JCviggen's misano B7 RS4 - work in progress

B6/7 S4/RS4
#1

Hello everyone.

I’ve registered here because this board struck me as the most technically minded without too much BS. Hopefully my initial impressions will turn out to be correct ;D

Anyway. Long story long:

I’ve bought a B7 RS4. In Moscow, Russia. I work and live here even if I’m Belgian originally. The mere fact that I bought it in Russia complicates things a little, insofar that you don’t have many used RS4s to choose from and none of them are likely to be in perfect condition. I also have a C5 RS6 which I’ve been driving for the past 4 years so I’m no stranger to all the faults and aggravation that is part of owning these things.

I had been looking at 997 turbos but the local currency collapsing led to all the good ones being snapped up before I had the funds available, and now they’re somewhat overinflated. So I went to plan B of getting a B7 RS4 I had always wanted as a “fun” car with the future purpose of turning it into a Nordschleife-going track car when I’m visiting home. Until then I’ll use it for regular stuff here in Moscow.

I figure it should be good fun to have a high revving NA on track, and back in the day with my turbo volvo blowing off boost hoses and other turbo issues on track did get on my nerves. It’s also very drivable in the wet, which is a bonus given the climate there. Maybe I’ll fit some KW v3, take all the seats out and replace them with light racing buckets. Add some proper brake pads on 380mm rotors and it should be a capable car to both use as a track vehicle and a daily driver when I’m visiting home. Of course the precats will get ditched and a suitable map flashed into it but I’m not totally sold on aftermarket exhausts yet.

So I test drove a blue B7 which had a nice owner and had bucket seats but it was slow with a capital S. I knew this could be caused by some pretty basic little things but it didn’t sit well with me anyway. Tested the red one sans buckets (from the passenger seat, something of a mistake but OK) and it performed how I expected a fairly healthy RS4 to perform. So I bought that one. Also because its paint was nice and new and the owner had even gone so far to replace the headlights, grille and fogs because the old ones were faded. He gave me the old ones by the way, undamaged. So I might sell them for a few bucks at some point.

Of course, it did have some issues. For a start it would go into limp mode after a getting on it a couple of times and it was triggering EPC, MIL and ESP warning lights in various combinations. I had my mechanic look at it over the new year holidays, and I brought a new MAF with me from Europe just in case. Just before I was coming back it was diagnosed with a faulty throttle body causing most of the problems. I didn’t have time to get a new one on the plane with me, but found a used one to tie me over. It also got new spark plugs (though they fitted Bosch made 101905631H, not the exact p/n for the RS4 but apparently an alternative) and 8 new COPs. Those seemed excessive to me given the circumstances but hey.

Anyway, after maintenance it performs as a stock car should and it’s not throwing any codes anymore. It did the 3-8K “Arthur” test in 7.95s on the tach and 8.25s in VCDS. I only did it once because conditions were less than ideal. It was very cold (about -8C) and the roads were slippery so it literally was crabbing over the road when the power kicked in properly above 5600rpm. Slowing back down from 100 was interesting as well, good thing it was a wide dual lane road.

Vid http://www.greenringer.net/various/arthur.mp4

So the baseline is all right. For those interested in MAF readings, I was seeing a maximum of 166 g/s at 8000 in 3rd gear. Keep in mind it was VERY cold so in more normal air densities this would be a bit lower. I do notice a VERY big kick at 5600 or so when the airbox flap opens. It feels pretty slow until that point, I wonder if the difference becomes more and more noticeable the colder it is. After all, the throttle is more restricted at lower revs when it’s cold.

Biggest unresolved issue: the gearbox. The first 3 gears have worn synchros, 3rd worst of all. A transmission fluid change improved things quite a lot but there’s no hiding the fact that the synchros are toast. Downshifting from 4th into 3rd cannot be done without grinding. I’ve tried everything. On the way up it works a little better but every now and then a small grind still occurs. I’m basically avoiding 3rd most of the time now. 2nd to 4th and vice versa. Box is plenty short so it works all right for getting around town but no fun otherwise.

