XYZ Racing Tarmac Rally Coilovers — Mercedes-Benz CLK C208 8CYL 1997-2002

The CLK C208’s V8 sits well forward of the front axle, and the W210-derived platform underneath was tuned for a fast road, not a closed stage – until you start asking it to hold a line over broken tarmac at rally pace. XYZ Racing’s Tarmac Rally coilover is built around that exact brief: control the way the M113 V8 loads the nose under braking into a hairpin, and keep the rear settled over the crests and compressions where a standard CLK squats and runs wide.

Where a road-biased kit soaks up a town-centre speed bump and calls it done, this set-up is tuned for the repeated, harder hits of a closed stage – kerbs clipped mid-corner, camber changes taken at speed, and compressions that arrive without warning on a road never surfaced for grip. It’s the spec for a CLK C208 owner running competitive tarmac rallies or rallysprints, not one polishing the car for a car park.

What this coilover does for your 1997-2002 Mercedes Benz CLK C208 8CYL

Fitted to the 8-cylinder C208, the biggest change you’ll feel is how the car settles rather than pitches when a stage surface breaks up beneath it. The damper absorbs the impact of bigger hits before it reaches the body, which stops the nose-heavy V8 layout from diving and wandering under braking into a stage’s technical sections. Suppressing that shock through the body is also what keeps the tyre loaded through the hit instead of skipping off it, so the traction you have on exit is the traction you had going in. Over a full stage that means a car which holds its line through direction changes rather than needing constant correction, and a chassis composed enough that you can commit to the next braking point without waiting for the last one to settle.

About the Tarmac Rally coilover

XYZ Racing built the Tarmac Rally line specifically for sealed-stage competition, where the surface is asphalt but rarely smooth – patched sections, ridges and camber changes that a fast-road coilover isn’t calibrated to deal with. Damping is set up to absorb the impact of uneven pavement and larger hits without passing that shock through the body, which is what keeps the tyres gripping rather than skipping across a rough patch. That shock control is aimed squarely at protecting tyre contact and traction, since a stage punishes a car that loses grip for even half a second at the wrong moment. The result is a chassis that stays stable and predictable stage after stage, and the settings behind it come directly from XYZ’s own Tarmac Rally competition programme rather than a bench guess at what a rally car needs. On the CLK C208, that means damping calibrated for a heavier, front-engined V8 coupe, which loads its suspension very differently to the lighter cars this discipline is usually built around.

Fitment for the Mercedes Benz CLK C208 (1997-2002)

This kit is specified for the Mercedes-Benz CLK C208 8-cylinder variant built between 1997 and 2002. Confirm your CLK is the C208 generation and the V8-engined build before ordering – damping and spring rates here are matched to that specific engine and chassis combination, not the four- or six-cylinder cars sharing the same body.

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Spec is set for the 8-cylinder CLK C208 built between 1997 and 2002 – configure yours below.