Graham Rahal's Weistec Tuned Mercedes-Benz SLS Black Series - Jay Leno’s Garage

you just know 100 and fall the time in this fall that's very good I'm really good welp another episode of Jalen's garage the car featuring today a 2014 mercedes-benz SLS AMG Black Series this is one of the Goldwing coupes you know I've got my 1955 going that I really enjoy it's for my favorite cars and I have not driven this version so I'm excited to do it today this car we borrowed from our friend Graham Rahal the race car driver why do we pick this one well if you ever want to know what a race car driver drives on the street this is a good example because this one has been tastefully modified so to speak notice it says Weis Tech right up here let's meet Michael Wiese he is the president CEO the big guy the head cheese all that kind of little bit of everything a little bit everything good XJ thank you very much thanks for having me well you know I'm a huge mercedes-benz fan now from the factory this was a normally aspirated car what's 6.2 least six points you liter now transfer to v8 dual rear cam and what about what was it about 550 horse and a little bit more than that 620 I was 6 2009 at 8,000 rpm ok now this has been modified by you how so this has our SLS 825 package okay so it's supercharged long tube exhaust and everything that goes along with that to make 825 horsepower at the flywheel Wow okay now you go is it a bolt on Super Shot mean you go into pistons and cams and all that this is this is compatible with a stock vehicle so this is all stock motor but we do have packages where we go above and beyond we can put four drawers and pistons and and things like that but I've been VA 25 horsepower is what is on a stock motor it's not a stock motor leave it this way ok alright so 825 that's a 30% increase that's putting a 200 horsepower in see wonderful time to torque applied that's good and a few carbon fiber pieces that I don't if that stock on the elephant so everything on this car cosmetically is stock so the Black Series is a little bit wider core lower suspension carbon fiber hood carbon fiber torque tube slight repositioning of the transmission in the rear for weight distribution and this is this was the final edition or the sing-off of the SLS gull wing was this package you know I was at the AMG factory over there in Germany number years ago it's very impressive I mean it's that classic thing of each guy building an engine you know and and very slowly it's not one man one engine yeah I mean yeah it was it was fascinating to see how they do it and even though this is not an inexpensive car you must wonder how they can sell it for the price they do considering when you see the process involved on how much work it takes to do it properly I like these cars I have not driven the latest version of a Gullwing which has come and gone actually because this car is no longer in production no it's not so I think this will be a collector's car much like the original going it definitely will be and these has actually appreciated quite substantially since they were yeah they were in in production so how did it work that had did Graham come to you did you approach him so we've been building cars to Graham for a while now we built this car in 2014 four grand right when it came out and the great thing is a Graham started Graham Rahal performance so he is now a certified Weiss tech dealer so all these parts that we had that we normally shipped to our dealers around the world right whether it's supercharger systems turbocharger upgrade software now Graham's doing for his clientele in Indy and AMG and Mercedes they okay they give you a hard time by the amias not really we have we have a relationship with some people there and it's it's very symbiotic and AMG started in the same way that that ycx started right right of fiying something and it's kind of turn into what it is today and AMG is now a manufacturer itself yes much like roof and some of the others exactly could you do that in Germany if you prove that you are legitimate and you're making a real product and it goes through all the government safety standards you become a mass errection exactly here in America we just finished you just take out an ad thing you're building a supercar and you can sell anything I mean I'm amazed at the things people come by here to show me you know just keep cars it's a horrible thing this here Mustang 2 front end and yeah just yeah so in Germany it's a lot more strict you can't see UV regulation I think you can have a car with a dent in it in Germany if you have a smash or even if there's tires that are worn or winch wipers that are worn I believe there's certain spec shion's that you need to have for safety right right yeah yeah because I have I have Germans come here all the time a lot of German crews and like my dues and break chassis you cannot deny that up the street oh yes what you own America you drive industry is there like stunned they need to drive a chassis on the freeway well I saw the horseless carriage plate you had on some of these cars in here yeah exactly it's hilarious okay let's get back to this car it's certainly an impressive looking car I do like these very much and with eight hundred and eight hundred 25 or 25 horsepower okay pretty pretty amazing is it much lighter than the standard car it's about I believe 300 pounds lighter than the standard car and they get that from carbon fiber hood which is a massive hood I mean I don't think there's many cars that have a hood that's that long and the torque tube which is normally aluminum on a standard SLS it's all carbon fiber oh okay I'm standing can take that kind of torque off you can't yeah yeah let's open the hood let's take a look under this sure you know I think the biggest of fiberglass not carbon fiber piece in America for a long time was the Viper hood that was that with all the whole clam shell yeah the whole clam shell deal yeah well then it's a long hood isn't it more carbon fiber well that's a nice neat installation isn't it look at that and I like the Greenbelt just adds a little heavy duty yeah I go