If I shift slow enough I can do 1-2-3 to redline without too much drama but this is as good as it gets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsCsJ6jM12I

Normally this would be a pretty easy thing to solve right? Ship the box to JHM or buy their rebuild kit. Except, I’m in Russia. My mechanic, as good as he has proven himself so far, won’t touch the insides of a gearbox. They all seem to think it’s some sort of black magic device nearly nobody is qualified to even look at. I’m not finding any big reputable company I could trust here either. Shipping stuff this big abroad is mission impossible within reasonable financial limits.

I have located a used box within Russia which I can get for about 1200$. It’s in Siberia (sigh) but as it’s within the country it can get here in a week without needing the bureaucracy. Trouble is, what are the odds of a used gearbox from Siberia being any better? As far as I can tell, not TOO many of these cars develop terminal synchro issues, so my odds might be about 50/50? Still undecided. I might get it done when I drive it to Europe in summer but I’m kind of aching to get it done sooner.

Smaller issue: since I got it back it is very rough/hesitating when cold at low revs. In particular, steady low throttle cruising at 50mph or so, it’s shaking all over the place. No misfire codes though. It improves a lot when the car is warm, still at very low revs it feels a bit rough sometimes but otherwise very drivable. Maybe the used throttle body I bought is simply on its way out as well? In a few weeks I should get the new one (ordered a GM part by the way, Audi price is ludicrous… 400$ vs 1100$)

This morning, a cold start at -14C also exposed the starter solenoid’s dislike for the cold. Worked all right the rest of the day. No biggie that.

Hopefully over time this thread will be about how much I like the car and the improvements that are made, rather than how much I want to set it on fire.

#2

For lack of an edit button, an extra post with pics. I had the tint in the rear removed. Don’t care for it, found it obstructed my vision to the back and it probably would’ve failed tech at registration too.

http://www.greenringer.net/various/rs4/2.jpg

http://www.greenringer.net/various/rs4/1.jpg

http://www.greenringer.net/various/rs4/3.jpg

http://www.greenringer.net/various/rs4/4.jpg

#3

Looks awesome. Love Misano. Also very jealous of the RS6 avant. We never had those here.

Can you describe the pricing environment change with the collapse of the Ruble? i.e. did other Euro based markets keep pricing up a little by buying value, or do Russian cars tend to stay in Russia?

p.s. right colour for your new home :slight_smile:

#4

Depends a little on the make and model of the car how much prices have changed, but for all intents and purposes the Ruble has more or less halved vs the USD. About 40% down against the EUR.

So for brand NEW cars, there is a problem as purchase prices nearly doubled in the space of a few months. Used cars however react much more slowly to the new reality as inflation has a delayed fuse and it’s not that simple to sell them elsewhere (except in former soviet republics, which have been coming in buying more)

Historically these kinds of cars have been more expensive here than they were in the EU. A car I could get in Germany for 25K EUR would cost over 30K here. Now, that has reversed dramatically. But there are still barriers to these things going back to Europe to be sold. They would be slapped with VAT for a start, a lot of paperwork and at the end of the day you’d be importing from a place where maintenance records are sketchy at best. So, they are still being sold at about the same amount of rubles as they were a year ago.

At today’s exchange rate the value of the rubles I paid for this car is just under USD 18,000. But that amount still “feels” like 30 grand here, if that makes sense. I happened to have some foreign currency tucked away so the car does feel like a bargain to me. It’s the kind of car I can see myself keeping nearly indefinitely, even if it will see very little use eventually. Put it under a blanket in a shed somewhere, a dinosaur of a long gone era… 6-speed manual V8 that revs to over 8 grand will be quite a relic in a decade I imagine, never mind several.

Any thoughts on the gearbox? Guess it’s gotta come out sooner rather than later. I’m just wondering on the ratio of cars that need the box rebuilt vs those that don’t. It’s bound to be higher in Russia but still, the blue one I drove had a nice shifting box.

#5

That’s excellent for stock. Very fast. Maybe the fastest one I’ve seen. Check to see if your pre-cats haven’t been deleted…you will see some o2 sensor spacers if they have been.

