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 Well I have went and done it now. I found a excellent
example of Mercedes answer to the M3......the C36. Like my M3, this is also a 1995
production (pre OBD II). It is black on black and has all of the options except the fold
down rear seats (don't know if I like the ASR, but at least I can turn it off!).
This picture shows the C36 with my newly installed H&R sport springs. The
factory 17" AMG wheels just did not fit this car too well. I am a firm believer
in chrome, so to augment the 18" chrome AMG wheels on my M3, guess what I
bought?
 Here is the C36 with 18x8 & 18x9 chrome AMG
monoblock II's. I had to wait until Dunlop came out with a SP9000 in a
255/35/18. Because of this Euro spec tire size there was not much of a
choice for tires. I got lucky that Dunlop decided to release the 255/35/18 just
around the time I was tire shopping (might of ended up with Pirelli P7000's again!)
The 18" wheels fit the car much better and the chrome accents the remaining chrome
trim on the car. AMG rolled the front inner fender lips to accommodate the 17"
wheels that the C36 came with. I was having some rubbing problems with the right
front so I finished what AMG started and rolled the remaining 2" of fender lip on
either side of the tire. This wheel/tire combo handles excellent. I am very
impressed with the SP9000's so far.
 This is a view from the front. I have removed
the license plate and its frame assembly. You will also notice that I removed the
hood star and replaced it with a flat Mercedes emblem from a SL. Since this picture,
I have painted the grill body color.
 Here
is a rear view of the C36. I thought about removing the C36 and AMG emblems to clean
up the look of the rear, but then people might think it is just a C280. I did
replace the one piece AMG emblem with the 1997 style AMG emblem that has the letters
separate (like the C36 emblem).
 This
is a Monday morning picture, with me deciding which car I want to drive.
 Just
a picture of me and my C36. (shown with the silver 17" wheels)
This is the first part of my
quest for more power with the C36. Since K&N does not make a drop
in filter for this car and the only after market air intake is from HKS, my
choices were limited. The HKS system
 uses
a aluminum tubing and places the cone filter inside the engine
compartment. As you know, sucking in large quantities of hot air
actually decreases performance and in combination with an aluminum air
intake tube, the air going into the engine was just to hot. So begins
the journey of constructing my own cold air intake. This picture shows
you what the front of the car looks like with no bumper. I wanted to
place the cone filter in the bumper away from the hot temperatures of the
engine compartment. Since this car has ducting to cool the brakes and
the stainless steel header, I could not mount the filter near the center of
the grill. I decided to remove the factory fog lights and mount the
cone filter in that area since it had the most available room. In the
left bottom portion of the picture, you can see a bit of the 3" thermo
temp tubing that I am using.
 This
is a view of the engine compartment with the airbox removed. The
thermo temp tubing will be connected to the end of the MFM using a rubber
3" to 2.75" adapter that I acquired from a Iceman cold air
intake.
 This
picture shows the area where the air box use to occupy. The hole that
you see may or may not have been cut by AMG, I am not sure. The
air box itself, has been modified by AMG and carries a AMG part
number. Near the bottom of the factory box, it looks like AMG added
an additional air intake (sort of like a ram air tube) to draw air from
the bumper area. Also, the throat into the factory air box was enlarged
to allow more air into the box. What ever the case, the opening into
the bumper area was already there and large enough for me to route the
3" thermo plastic tubing down through.
 This
view shows the newly installed Thermo-Temp tubing connected to the MFM and
routed through the opening in the engine compartment.
 In
this view, you see the Thermo-Temp tubing exiting the engine bay into the
area behind the bumper. The ducting just to the right, is for brake
cooling. Next to the brake cooling duct, is another duct to provide
cold air into the engine compartment, that duct blows cold air directly
onto the AMG SS header.
 Here
is the cone filter installed onto the end of the Thermo-Temp tubing.
I chose this style filter because it has the open end on it. The
filter is about 6" in diameter and almost the same in length.
Anything bigger and it would not fit in the available space.
 After
removal of the factory fog light, there was a perfect ram air effect
created. Since there is enough room in this area, if I do drive the
car in the rain, I can position the filter far back inside the bumper to
prevent water from getting
sucked into the intake. Most likely will make some sort of blocking
plate to keep water out of that area altogether. This mod
made a tremendous difference in the performance of the C36!
The next step in my quest
for better performance was to upgrade the braking of the C36. While
the C36 does have some of the best upgraded brakes right from AMG, there
is always room for improvement.
The factory front brakes
are a AMG modified 4 piston caliper with 12.75" vented rotors from
the SL600 (rears
are about 11.5" rotors with 2 piston calipers off of the E500).
The brake pads left allot to be desired and so did the rubber spongy brake
lines. The front brake lines were over 22" long, so I had Troutman
custom make some SS lines for me (Cost me $70.00 for all four w/teflon
inner linings, DOT approved. Awesome price!).
The brake pads were
another story altogether. The front brake pads also had to be custom
made. It seems that the 1995 C36 has different calipers than the
1996 and 1997 models. Mercedes Benz could not even provide me with
accurate FMSI numbers for these parts! I selected the street/track
compound (R4S) that Potterfield offers. While doing all of this, I decided
to have the entire brake system flushed and Motul Racing Synthetic was
added. WOW what a difference just these mods make! Stopping is
much quicker, no brake fade and no spongy feel to the brake
pedal.
 
Before and after shots
of the front brake lines.
 
Before and after shots of
the rear brakes. You can also see the H&R springs & AMG
modified Bilstein shocks in these pictures.
 
A couple of pictures of me racing at SIR
Mercedes Benz C36 Resources
1995
Mercedes Benz C36 MPG History
Mercedes Benz
C36 AMG Parts
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