you weren’t using my numbers, and no I wasn’t high. Never have been.
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those numbers were for a B8 S4…R8 is a whole new world of complicated as Jimmy showed. For example the 4.0T in the S6 (the engine whose price I quoted…add another $12,000 for the strong 4.0T) does bolt up to the same DSG that is in the B8 S4. That’s pretty simple. Not the same in the R8 though…you’re talking about 10 year old R8s with 10 year old R8 transmissions, neither of which were all that well received at the time. So not only do they not just mate up nice, they’re sorta shit to start. So add another fortune in tuning/build to get the trans/engine to mate up.
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I didn’t think it was realistic to get a decent R8 for less than $80,000.
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you said you wouldn’t be satisfied with 5.2 R8 pricing…why? You’re willing to go $100,000+ into a swap that will take 2 years to complete and tune and get right. Factor in your time value of money, depreciation of the car (which will not be road legal in too many states) and the ‘cost’ of owning this unicorn, your main concern with the 5.2, will end up being gigantic
Consider:
build, time, tuning etc. of around $100,000 even if you’re right…that was a 65k R8 you bought. And it’s now a ‘salvage title’ $45,000 R8 if you ever sell it. But you’re in it for $55,000 on top of that. Unless you find some forum sucker to buy it for more. IF you keep it for 2 years after the build is done, your cost is $13,500/year for a car you drove for only 2 of those 4 years. SO $27,500/year.
While you do that, I’ll buy this 2014 R8 5.2 V10 with S-tronic (DSG)
http://www.autotrader.ca/a/Audi/R8/AURORA/Ontario/19_9878812_/?ursrc=pl&urp=1&urm=1&showcpo=ShowCPO
I’ll give him $145,000 CDN which is about $108,000 USD
And I’ll DESTROY your 4.0T manual swap…and you will be begging me for a recording of my car at 8500 RPMs to play on the CD player in your 9 year old muffled sounding turbo 4.0 that revs to 6800.
AFter all of this, my car will depreciate about $20,000 total over the next 2-3 years. So I’ll get back $90,000 pretty easily when I’m ready for something new.