APR R8:
Torquey
Quick
Amazing Sound
Heat soaked quickly
Surprisingly comfortable
Feel like the S4 in race mode would be close
APR RS7:
Deceivingly fast
Seems to accelerate faster in higher gears than lower
Fastest car I have ever been in
Stiff suspension in dynamic mode
You talking about Joe’s white R8, or ecs tuning?
Heat soaked quickly? Where does APR put the heat exchanger? Not very familiar with the kit.
I remember Audi/quattro tried running a TT R8 that caught fire due to heat. Must really be tricky in that engine bay (not sure how UGR does it - or if it’s even reliable).
The RS7 is crazy quick in stock form. Tuned is :o
It is the V8 R8, but it was 80+ out and you could tell after a bit of driving it was losing power. I didn’t walk around the car much so not sure where the heat exchanger is. Probably in rear ducts
The RS7 is the only car I have had to grab the “oh shit” bar as a passenger in.
Pretty sure the heat exchanger (for the water to air IC) is in the front. Joe has been driving his R8 at quite a few events recently and no issues. I’ll have to ask him if he’s been feeling power loss due to heat soak, but that’s never been mentioned before. Only issue he has had with the car was with the brakes fading on the end of the grattan straight. Switched to xp12’s and I think all is good.
Really nice guy fwiw
The R8 is a monster. Not sure if apr put the 1340 blowers on the R8 or just the bigger 1740 units. With all the hardware in the back it makes sense they would heat soak. Also after the rs4 blower issues they might have turned down the kit quite a bit. That would explain the s4 like performance.
Still a great car. Thanks for the quick review
There’s a guy in the Golden Gate Audi club with a blue V10 supercharged R8 that has a license plate “710 HP” or something like that. He doesn’t seem to have any issues.
The one I pictured above is a 1740 kit.
For whatever reason, obviously not logging, the R8 Def felt like it lost some umphh on the highway after flogging it, two different drivers mentioning same thing.
Don’t get me wrong, still fast, but we both noticed a slight decline in response and acceleration.
I still cannot believe the monster that is the RS7. We had a 458 with headers and straight exhaust, a 599 with exhaust, SLS with headers and a tune, and the R8. The RS7 felt faster than all of them.
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/07/14/a867b94b6262d5842a7ab1b50f770b91.jpg
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/07/14/38f634fe067bb858fb1c611e95a13d92.jpg
Pretty sure the 1740 kit has two heat exchangers. A larger one in the front, and a smaller one in the side duct.
an R8 with the little kit and running pump gas would be B8 S4 on racegas equivalent
an R8 with the 1740 kit would trounce an RS7 comfortably in almost any situation
so if it was a 1740 car, either something is terribly wrong with the car (not surprising as we’ve heard of a bunch of problems with the 1740 cars) or your ‘feels’ are not very reliable.
Not so sure you’re right about that. Per APR’s testing:
RS7 Stage I 93: 30-130 @ 9.654
R8 1740 93: 30-130 @ 10.491
Obviously this isn’t the best measurement but APR unfortunately doesn’t have any published 1/4 figures for the R8 1740.
https://www.goapr.com/products/stage3plus_r8_42fsi.html
http://www.goapr.com/products/ecu_upgrade_40tfsi_rs6rs7.html
The APR tuned RS7 was much faster than the supercharged R8, effortlessly.
My mistake I thought it was a stock RS7.
I’m going to test drive a Tesla 70D this weekend. I know it’s down on horsepower but I think it still makes like 750 ft/lb of instant fixed gear torque. The one I like is $74k net of tax breaks, which is about equivalent to an A7 or Macan.
Those things are rockets off of the line.
When I helped out the local Audi Club chapter, I was the exercise lead for braking and we had one show up for driver’s ed. Took off like a rocket. Just a quiet/silent rocket. Hahaha! It was amazing to see (just like the RS7 that showed up too)
I want to fall in love with the Tesla but I can’t. The 70D is an extremely throttle responsive car. The rolling 5-40 is crazy fast and instantaneous, even if you have to turn at a stop or hesitate for some other reason. But it moves forward with no violence and is easy to control, making the ludicrous speed not even seem wreckless. Take your foot off the throttle and it feels like you applied 25% braking force from the regenerative breaking. The cars come enabled with “creep mode” that moves the car forward at 3 MPH when you put it in drive. Consumers are so used to automatic transmissions that they prefer if the car starts moving. In a Tesla you drive the car with the throttle rather than the brake. For example, when driving into a twisty corner at speed you lift (to reduce speed) rather than touch the brake.
The downsides are it isn’t much quicker from 50-80 on the highway than a C400 Mercedes (underpowered V6 turbo) or the detuned turbo V8’s in the S6 and BMW 550. It feels adequate but it robs satisfaction from you as it starts hitting a wall at 80 MPH (where most German cars are just starting to get stupid fast at that MPH).
It’s probably the greatest road car of all time. I just think I’d still rather ride in a Macan which actually feels luxurious inside and use the $10,000 I saved to pay for gas. The Tesla is still a bit utilitarian and the touch screen has way too high a density of information for anyone driving to really deal with. The seats are really good now, though it does feel an inch too high in the lowest position. The cabin roof looks weird inside without the glass roof, kind of like a planetarium dome. Even the dark alcantara headliner doesn’t make it feel luxurious. It’s closer to Cadillac than S Class.
nice review west, hitting the wall at 80mph is a deal breaker for me. not to mention messing around with plugging in at home and at work, that is if a plug is left. There are so many guys at work with electric cars that they use up all the spaces and when they are charged, they move their car so someone else can charge up, sending emails to each other. seems silly to me. we are not out of gas yet, if we don’t use it up, the rest of the world will.
That was the argument I made about RS7 vs. P85D or heaven forbid the S6 which would be ridiculous. The one you railed against.