manifolds are in dire need of aftermarket tuning parts, although some car makers provide fairly well optimized air intake manifolds.

Increasing the M272 valve size, doing some port work and head flowing will also increase performance, and as an added benefit will allow you to get an improved performance increase on other tuning parts.

Turbo upgrades for the M272

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 M272

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

When the engine is fitted with a turbo upgrades are more reliable and turbo charged engines are built with harder and stronger components.

However engines have weakspots

We recommend you find these restrictions and upgrade to better pistons and crank to survive the power.

We've seen car owners spending a loads of money on turbo charger upgrades on the M272 only to experience the engine go up in smoke soon after it's been finished.

Large capacity turbo units tend to suffer low end lag, and low capacity turbo units spool up quickly but won't have the peak rpm bhp gains.

Thankfully the choice of turbos is always moving on and we now see variable vane turbos, allowing the vane angle is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end bhp and torque.

Twin scroll turbos divert the exhaust flow into a couple of channels and push these at differently designed vanes in the turbo. They also increase the scavenging effect of the engine.

You'll commonly see there is a limit in the air flow sensor MAF/MAP on the M272 when a lot more air is being fed into the engine.

We see 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor was restricting power at a much lower level.

Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large performance gains, although harder to setup. We have this feature on twinchargers if you want to read more.

Uprating M272 fuel injectors

When you lift the bhp and torque you will need to look at to the fuel delivery.

More bhp and torque needs more fuel. We would recommend you to over specify your injectors flow rate.

The rule of thumb is to add 20% to the flow rate when buying an injector, this takes into account injector deterioration and provides you 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 M272 performance exhausts

You only need to to improve your exhaust if the current exhaust is creating a restriction in flow.

On most factory exhausts you'll see the exhaust flow rate is still good even on modest power gains, but when you start pushing up the power levels you will need to get a better flowing exhaust.

Please dont run with the biggest exhaust you can source you'll slow the exhaust rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

Usual exhaust restrictions can be located the catalysts installed, so adding a higher flowing race alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Problems and issues to look out for on the M272

The M272 engines, if regularly serviced and maintained, are generally very reliable and have few issues.

Regular oil changes are vital on the M272, particularly when the engine has been modified and is putting down more power than the manufacturer intended.

For more information on Tuning your M272 engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss tuning options in more detail with our M272 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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We really like hearing from our readers, and hearing about which tuning 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 M272 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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