I am making this thread to document the ownership of my new (to me) 2007 Audi S8!
I picked it up today and am looking forward to digging in with my new daily driver. My 2001 Stage 3 B5 S4 is now finally going to enjoy retirement as a weekend cruiser.
I am so enthusiastic and excited about this S8 - the driving characteristics are everything my S4 is not: quiet, smooth, comfortable, automatic, and cold (aka working AC ). I am looking forward to enjoying each car for what they were built for. My current goals for the S8 are very simple. I want to refresh and maintain a reliable long distance commuter / road trip machine.
When I went to take a look at it / purchase, I ran a scan with my VCDS. Everything came out clean with no engine related codes. Readiness monitors all passed (aka no indication codes were recently cleared).
First things to address:
It sounds to me like there is a slight exhaust leak under the drivers side, I will have to take a look under the car and see if I can isolate. I suspect a flex pipe? Only noticeable when blipping the throttle around 1800 RPM.
Scan for misfires in VCDS wile WOT to see if there are any misfires which are simply not triggering a CEL. (This is just out of curiosity, the “butt dyno” is not setting off any alarm bells). I test drove a C6 S6 a few years ago that was not sorted at all. The S6 felt like it was asleep compared to the S8.
Bleed the brakes (any recommendation for the preferred brake fluid?) Anything special about bleeding our brakes?
Carbon clean/spacers + Manifold Inspection
Last carbon clean was a decade ago I am planning on getting the equipment to walnut blast it myself. While I am in there I would like to inspect the manifold flaps and install JHM Spacers.
After the carbon clean + spacers and having driven it around for a while / uncovered and fixed whatever rears its head, I would like to consider:
JHM ECU / TCU tune
SAI delete
Lightweight crank pulley - would love some feedback if this is a safe bolt on in the sense of retaining the smooth and comfortable luxury ride characteristics. The B5 S4 can have all the NVH in the world, but I am trying to play to the strengths of the S8. I read somewhere on here that one user reported the feel and smoothness of the ride was actually improved after installing the crank pulley. It seems like this is a win win in the HP and Comfort department, which is usually rare.
Final thoughts thinking out loud - I feel like my current goal of a smooth, comfortable, luxury daily driver will experience scope creep. What I mean by that is no doubt in some time I will want to have it all (quiet exhaust and a screaming V10). I know the proper exhaust setup and grail is headers and JHM catback, but I don’t see that in my future. Is it sacrilege to ask if members have used / had success with exhaust cutouts? Seems like an economical way to have it all (albeit no performance gains whatsoever).
Thanks for the read, I am excited to become inundated with the v10 and the D3 S8 platform as a whole!