Hi All, I am new to this forum, and wanted to post up about my Avant.
I have so far:
K04 (crazy good)
APR tune v.2 (excellent)
EC FMIC (I keep blowing off the coupler hose to the inlet of FMIC at the track, not happy)
GFB DV upgrade (Its good but can’t say I notice anything)
Carbonio CAI (sounds good)
R8 CP (told I should)
BB HFC (Suggested at install of K04)
AWE DP (added later, I wanted more. Meh)
H&R street coilovers (huge mistake, I track it, will get KW V3 or ?? later)
H&R Sway front and rear, front set to softest. (Still understeers a bit more than I like.)
StopTech 355 ST60R BBK (love, but need better pads still, the 309 is ok)
Slotted rotors rear (309 pads, rears pads gone after 3 track days)
Bridgestone RE71R (they are simply the best tire I have had on the car short of full R comps)
Alu Kruez chassis brace
Transmission brace (filler)
rear diff brace (fillers) Simple aluminum gizmo that fills the voids created by the factory for smoothness and quite.
The car is pretty good but after running a couple sessions on 100 octane race gas on APR’s 100 map (367hp) I am quite addicted. SO I am contemplating a methanol injection system. But it has to have failsafes!
I haven’t done any 1/4 mile times but I can tell you that on the track I have no problems over taking M3’s, S4’s, RS4s (all driver dependent of course) If I could tame the understeer more it would be that much quicker through the corners.
Welcome welcome. Its a close nit forum slowly growing but its absolutely packed with very technical and mechanical guys. Having a ko4 you will fit right in so welcome.
The v2 seemed to fix a bunch of issues that APR had with the V1. Its shown to be a great kit and typical great results from APR. Before you add any kind chemical injection I would suggest looking to make sure that you have the biggest IC on the market. Adding a chemical assistance is good but having the best IC unit is a much better and more impactfull piece to the cooling puzzle. I do agree tho if you get to the point that you need to add a chemical to the cooling system you want to make sure it has a long list of safe gards. There have been too many cases were you see pump over run issues and hydro lock results.
Welcome to the site. Interesting. Cory can has a similarly modded car (k04, exhaust, cooling, etc) . He has done extensive 1/4 mile testing and ran 12.8@106 I think as his best in that form. That’s on 94 octane on great da at a great track.
If you’re able to easily take s4/rs4/m3 it’s because the drivers suck. You should in fact be pretty similar (provided they’re stock
…and if they’re modded they should comfortably walk away) .
Cory found almost zero change on the updated tune interestingly (at the track… He did multiple passes on the previous k04 tune and multiple passes after. The b8 s4 guys are finding the same thing. We haven’t seen one Apr b8 s4 run faster on the new tune.
I think this illustrates why acceleration testing (which Apr did none of on the B8 A4) is far more important than a dyno number (which Apr loves to use for sales) .
P. S. I have a nearly bone stock B8 A4 avant the difference between Cory’s car and my car is MASSIVE. so it’s cool to see the Delta you can get out of the k04 and a tune.
I think “easily” is incorrect, I can keep up and depending on the driver the lighter motor allows me to brake a little later and get through the corners a little faster. But again its apples and avocados. Who’s driving and what setup do they have. When I do club events the bulk of the cars can’t keep up with me. This is not a serious statement and no insults are meant its just my observation. I love my car, I think its fast, I whip it like a track car. Especially on 100 octane race gas.
I still treat it like a momentum car (that it is). I am not sure of the weight differences between the A, S, and the R but the A drives lighter if that makes sense, at least it does to me. Your milage may very. ;D
Its 12 mins long, the camera mount was loose, sorry about that but you can see that the car is pretty fast compared to what is on the track that day. This with 100 octane fuel, and at a 120.oo for 10 gals it would not take long to get a pretty nice meth kit installed.
I’m talking about acceleration. You’re talking about road course. As I said, the driver is the biggest variable. Put a novice in his shiny $80,000 M3 and a skilled lapper in a 10 year old 323, and the 323 will give the M3 all it can handle.
Talking about acceleration, yes, the M3/RS4 would easily walk away from a B8 A4 with a K04. Look at the trap speeds if you want to see the answer. Stock M3/RS4 traps 108-110. Modded you’re looking at 112-115. The A4 is nowhere near those modded numbers and is still behind the stock numbers.
I run the 1/4 mile list here, so I get to see all of this data and have done so for years. If you have data that would tell me differently by all means share it. Of course you haven’t been to the dragstrip yet.