I guess that's true isn't it is that two throws it just it's a a drip a drip groove belt now what is this here it looks like some sort of engine mount shock absorber what is that sure so what they did on the SLS Black Series mg when with the carbon fiber torque tube they added a shock absorber to try to take this lateral load out of the drive line so with our supercharger system we need to run a belt straight up to get to the superchargers right here yeah right here so we manufactured a pretty complex bracketry system to incorporate that bracket and have all the OEM components that were shipped so normally this would bolt right to the block exactly but you had to make this bracket go around this way so you could get the super so you at the built in exactly I think okay very cool yeah well I took some thought it did so when this came out we had a production system for the standard SLS so we bring in an SLS Black Series and we start doing development and we realized oh there's little changes here and there so this J naught this vehicle but we had one more that we built for SEMA so we got the car and we had about three weeks to build the car for SEMA so a lot of this design work CNC was all done very last minute late hours to get get that the system developed and you have your own name right into the casting so everything you do the manifold and everything yep everything the inner core's and that's that's underneath the supercharger but it's it's a it's a Whipple screws and everything else that we manufacture okay and then you put your okay mm-hmm Wow okay well obviously that takes a lot of effort to do sure so everything we ever ething we do is design cnc manufactured in-house there's a large heat exchanger because it is an air to water intercooler so we have a large radiator of the front and underneath your hand on that side under that carbon there's a reservoir for water and so we kind of everything's hidden away and and and tucked in and the goal with anything that we do at Weiss Tech is an OEM fit and finish right to pop this hood and it looked like Mercedes and AMG built this car yeah well I mean this is very I mean it's impressive and it certainly gives a look and feel of quality just to have because it's not inexpensive to design and manufacture on a piece cancellous kind of pieces do you use a 3d printer when you make those we do have a 3d printer but but these are all sand cast so you know we go when we make production tooling yeah to manufacture all these and then but for mock-up for engineering we do we have a Faro arm we do a 3d scan of the engine of what the motor in and out we get all this data and then we go to the design side of things and the drivetrain can take this additional hot spot no problem it has and we this is this is our generic we shipped us around the world the tunes very candid safe although we do have instances where we can turn it up a bit and the drive line does hold it is it warranty we warranty our parts right so if anything happens to our parts we take care of it but we have a very low rate of any issue yeah so this is our even thing no it's so well integrated basically a bolt on piece isn't it because everything from supercharger down is stopped exactly so the long block is an AMG right we pull the the stock intake manifold off put our entire supercharger manifold and everything on and then normally this is a six rib but because we're going to a supercharger we put it we convert everything AC alternator crank pole everything's converted with components that we make two and a trip belt drives everything else can take the additional power and torque sure okay impressive how long have you guys been in business so I started the company and I started the company in late 2009 and we launched the first product in 2010 and I I was an AMG guy I was working in the American aftermarket I had a oh three e55 right and that was you know a game-changer for European performance and having you know the 5.5 liter compressors yeah I saw it when I was walking early I know how hard it is to manufacture for the automotive especially in California now is this one of these deals with this is a 49 state only car or so we manufacture products that are actually 50 state legal or the only people or company in our sector that's doing that from basic software to our stage one supercharger system and other things like that so this is our SLS 825 it's the race version has long tube exhaust it's for Graham Rahal a race car driver needs a race car we also have an SLS 750 which has a carb EO number it's 50 state legal and we sell that around the country to dealerships and also our dealers around the world and how much is the package what you have the car so the supercharger system is about 16,000 for this car right but then there's ancillary items and you can add that support that so it all depends on what kind of package the customer wants okay okay there's the customer buy the car then take it to you oh can I go to a dealer and buy this yes sir so we have mercedes-benz dealers and we have over 200 dealers worldwide that install and and purchased the products from us so our facility Anaheim California is our engineering manufacturer Development Center so we're we're so busy developing new products that we rely on our dealer network for installations Graham for example we built this for him because we have a relationship with Korean right but now Graham ray helped perform as he can he can purchase these products and stall for yeah I mean just the fact you don't get a cease and desist from mercedes-benz is very impressive yes we're doing okay there no I mean that is impressive and and you know you have to emphasize that because so many people do this get that hey wait a minute you know I've seen people try to do with Corvette and Ford you know they try latch on the name reproduce and boom they get shut down right away so the fact been doing this for 10 years is it's impressive tell us about the brakes the brakes are stock these are stock brakes to come on the Block series they are carbon ceramic brakes and this is kind of the the beginning