Working though some numbers, the 280 motor produces the more horse-power per liter of any MB motor (excluding Kompressors, turbo, and some AMG engines of course).

I find this to be a strange fact.

I think the only N/A motors that beat the 2.8l motor are the C43 motor (by a fraction) and or course the high output I6, AMG designed, C36 engine.

But add only 5 HP (easy to do) to the 280 motor and it has more HP per liter than the AMG C43 engine.


This is strange if you think about engine size and performance (2.8 beats the 2.6 also). Maybe 2.8 liters is the sweet spot for this design (of course, it's irrelevant to real world performance, if the cars weight doesn't change much and you add a bigger engine = more power = more speed). Someone did say that MBs three valve motors do not scale well. Can't wait for the Direct Injection line up and MB is going back to 4 valves per cylinder with these engines.



Now in the torque department…that's a different matter.