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Fastest you have driven your W116

Started by foss, 19 March 2011, 06:23 AM

johnnyw116

the fastest i have driven was 220 km on the speedo with my 280SE but the speedo lies a bit offcourse , i passed with my luck a speed control car who was standing in the bushes i didnt saw and after correction my speed was 206 km not bad for a 280SE ! but the result was 6 months driving suspension problems for getting my car back and 2 weeks in jail visiting some old friends there  ;) 
JohnnyW116

Big_Richard

Quote from: johnnyw116 on 28 March 2011, 01:24 PM
the fastest i have driven was 220 km on the speedo with my 280SE but the speedo lies a bit offcourse , i passed with my luck a speed control car who was standing in the bushes i didnt saw and after correction my speed was 206 km not bad for a 280SE ! but the result was 6 months driving suspension problems for getting my car back and 2 weeks in jail visiting some old friends there  ;) 

Thats very naughty Johnny, but pretty funny at the same time  8)

EDZ649

I did 110mph in the W116. I did take my W210 E55 off the clock once @ 160mph, it was amazing how quick it got there and even more amazing how quick it stopped.  ;)

thysonsacclaim

Hahaha. Well if you've got the ability, sometimes it's hard to not indulge here or there, huh?

Drive on guys. I like to speed when no ones around, all the windows down, catching a fine autumn breeze personally. All of my other cars had sunroofs for that purpose. I somewhat miss having one, but I think it might be more trouble to deal with than it's worth.


Cheers all

Casey

This is one reason that I prefer the diesels - I always push my cars to the limits, so prefer my limits to be reasonably lower. ;)

skatinblind815

110 miles per hour in my '78 450 SEL. It got to that speed surprisingly quick. And it still felt GLUED to the road.. I had a Mercedes hard-on for the rest of the day. ;)

Casey

Now that I actually *have* a W116, I have a real answer.  Sort of.

Tonight in my 300SD I got to 85mph a few times.  I am pretty sure I was going a bit faster than that, but that's the mechanical limit of the speedometer, so I stopped trying to go any faster.  I guess I'll have to borrow my girl's GPS to get a more accurate indication of how fast it can go.

I got some noise around the driver door kicking in somewhere around the 85mph mark, presumably due to original rubber door seals in dire need of replacing.  Other than that, it ran so smooth and controlled that when I tried it with a passenger (with the radio up to cancel out the door noise) they didn't even know I wasn't doing 70 until I pointed out that the car went faster than the speedometer's limit.

So I'm kind of tempted to swap out the speedo for one that goes to 120 or something...

1980sdga

The 79 SD's came with a 120mph speedo.  I believe the 85mph speedo was a US requirement. Evidently passenger side mirrors weren't  ::)

I'll have to look. Did you get one?

john6007

I grew up thinking it was mandatory that you would check how fast any car would do? fortunately I didn't get any fast driving awards when attempting this. Later in life I have settled a little.
The 450 has seen North of 180 and seemed like there was a little left in the tank.
Sort of cheating, but I've done 300+ fairly low down a runway (in a plane).
ps I'm in Australia so speed is metric
79 - 450SEL 6.9 #5628 &  #6466, 92 - 300CE-24, 98 - MX-5, 89 - Ducati 906 Paso

Casey

#39
Quote from: 1980sdga on 30 April 2011, 12:55 AM
The 79 SD's came with a 120mph speedo.  I believe the 85mph speedo was a US requirement. Evidently passenger side mirrors weren't  ::)

I'll have to look. Did you get one?

Good to know - I'll have to hunt up a 120mph speedo at some point for sure then.  I *do* have a passenger side mirror, but mirror glass on both sides has some spotting.  I'm contemplating changing out the passenger side one for one with power adjustment eventually.

Mine's an '80.

