Been a while to say the least, update:
Car’s still alive and well, albeit now hibernating in Belgium most of the time. Doesn’t seem like an ideal solution, I kind of miss it here in Moscow now that it’s winter. Just not ideal to park both cars here at the same time, I’m thinking that I might bring it back here next year and try to find a place to store the rather less winter-suitable Porsche.
Some maintenance was done recently, an old friend of mine who owns a B7 RS4 has a shop together with another bloke who has a B7 RS4 so I figured I’d let them to the work.
Gearbox came off for what I believe was the 3rd time in 12 months to replace the flywheel. Last thing I could think of to explain the terrible shift quality. I had initially tried to get a new LUK flywheel that would be identical to OEM but it turns out they’re not sold in Europe. Probably there’s a contract somewhere that says they aren’t allowed to sell them direct to customers for less than half what Audi wants for it and it doesn’t apply to the US.
After shipping and import taxes this didn’t look like a great idea.
Then I came across a company in the UK that makes billet single-mass flywheels that are a direct fit replacement for the OEM dual mass. So you use the standard DMF clutch but you lose a couple KG on the flywheel (somewhere in beteen OEM and a very light aftermaket one) and the only price to pay is a bit of chatter at very low revs. Beautifully made flywheel it is, too, and it only cost me something like 420 USD shipped to my door so it was cheap to boot.
http://www.greenringer.net/various/flywheel.jpg
During maintenance a leaking rear shock was found and had to be replaced. Expensive thing to fix in the end (including the re-pressurizing of the DRC something like $800 total) but I didn’t really want to move to coilovers if I could help it. A couple CV boots were done as well I believe.
I had given the car to my old buddy to store it for a while at his home, as I was leaving the country and they couldn’t start working on it for a couple weeks. I gave him permission to drive the car for about a week as well (I need to buy insurance on it each time I want to drive it outside of Russia) and long story short I probably won’t be doing that again. While I trust him to perfectly warm up the car before he starts beating on it, putting nearly 1000 miles on it was taking the p!ss if you ask me. I also heard some stories (directly from him to be fair) of how stable my car feels compared to his taking a slight bend in the highway at 170 mph. Okay. Lesson learned.
After collecting the car we drove it to Switzerland and back, and it was pretty flawless. Exhaust is bothersome on long trips but other than that it was good fun. It feels quick, too. Once every thousand miles or so I still get the CEL for implausible signal from one of the flap position sensors. I had asked for that to be fixed but it wasn’t and I needed the car. Still, turning it off and on clears it and then it takes ages to occur again so next time around maybe. The shifts have definitely improved and going into first gear from a stop is much easier now. It’s not perfect but maybe I’m too sensitive. My buddy kept going on about how smooth my gearbox is compared to his so what do I know.
I hope to do another Nurburgring trackday early '17 but after that I’m not sure the car will stay in Europe as I use it so very little. When I do visit Europe for something specific it often doesn’t make sense to use the RS4 as it costs too much time to drive over and I spend way more on 6$/gallon fuel than it costs me to fly over and rent a car. I do enjoy having it available there but for using it only 3 weeks a year it seems a bit of a waste.
Oh, and I had H&R lowering springs fitted on the fronts only. Always annoyed with how high it sat relative to the rear on the SS+ suspension, that’s sorted now. This pic was right after fitting, not sure if it will settle any lower after a bit of use but this is about perfect for me. May consider using wheel spacers, I have them lying around but for doing silly things on track with sticky tires I like the peace of mind of not running spacers for some reason.
Here’s a pic of it as it sits now, next to my friend’s B7 on 20 inch wheels and spacers.