What does an A4 engine weigh? With turbo and intercooler (upgraded if you have one). I bet it’s not that different. The 4.2 engines are around 410 lbs. not that heavy really. Although stock B6 A4 vs. stock B7 S4 I could definitely spin the A4 a lot easier. Same chassis, similar everything but I could certainly feel it (I owned both cars at the same time).
I don’t imagine it’s a giant difference but 50-75 lbs is significant enough to change dynamics. When you add a huge intercooler and a bigger turbo it may change a bit.
Are any of the K04’s running a custom tune and meth injection? I would be interested in their experience with it.
It feels like its starting to get scary when talking about meth and tune, if the meth system fails… Aquamist supposedly has a fall back to wastegate boost only if the pump fails or goes dry.
If it can be installed with some protection, I am very interested in running it. I kind of wish APR would make a meth kit to go along with their tune\setup.
This is something that keeps grabbing people like a moth to light. The big draw is the thought that you can grab lots more hp. This has been something lots of turbo car guy have tried over the years. There hasnt been any gain. Sure you can find some random guy in the shadows that will say he can tune your car for meth but you alreay have the best tune there is. So it ends up being a step backwards in almost every case. Even the guys who do get the meth systems running well there really isnt big power that is ever had. Meth is great when you dont have a huge intercooler or your intercooler sucks.
What I would suggest. Is get some logs. Get some intake temp logs and try to sorce some stock intercooler log data vs ambient.
One of the columns we have in the 1/4 mile list here, with a few hundred entries for everything from B5 S4 to C7 RS7, is ‘ECU’ or tune. One thing that entering every single one of these things by hand has taught me is that custom tunes don’t make cars fast. All the custom tunes, and all the n e f lovers prove is that they saved themselves $600…and are nowhere near as fast as the off the shelf tunes from the best companies. I’m not knocking people for tuning their own car. Have at it. but if you want to be fast, and you want to spend your time on other things, hire a professional. Sure go install your own stuff, and work on your car. But tuning your own car to me seems a bit dodgy, and the results bear this out.
EPL offers custom tuning and B5 guys purport them to be geniuses. Geniuses only once JHM and VAST left the B5 scene. Why? because they were the only companies that sold with 1/4 mile slips and avoided the dyno. What does that mean? Once that burden of ACTUAL acceleration proof was gone (JHM moved on to focus on the 4.2, and VAST focused on going bankrupt) the B5 market was able to fuck around and sell everything with a dyno sheet.
The fastest ever EPL car is like the 30th fastest B5 S4 on our list. They have NEVER been fastest at anything, even though they’re hailed as genius custom tuners. The only thing they’re great at is hitting print on their in house, EPL controlled and calibrated dyno. They can make it say whatever they want, and they do. And without anyone there to demand acceleration proof, the B5 market got eaten alive by scam artists.
The B7 A4 was the same for 6 years. All dyno, no acceleration, and basically a bunch of slow fucking cars. JHM shows up and within a year has the fastest ever stock turbo car, and the fastest ever big turbo car. By a looooooooong way too. Why? because they measure themselves with actual acceleration, not the dyno. Now the kids in the B7 section are getting a bit smarter. They’re noticing they’re being scammed by everyone. They’re stepping up and demanding proof. It’s going to take time though.
The B8 S4 guys were IMMEDIATELY focused on demanding acceleration proof when the car was launched, which is great. The result? APR and GIAC have dominated because their tunes and pulleys make you fast. The dyno losers? Jconz/EPL/etc. selling dyno sheets are being laughed at and have sold 5 tunes between them, while GIAC and APR have sold 2000.
OK so stay away from Custom tunes, my APR tune includes a 100 octane mode and the local APR shop says I can run that with a decent meth setup and 91 pump gas. That would be idea if its safe and works. I understand that I would need to monitor the meth tank and would need to have some clear dash lights or other to let me know if the pump is on or ?? I don’t want to granade my motor, I am hoping to find another soul who’s added meth and is happy, if I can run the 100 mode reasonably safe, then I am in. I really wish that APR would make the meth kit, perhaps they are working on it…here’s to hoping.
I have to hands down agree with sakimano with the custom tune bull crap. A few bottom feeding companys tried to sell the 4.2 guys custom tunes and all that resulted in was slower cars and a few suckers paying extra for the words custom. but the custom tunes were as all the other custom tunes were a waste of money.
For track day you should know that higher octane full will actually do the same job as methonal but much much better and with the very strong effect of adding high performance.
Methonal is great but what i would suggest due to you not having a long list of options. is make sure to have a strong mix of methonal added to your window washer tank. That tank has a warning light when it gets low so you would know if your running low. just hook the pump up to that and you will be ok