The ‘kick’ is most noticeable in cold dense conditions because it’s controlled as a ‘torque limiter’. When do you make the most torque? In cold, dense conditions.

i.e. when it’s around 10 celsius or less, you can count on throttle being limited to about 52% up until 5500 RPM
when it’s around 15-20 celsius, it is limited to around 72%
when its hot out, it’s not limited at all

This makes sense since in the heat, you’re not making the torque required to trigger the limiter. When it’s very cold, you are, so the limit is most extreme and when that limiter comes off, the car leaps. 99% of RS4 owners haven’t figured this out. They think when they can’t feel the limit, it must be carbon buildup, and that their car is down 50 hp. Of course, that’s ridiculous.

3rd gear synchro is always the worst. 1st and 2nd gear synchros are very beefy on these cars. Third to sixth are puny. You use 1st and 2nd all the time, so it makes sense that they’d be the strongest built. The 3rd gear synchro however is the next most used, so it’s almost always the first one to crunch and wear out.

Buying a used box will likely mean buying a box with a similarly worn 3rd gear synchro. Labour and gearbox cost = probably $2000…not sure if that’s worth it. Contact JHM directly and ask them what they think.

p.s. the guy from Belgium, where french is the first language, lives and works in Moscow, and likely speaks excellent russian…and here he is on a north american based web forum speaking perfect English. Very impressive.

#6

I guess that explains it pretty well. I went back through the VCDS log and I saw 52.5%-53% throttle up to 5600-ish. So the feeling at 5600 of going from half throttle to full throttle is actually what is happening. I wonder how quick it would’ve been on this run at -8C if I had 99.6% from 3K onwards.

[quote]p.s. the guy from Belgium, where french is the first language, lives and works in Moscow, and likely speaks excellent russian…and here he is on a north american based web forum speaking perfect English.
[/quote]
Close! Native language is Dutch. Biggest language in Belgium by the numbers but French isn’t that far behind. By all accounts my English is better than my French, at least partially because Belgian TV stations use subtitles rather than dubs. I also speak German but it’s a little iffy. For emergencies only! My Russian needs a lot of work still, I can’t do much more than order simple things in a restaurant. Starting to become embarrassing so I’ve got to work on that.

Hesitation at low revs common for dying throttle body you think?

Cheers :slight_smile:

#7

THIS. Welcome to the forum, JC.

Awesome looking car.

#8

S&P just cut Russia’s credit rating (BB I think aka high yield aka junk) so hopefully you still have some Euros somewhere.

#9

I’ve done it at -20 Celsius. I live in Canada. I’ve actually never been below 8 seconds using the onboard timer and videotaping the tacho + on board stopwatch when I was stock.

Best I’ve seen modded is 7.6 a few times with my full exhaust (JHM downpipes with cats, JHM resonated catback)

#10

Interesting to know.

It does appear the tach itself reads slightly high. Not sure if it’s just mine or all of them, but in my VCDS logs the rev limiter appears to be set to about 8100rpm. The actual tach seems to be hitting about 8-and-a-quarter at that point, the 8250rpm I keep reading is the “rev limit”.

I guess that’s where the 2-3 tenths discrepancy between video and VCDS is explained.

#11

could be. VCDS is always a slower result. Not sure why.

Post a video of a 3k8k rip one day if you’re bored. Just film with your phone, the tach while the on board stop watch is running. Don’t start and stop…we can pause the video to determine start/stop times.

#12

I usually open it in Sony Vegas and find the closest frame to the rpm points. The higher the frame rate the better, my phone only did 20 FPS but that’s still twice as many data points as the onboard stopwatch which rounds the nearest tenth IIRC? It’s already pretty difficult holding the phone and shifting lol.

I feel the 8000rpm screenshot is just past 8K on the tach in reality, but the previous frame is dubious whether or not it was there.

You can look at the indicated times on the left bottom side and subtract and it’s a hair below 8s. However the last 2 digits are NOT hundredths of a second. They only run to 30, not 99.