Squiggle Dog

1980 300SDs have the 85 MPH speedometer. 1978 and 1979 have the 120 MPH. They also don't have sunroofs except for very rare instances (like mine). The speedometer maxing out at 85 MPH is laughable, especially when the car can do 103 MPH or so, but then again I doubt I will ever have the need or desire to drive mine faster than 85 MPH!
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1967 W110 Universal Wagon, Euro, Turbo Diesel, Tail Fins, 4 Speed Manual Column Shift, A/C
1980 W116 300SD Turbo Diesel, DB479 Walnut Brown, Sunroof, Heated Seats, 350,000+

Casey

Quote from: Squiggle Dog on 30 April 2011, 10:45 AM
1980 300SDs have the 85 MPH speedometer. 1978 and 1979 have the 120 MPH. They also don't have sunroofs except for very rare instances (like mine).

Really??  I guess I'm very lucky then - I specifically wanted a 1980, and I got a sunroof!

1980sdga

Quote from: Raptelan on 30 April 2011, 11:40 AM
Quote from: Squiggle Dog on 30 April 2011, 10:45 AM
1980 300SDs have the 85 MPH speedometer. 1978 and 1979 have the 120 MPH. They also don't have sunroofs except for very rare instances (like mine).

Really??  I guess I'm very lucky then - I specifically wanted a 1980, and I got a sunroof!

Any reason you wanted an '80?  I was looking mainly for a '79 because of the non egr engine and the 120mph speedo.   I never see '78's so I suppose there weren't many imported that year.  Oh yea, I have 2, 1980's and neither have sunroofs.

I too would love a 120 mph speedo but I think it would screw with the cars history too much!  One of my cars has 220,000 miles on the speedo but it had a piece of masking tape on the back that had "1980 SD" written on it.  It also came with a title that had "mileage exempt" on it. (Alabama) I have NO IDEA how many miles are on it!  It runs really sweet and has good power but it leaks bad  ::)

Casey

Quote from: 1980sdga on 01 May 2011, 09:32 PM
Any reason you wanted an '80?

From Wikipedia:

Max. Power @ rpm:
1979: 110 bhp (82 kW; 112 PS) @ 4200
1980: 120 bhp (89 kW; 122 PS) @ 4350

...plus I figured there might be other minor fixes and improvements year by year.
...and it's nice to have the last model year.
...and I was born in 1980. ;)

Quote
I was looking mainly for a '79 because of the non egr engine and the 120mph speedo.

Glad I got lucky with the non-EGR too.  Though I guess you could always remove it.

I too would love a 120 mph speedo but I think it would screw with the cars history too much!

I'm definitely going to go to a 120 mph speedo.  I looked online today at odometer repair instructions (mine has registered 0.9 miles since I bought it), and it appears that I'll have to do all the work required to replace the speedo during that process anyways, so I intend to do both at once, and probably install a zebrano instrument cluster cover in the same go.  My intention is not to preserve the exact car as it was sold in 1980, but to craft it into the most perfect Mercedes in existence over time (from my perspective, of course).

I don't know the true mileage on mine either.  But that's okay...I just want the odometer working for tracking when I need oil changes easier, etc.  I had the speedometer cable (which also powers the odometer) repaired on my 1976 240D twice, and it never worked on my 1986 300D.  Speaking of things you never see (like the 1978 300SD), you'll be hard pressed to find a 1986 300D, too.  It was a greymarket import, and similar to the 1987 but lacked the turbo.

1980sdga

If my odometer stopped working I'd probably go back with a 120.  The 85 actually bothers me quite a bit  :-\  I'll have to look and see if the 120's have the orange "55". That bugs me as well  :P

I was almost seduced by the 300SDL  :o but the 903 engine had me spooked. Probably a good engine but it looks like they had some issues.  I would REALLY like to have headlight wipers on mine  ;D ;D  I'd have to do the euro headlights and change the engine air intake as well. There are also the vents under the passenger side headlight to deal with...   Oh well...

I drove about 130 miles today in the SD and enjoyed every mile!