of AMG and mercedes offering the carbon ceramic so they have some character they work really good when you get them hot but it is a race application so right that's a massive caliper its massive yeah how many piston is that it's a six piston six in front four in the back yes okay what is this car way you know 3,600 pounds really mm-hmm you know it's so funny it looks heavier to me you know if you put it next to a McLaren or even a Corvette or something I think the average person would think this would weigh more but it's actually comparable pretty light yeah I mean your 300sl is what 3,300 pounds it's a pretty heavy car for how small it is yeah probably probably yeah and and substantial too you've got all the you gotta have the eight pillar and all of that and one of the interesting things about the SLS in general is that if you were to roll this car over there's no way to get out of the car so AMG designed explosive bolts that hold the hinge so if you do roll over the door blows off so you can get out of the car you know what my Countach when I got it it came a little hammer so if you rolled the car over you could take the hammer and smash an emergency break glass cause now you where's my little hammer oh they got hilarious yeah I like the explosive bolts yeah that's a very James Bond you roll all over boom and you know that's where else could we go anything different near the rear of the vehicle here so the rear wing is added for the Black Series okay is this Mercedes Black Series is this you this is Mercedes Black Series okay and so is the rear diffuser and heat extraction because the bumper and the fenders are wider same thing with the front the extraction from the round wheels okay and they got you supercharging supercharged of the supercharged twice X supercharged see how we take that off just to throw people make a sleeper right yeah make a sleeper out of it yeah although once you once you see how loud this is it's not really a sleeper yeah I guess that's true but this was or is I guess was they don't make anymore a really fast car just from the factory AMC black I mean it was comparable with anything that was out there at the time yes especially on a race track yeah I mean I've got an SLR and that's six was that 617 horse this is what stock this is 622 622 so basically this thing yeah yeah but it is different this is revving to 8,000 the five and a half liter on the supercharged bares a little lower rpm so it's a different power band and feel right right okay well it's very impressive can we take it for a ride sure let's do it let's do it it's an electronic parking brake so if you give a little bit of gas [Music] it's a bit tank commander in here you know you feel that that sort of yes hi widow mine yeah yeah you can't do this so traction control will probably kick in until you get through the first gear right a little photo and then oh that's the other big difference between a car like this - Kurt - the SLR the traction control systems are just dramatically nowadays they'll be able to put down so we actually had a way stack the world record for the fastest mercedes-benz oh is that right no what is what is the fastest Mercedes man so it's a 2008 CLK black series right very common motor to this and steed the non try stuff to let some version of this motor 6.2 liter right with our supercharger system similar to this but a little bit more bills and whistles and upgrades now why would you go with a wet sump motor why not a dry someone well you know just going going and in that chassis it comes natively with the nuts tell me about the exhaust system so this is our 2 inch primary 4 2 1 right tube headers it's 304 stainless steel and 2 inch primary and this is coupling to the factory titanium from catback exhaust which is about right about here in the center console now see that actually feels like a number of people have come here and tell me what we're making a thousand horsepower and I Drive it and I go this really feels like 550 600 you know people just throw these numbers around this actually feels like it actually has the number and we under radar numbers nine times out of ten we're doing on ninety-one art a California punk ass ride and this is to plug the dual clutch transmission to look closer at track seven speed I get the set for the talked number and now and I just I don't know it feels like a truck it just feels like a car from the 60 you know yeah there's no seamlessness to it you know that's very good it's addicting really good as it is so good you cannot get more power out of them you know I saw this happen it's out of two the stereo industry effort the first thing people live under bought a new car they take it to Ed and Al's auto and they put it in whatever the big Alpine or whatever it is and then of course the the factory original equipment stuff became so good they were all out of business and it's so integrated yeah to remove something that's built in like this is so difficult yeah it's not single or double din yeah plus to me I find that like aftermarket exhaust it doesn't even seem like there any that are better than what the factory guys are getting that's true but the nice thing about this is you know when you start with a product that's over built to begin with adding a little more power doesn't throw it out of whack it takes it well we really feel the powers when you get in that little bit over here you can stretch its legs yeah can only do so much it's not much top road you can legally use this thing huh no not here at least is there that fear for you that the factory this Michael use this idea and come up with Road superchargers I think it sort of stuck you know sure I mean they're very capable and if they wanted to do this they could write I think with just the way that things are and the limit that they can go to you there's always that a little bit extra right I can't be like why stuff you do right are you primarily European cars that you new Corvettes Mustangs the European so we started with Mercedes that we have the fastest Mercedes in the world you get you out to McLaren BMW oh you didn't tell me