Brabus applies brawn to Benz SL
Mercedes' new SL goes on sale in Australia this week, but German tuner Brabus has already created a hotter versionJust when Mercedes-AMG thought its SL63 was safely pounding away at high-powered Benz customers, along comes Brabus.
The northern German powerhouse has taken the standard Mercedes-Benz SL500 V8 and given it AMG levels of power and torque.
While AMG is Mercedes-Benz’s official go-faster shop and Brabus is its unofficial (and usually more extreme) one, the competition between the two is about to become fierce.
While AMG uses a 5.5-litre twin-turbocharged petrol V8, Brabus has chosen to work off the SL500’s smaller 4.7-litre twin-turbo V8.
The end result couldn’t be much closer, with Brabus extracting another 62kW of power and another 120Nm of torque from the SL500 powerplant.
Brabus has ended up with enough power (382kW) and torque (820Nm) to thump the SL500’s all-alloy chassis to 100km/h in 4.4 seconds and on to 300km/h in top speed.
By slashing 0.2 seconds off the SL500’s 0-100 acceleration number, Brabus has brought it perilously close to the more expensive SL63 AMG and its 4.3-second sprint.
Brabus has eked out so much power that the smaller engine now falls just 13kW shy of the larger AMG engine and actually tops its torque figure by 20Nm. The AMG, though, is available with an even more expensive Performance Pack that lifts its torque to 900Nm.
The battle of the Benz hotshops that led AMG to develop its own engine also led Brabus to instead tweak the living daylights out of the outside parts of the SL500 motor.
It has developed a kit called the Brabus B50-520 PowerXtra CGi which delivers a plug-and-play piggyback for the standard SL500 engine management computer.
It also increases the turbo boost pressure, adds new engine mapping and adds an auxiliary water-to-air intercooler to guarantee the delivery of colder, denser air into each cylinder.
Yet Brabus has also delivered different states of tune and its version of the SL500 is available with 250km/h, 275km/h and 300km/h top speeds, depending on the buyer’s budget.
Brabus has also tackled the sticky issue of the SL500’s stodgy handling by fitting it with its own 18-, 19- or 20-inch monoblock alloy wheels with either Continental, Pirelli or Yokohama rubber. In its fastest guise, the Brabus SL500 wears 255/30 ZR20 tyres up front and ultra-low-profile 295/25 ZR20 rear tyres.
It has also turned to Bilstien to develop new dampers, springs, bushes and even suspension geometry tweaks, though for the worst-handling SL500s with the Active Body Control, Brabus could only add its new electronic module to lower the ride height by 25mm. The handling package is topped off by a limited-slip differential with 40 per cent lock-up.
Visually, the Brabus SL500 scores the typical Brabus side air-vent and masculine rear wing, while a set of quad chromed exhaust outlets set off the back-end. While there’s a one-size-fits-all exhaust at the moment, Brabus is also working on a butterfly valve to give its SL500 customers the option of quiet and loud settings.
Read the latest news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at carsales' mobile site…
Please see our Editorial Guidelines & Code of Ethics (including for more information about sponsored content and paid events). The information published on this website is of a general nature only and doesn’t consider your particular circumstances or needs.
