300sd take off speed

Your car has a four speed transmission. First gear is engaged only at a full stop, not 3 mph. Or at a full stop, one can shift into first by placing the shifter into L and taking off, briefly upshift to S and then immediately shift back to L to hold second gear, then back to S for third and D for fourth. The point of all this is to ensure that your car is using all of its four gears.

The second aspect is the accelerator linkage - a poorly adjusted linkage will make the most willing engine a slug. With the engine OFF, have an assistant sit in the car and operate the accelerator. Your assistant should floor the accelerator, you watch the linkage and observe if the linkage achieves its full throttle stop (look behind the injection pump, use a flashlight) if not, the linkage needs to be adjusted.

You can try this, but keep notes as to what you do so the original settings can be restored. I found the pressure rod (between the fire wall and the linkage on the engine) to be the most sensitive - there's a pressure rod connection with an adjustment bolt near the fire wall - open the bolt and put the linkage under some pressure, not slack. tighten the bolt and test drive the car - it won't be a Porsche, but should be better.

You don't say which year 300SD you own. Earlier cars were pretty simple, later model years have some vacuum connections to control the turbo's wastegate etc. that may be dirty and / or leaking so that's something to look at as well if your car is of the later vintage.

You should also know that a diesel, due to its relatively heavy internal parts, is more of a draft horse than a race horse. This car has a 0 - 60 acceleration time of about 13 - 14 seconds, adequate for most driving, but certainly not fast by today's standards. And that's how it is.

Beautifully formatted post! Anyways, is it a bad idea to be heavy on the accelerator in an '85 300SD? Can these engines and transmission take a "bagging" ? :-)

cp

Re: 300sd take off speed

Beautifully formatted post! Anyways, is it a bad idea to be heavy on the accelerator in an '85 300SD? Can these engines and transmission take a "bagging" ? :-) cp xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx i tried to kill my 240 but could not

both my 300SDs are still out there. ME in the 82 with 250,000 on it

my 84 i still see from time to time. sold that one.

i am not telling you to hold it in gear and wind it up but you can mash that baby to its top speed in drive and it will love you for it.

case

the case, minus a few cans!

They don't call it an italian "Tune Up" for nothin... floor that puppy and clean the carbon out.

By the way, another thing to check is the ALDA (yours is a OM617, right?) which controls fuel/boost. My car was a dog off the line (OM603) and adjusting the alda to it's best makes me beat all the "rice rockets" from the light now.

Mike

I love OM603s. Happy as can be "all wound up" under full load for hours at a time. It may max out at 129mph but I'm tellin ya, 125mph and that car is happy as can be.

Mike

Thank you for the information. I will take a look soon. Sandman

THAT's what I need then! :-)

NICE!

Huh! Mine goes 120+MPH no problem! Though I don't think it was meant for this speed... cp

errrr I hear mechanics say all the time that "italian tune ups" are BAD!

:-) they're probably lost in that diesel cloud!!

the car is 1984sd