what the speed once of the fastest Mercedes also that car a quarter-mile 91 at 155 wow that's a street-legal car and that's a street car we have another car we're about to launch and that car is going to be 2,000 horsepower it's a full 25 5 rollcage drag car and that should be a 7 6 second car Wow so that should be later on this year will be lowering the bar but everybody else is raising the bar so you're lowering the money and time you got a little get it drop the time so getting it time lower isn't that raising the bar or is that lowering its own goal you wanna my favorite Mercedes I haven't sitting over there is my stinky 6.3 the first time they put the big v8 into the I love that car oh I just love that car I love the Finn doors you know I love the not claustrophobic feel you know the open you get the sunroof you got the big blind windows you got the thin a filler yeah long wheelbase the big rear windows yeah you'll be dead in a week of course that's okay we'll do it in style yeah do it in style that's right so the car you build it's the world's faster for Sadie's I've got a 2002 he 55 and yours a 2003 right so it's basically the same car the first year the first car that I had that kind of started my my love affair with Mercedes AMG European performance was in 2003 e55 right and that was the first year that had the compressor motor so factory supercharged right and that was a good year I feel like you had these supercharged cobras from the factory you had this really fast mercedes-benz sedan with all these factories you can charge options and it was just the power that you could have with the comfort with the reliability you like simple jogging better than turbo charging I'm a turbofan now that now that we're progressing down that road and technology's changed and I know we do what we manufacture all of our turbo upgrades and house for all the newer platforms but when you're looking at an entry aspirated motor that you're you want to have one upgrade that fits in every different chassis because mercedes-benz foots with a 6.2 liter the 63 motor in ten different chassis right so the exhaust is all different how to make all that work whereas the supercharger intake manifold it's very common its water at the same I wanted to take to drive a supercharger I'm guessing 20 horsepower a little bit more than that it depends on pressure ratios and things like that on what stage we're working at like when you say 825 horsepower is that do I in my mind to death 25 horsepower is it driving a supercharger where's that with the because we're measuring so what we're really doing is we're taking we're dialing this car on a chassis dynamic guy middle number and then we're we're adding back the driveline loss image of the transmission at driveline Ryan so that number is after it's powering the Superbird okay some ancient dinos they'll rate the flywheel horsepower with no alternator in the water poem right but this is with everything being driven all the accessories dumb question is your alternator spinning faster because you have a supercharger on it so although we changed all the pulleys from a six rib to an eighth rib diameter of all the pulleys are the same as stock okay so crank pulley also had water from petroleum diameters so we're not over driving right okay that's asking oh you just know 100 to fall the time in this that's where it likes to live at 100 it's amazing how it lightens up its speed the fancy got the more nimble it feels you know it does and I think that's arrow I think that's this this job tuning I assume the 750 model is the most popular upgrade sure so the 750 is you know there's certain things that we can't do and that's still very fast but that has om exhaust i stock injectors this has larger injectors but in order to have something like this actually be 50 state legal fee I mean this is a wonderful car like I say you start with a basically excellent product and they just fine-tune it you know it's this is the the best integrated tuna car so certainly one of the best we've had on the show it just feels original equipment it feels like it actually has the claim horsepower that it does most cars don't because you know the claimed horsepower has done on some kind of special gas and tuned up to the hills and everything else and then the real world is that one's a lot slower sure but this feels like eight the corner so we ship these products around the world and you never know in Asia or what part of the world what castes are pretty rare and they're gonna put on the dyno and they're gonna say you sold me something that's doing what your advertiser it's not so power levels and transparency is very important for us well Michael thank you for bringing that I'm very impressed I mean I love where say these products anyway and the fact that you've integrated its so nicely and I keep saying this but it does feel like original equipment I mean it feels like it's a part of the car doesn't feel like it's an add-on so congratulations I'm sure you're gonna be very key that's what with this business so they check out the website and if you got one of these you need a few extra horsepower thank you see you guys next week [Music]

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 543,660

Rating: 4.9093904 out of 5

Keywords: Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Mercedes-Benz, Weistec, Michael Weis, supercharged, IndyCar, Whipple, Black Series, carbon fiber, racing, 6.2L, V8, 825HP, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, episode, motorcycle, ford, corvette, tour, dodge, lexus

Id: t9N8qratGks

Length: 25min 43sec (1543 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 20 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/MDA123]

I like how nonchalant Jay is when hammering an 825 hp monster like this lol. He has the same look on his face that my dad does when trying to read the menu in a dark restaurant without his reading glasses.

[u/left_turn_signal]

I like how he dodged the warranty question....Seems like stupid idea to mod the black series considering stock black series has appreciated in value by a lot.