on my way back home from a friend's house yesterday, i notice a current model E55 AMG making its way through the light traffic behind me in a fairly spirited fashion. as that there are few european cars of this caliber in my area, i'm getting pretty excited. as he rolls past we both give each other the eye... yep, definitely an E55 AMG and the midle-aged fellow behind the wheel definitely wants to play!

traffic gets bunched up some by a couple of traffic lights on the way out of town, but he is still heading my direction as i pass my turn-off and stay close. a couple of miles down the road at the 460/604 intersection heading into Blue Ridge is where we finally get evened up at a traffic light. he nods and smiles, as do i, though mine is more of a nervous smile cuz i know i'm prolly gonna get beat.

left turn traffic goes light goes yellow and i bring up the rpms a bit against the brake and wait for my green... it comes and i roll into the throttle. we both get a good launch with me leaving just a fraction before he does. i get a bit of wheelspin at the top of first, but he has pulled a fender. i hit second and the car goes a bit sideways and spins for a second as he pulls to a full car. i catch traction and he keeps walking to the tune of another car by third. i keep it wfo and he keeps walking... damn! that fuggin thing is FAST for 4000+ lbs! i stay in it until he lets off which is around 110 mph for me and he has a good 4 cars on me and he is pulling on me pretty good. we both brake hard because it's a 55 mph zone and there are some minor intersections coming up. he drops to 55 and i come past him. the guy has this HUGE grin on his face and his eyes look like pie-plates. i give him a thumb's up and he returns it. the whole experience made my day!

 

good try, maybe if you had a stick you woulda had a better chance lol. Anyways I'm at tech, what color is your car, and by chance are you at tech?

 

2004+ Mercedes E55 AMG

Supercharged 5.5 liter v8

469hp, 516 torque, 12.5 @ 116

If I had money to burn, I'd have a car like that, or maybe one of the twin turbo v12 Benz offerings. Let's hear it for the lottery!

 

Owner of the shop I go to just bought a CL65, will be stopping shortly to go for a spin...

 

I was at the 1/8 mile one night watching an AMG55 run and comparing my times to it. I never got the opportunity to line up against him, but my times were faster than his. I was on drag radials so my ET was .2-.3 better, but I still trapped about 1 mph faster. Damn impressive cars.

 

Good death. Sounds like you gave it a worthy shot. Nice job.
Those benzs are nice !

 

thanks guys... those things haul major ***.

looks like it's time for start saving my money for those kooks long tubes, some 205cc afr heads, and rebuilding that used sy3500 i bought.

 

he trounced me pretty good. if only i woulda had the sy3500 in the car i might have been able to hold him off.

and yeah, i'm on tech and posted the story there. my user name there is RatherSideways and my icon is a pic of my red z28.

 

Good Death. Are those old times pre-cam or post-cam? I gained 3 tenths with the LS6 cam, so I'm thinking you are running in the 12.6-12.8. Still not enough to fend off the E55 but maybe you made him sweat it a bit.

 

those times were before i installed the ls6 cam. to tell the truth, i hung better than i though i was going to. spinning in second didn't help my cause at all, but he definitely put some room between us when i hit third gear. a4 third gear sucks.

i feel my current setup is good for a 12.6-12.7 at around 110-111 with good air on street tires. the ls6 cam pulls way harder than stock after 4500 rpm and i barely noticed any low rpm loss. zero driveability issues and minimum pcm tweaking (shift points, rev limiter), too. i like it!

 

It's not so bad losing to a brand new, way expensive, 469HP Mercedes. Could be worse.

Still not as cool as getting a little more game on under your hood and showing him some Detroit tailights, though. With my 383, cam, heads, etc I would feel pretty good about my chances with Mr AMG. Not a pushover, but I like my chances there. I know it's Neaderthal, but I absolutely love the look on the faces of the rich guys when my 10 year old Z28 'vertible (which looks extremely stock) spanks 'em.

It's that classic rich dude look in my rearview mirror that says, "But I spent nearly $100,000............my car HAS to be faster, doesn't it?" Funny, but I never get tired of seeing that look on their face. The cool ones are a blast when they pull up with a thumbs-up and want to know what just beat them. All good, clean fun. But I think the ones who act like spoiled babies and try to turn off quick so they don't have to look you in the face are even more fun. Those guys NEED to get toasted by an old Camaro. It's actually good for them.