Alternatively, you can count the frames. 1101 minus 156 divided by 120 (base rate in Vegas) would mean 7.875s. But there is a margin of error as each actual frame corresponds to 15 frames in Vegas. It’s somewhere between 7.875s and 8.000s. The average of that is, again, about 7.95.

Bit academic as the VCDS values are by far the most accurate I believe. But most people do it on the tach so I guess for comparison that’s as good as it’s going to get.

http://www.greenringer.net/various/01.jpg

http://www.greenringer.net/various/02.jpg

#13

I went and found the boxes of the new spark plugs which were fitted (they had the old plugs in them - here in Russia everyone gives you the old parts to prove they did actually change them)

They are 06H905611 - which I believe corresponds to Bosch FR6KPP332S. These are usually used in the 2.0T models as far as I can tell. I’ve not been able to find the exact specs on the gap so far, or a difference in heat range, but clearly these are not originally meant for the RS4.

Could these be a reasonable cause for the stuttering at low loads when cold? The car runs much better when hot, but I’m not getting any actual misfire codes. When hot, I only notice an occasional (and very brief) stutter at very low revs. If I try lugging around in 2nd gear below 1000rpm at very low throttle for example it doesn’t like that. Idle isn’t perfectly smooth either. But it runs perfect whenever more throttle is used.

#14

Bosch themselves say the BNS takes FR5KPP332S plugs. That’s 1 step colder than what was fitted.

Would a plug that’s a bit too “hot” have issues cold and low load/lean mix? Seems a little counter-intuitive but I never really read up on spark plug physics.

(I do wish here was an edit button)

#15

Sounds like you have a good amount of issues going on. Are you getting any records of the cars past or is it safe to assume your not sure on anything maintenance wise.

Cold starts can be very bad if you have carbon build up and if you have the standard rs4 broken vac lines. Working out exactly what is in the car plug wise along with the condition of the vacuum lines and carbon would be a good start. The fuel filter also should be changed if you haven’t already done that.

How many miles are on the car. As for the other things you mentioned sakimano was right on all those points.

As for editing you can edit your posts after 150 posts. It comes very quickly when your active

#16

About 46k on the clock. No records aside from the engine rebuild. Whether the odometer has ever been tampered with I don’t know, but cars around here tend to have low mileage as they are used mostly in the city. I use my RS6 as a daily and I’m still only averaging 5K a year.

Any good places to go hunt for the most obvious vac leaks? I’m seeing MAF airflow 4.8-5.0 g/s at idle. (760rpm) This seems quite normal so any leak would have to be pretty small.

The overall performance of the car, and peak airflow numbers, suggest no heavy carbon buildup is present.

Cheers!

#17

The maf will still be in that range if you have a leak the biggest thing you would see is a loop in idle. When you pull the intake to do the carbon that should tell you a lot more and along the way that should help expose any vac leaks. Also clean the pcv system really well that can cause the car issues on cold starts. Given you found issues with the plugs I would wonder what else might be out of place. Thankfully there isn’t much else they could mess up. I think your on the right path with looking at the carbon. Who knows you might not have the flaps in the intake manifold either.

#18

Had a bit of a back-and-forth argument by email about the spark plugs and they insist they are OK.

Basically the latest version of ETKA shows p/n 06H 905 601A as the Bosch alternative. But they fitted 06H 905 611, which they say is an alternative to thàt. Who the hell knows at this point. It’s just annoying because it adds one more variable for troubleshooting which was totally unnecessary.

The cold stutter was NOT present before I took the car in to have the faulty TB replaced for a new one, new spark plugs and new coils. That’s the main work they did. So whatever is causing the issue must be related to something which was changed on the car.

I’ve also been told the injectors leak fuel after shutoff so that means cold starts take a second longer than usual. They must be leaking very slowly because warm restarts during the day - whether they are 10 mins or 2 hours later - are very quick. Not terribly concerned about this, certainly not going to run out to buy 8 injectors just yet.

#19

What are the odds of 2 Misano red B7 RS4s meeting at a red light in Russia?

http://greenringer.net/various/rs44.jpg

We did exchange honks, couldn’t do much socializing in heavy traffic.

#20

^ Awesome.