MENUMercedes OM607 Tuning
"All you need to know about tuning the Mercedes OM607 engine!"
Now we shall provide a guide to OM607 tuning and provide tips on the optimum mods that work.
With well over 10 million units of the OM607/K9K engine sold there is good support for tuning them and plenty of parts around.
Mercedes OM607 are popular tuning projects and with the best uprated parts like remapping, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will definitely enhance your driving enjoyment.
History, Power & Specs of the OM607 Engine
The OM607 was a Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance project based on Renaults K9K engine
K9K 846 / OM 607 DE 15 LA
110 hp (82 kW)
Dacia Lodgy
Renault Mégane (IV)
Renault Kadjar
Renault Scénic (IV)
Mercedes-Benz A-Class; Mercedes-Benz B-Class; Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class (as A/B/CLA 180 CDI)
Infiniti Q30; Mercedes-Benz Citan
K9K 608 / 609 / OM 607 DE 15 LA
90 hp (67 kW)
Renault Clio; Renault Captur
Nissan Note (E12); Nissan Micra (V)
Mercedes-Benz A-Class; Mercedes-Benz B-Class (as A/B 160 CDI )
Tuning the Mercedes OM607 and best OM607 performance parts.
Best OM607 tuning parts
Just because particular modifications are appear in lots of OM607 projects it doesn't mean its worth having, so we'll focus our attention and tuning advice on the specific modifications and upgrades that will give your OM607 the best power gain for you spend.
Altering your OM607 cam will make a dramatic difference to the engine torque. Choosing a higher performance cam profile raises the torque accordingly.
Fast road camshafts commonly increase the torque through the rpm range, you may lose a little low end power but higher rpm power will improve.
Motorsport and race camshafts, increase the higher rpm power band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.
A Motorsport and race cam will just annoy you whilst driving in heavy traffic.
You should ideally match your torque band to your cars usage so for a daily driver stick with a fast road OM607 cam
Each engine responds better to mild camshaft durations so view each engine as unique.
The ecu map and fuelling also will say much on the torque gains you'll make.
Altering valve durations can alter the torque band and on most engines the exhaust and intake durations do not need to match, although most cams and tuners use matched pairs there are some advantages to extending the intake or exhaust durations.
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Best Engine Mods for your car
- Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings, aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
- Fast road cams are one of the most significant mechanical changes, but they must be installed by someone who knows what they're doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
- Intake and Exhaust - Note that on their own these mods will NOT ADD POWER in most cases, but they can help enhance power after other mods by removing the restriction.
- Upgrades to turbochargers and superchargers - forced induction is the most efficient approach to increase air supply, allowing you to burn more fuel and make more power. It is one of the most costly upgrades but provides the best gains.
- Head work - The goals of porting and flowing the head are to get air flowing into the engine while removing flow restrictions and turbulence.
Typical stage 1 mods often include:
Panel air filters, Fast road camshaft, drilled & smoothed airbox, Intake manifolds, Remaps/piggy back ECU, Sports exhaust header/manifold.
Typical stage 2 mods often include:
induction kit, Ported and polished head, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust, high flow fuel injectors, Fast road cam, fuel pump upgrades.
Typical stage 3 mods often include:
Competition cam, Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Engine balancing & blueprinting, Twin charging conversions, Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger).
A remap should help to unlock the full potential of all the mods you've done to your OM607.
(In some cases, as the factory ECU is locked flashing is not an option, so an aftermarket ECU is the route to take, and many of these will outperform factory ECU's but make sure it has knock protection and that you get it setup properly.)
It will usually give you around 30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NA (naturally aspirated) engines, but your mileage often differs on the mods you've fitted and the condition of your engine.
Pushing fuel and air into your OM607 is the aim to any car tuning project.
Intake flow the air during the suck phase from the filter and allow it to be sucked into the engine and mixed with fuel.
Design and flow rate of the Intake manifold can make a large change to fuel engine efficiency on the OM607.
On popular production engines intake manifolds are ripe for aftermarket tuning parts, although a few makers provide well optimised intake manifolds.
Larger OM607 valves, doing a bit of 3 or 5 angle valve jobs and porting and head flowing will also raise bhp and torque, and as an added benefit will give you increasing the bhp and torque increase on other parts.
OM607 Turbo upgrades
NA (naturally aspirated) engines need quite a lot of work when you add a turbo, so we have a separate guide to help you take into account the pros and cons of going this route on your OM607
The more air you can get into an engine, the more fuel it can burn and uprating the induction with a turbocharger upgrade makes massive power gains.
When your car is turbo charged modifications are relatively easy and most turbo charged engines are built with strengthened components.
However you'll find engines have limits.Research these limitations and fit stronger pistons, crank and engine components to handle the power.
It's not unheard of mechanics spending a a stack of money on turbo charger upgrades on the OM607 only to suffer the humiliation of seeing the engine block explode when it's been enthusiastically driven.
Larger upgraded turbo chargers tend to experience low end lag, and smaller turbo chargers spool up more quickly but do not have the peak rpm torque gains.
Thanks to progress the range of turbochargers is always moving on and we commonly find variable vane turbochargers, where the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end bhp and torque.
Twin scroll turbochargers divert the exhaust flow into a couple of channels and feed these at differently angled vanes in the turbo. They also increase the scavenging effect of the engine.
It is not unusual that there is a limit in the air flow sensor AFM/MAF on the OM607 when loads more air is being drawn into the engine.
We see 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor sapped bhp and torque at a much lower level.
Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large performance gains, although more complex to install. We have this feature on twinchargers if you want to read more.
Fuelling
Don't omit to ramp up the fuel delivery when you are increasing the torque - it makes the car more thirsty. 
We strongly recommend you to be generous with your injector capacity.
As a rule of thumb add 20% capacity when buying an injector, this takes into account injector deterioration and gives a little spare capacity should the engine require more fuel.
We think this one is common sense, but you'll need to match your fuel injector to the type of fuel your car uses as well.
OM607 Performance Exhausts
You should look to increase your exhaust if your current exhaust is creating a flow problem.
On most factory exhausts you'll find the exhaust flow rate is ok even on modest power gains, but when you start pushing up the power levels you will need to get a better flowing exhaust.
Don't go with the largest exhaust you can source you'll reduce the exhaust flow rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.
Common exhaust restrictions can be located the emissions filters installed, so adding a higher flowing race alternative such as a sports catalyst pretty much removes this restriction, thanks to it's larger size and surface area, and will effectively raise the performance to levels you would expect without having a catalyst installed, but keeps the car road legal.
Weak spots, Issues & problem areas on the OM607
The OM607 engines are generally reliable and solid units, as long as you follow the manufacturers service schedules, and use a good quality oil to ensure longevity. Few problems should happen as long as they are regularly serviced and maintained.
Carbon build up in the head, particularly around the valves which will sap power or create flat spots, this is a larger issue on direct injection engines but should be looked out for on all engines. We have tips on removing carbon build up.
Some of our members have had issues with flat spots or glitches after applying mods and upgrades or tuning, this is not usually related to this engines design, so instead see our article on diagnosing flat spots and problems after tuning which should help you get the bottom of this issue.
Regular oil changes are vital on the OM607, especially when tuned and will help extend the life and reliability of the engine.
If you would like to know more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your OM607 engine please join us in our car forums where you can discuss OM607 tuning options in more detail with our OM607 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Mercedes tuning articles to get insights into each modification and how effective they will be for your car.
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