Greetings from Boston

[ShadeOfNardoGray]

Awaiting delivery of my 2019 TTRS... delayed by them not having pre-cut 3M shields and the sales rep not picking up phone calls for two days after making the sale (or bothering to register/plate or even notarize it), but bloody eager to get back behind the wheel of the thing. 47 miles on the OD, ~30 of them mine from the test drive, caught the little gray monster as they were offloading her from the truck pretty much - still all wrapped up (also managed to test drive a transport mode car pre-PDI, which is always fun).
Picked this up as a DD to replace my R32 which is going to my better half since her scoobie is not long for this world. Car feels like it has everything the R32 was missing - mainly a sense (even if smoke and mirrors) of balance and some half-decent power. Given the mileage i'm not going to beat on the engine quite yet, but up to 5k it definitely feels like a reasonably voluminous high-boost motor. Lack of lag is downright impressive, but i'm used to "ye olde tuner" setups.
I've been alternating between an '08 R32 (2nd owner, first owner is a friend who had kids) and a track-prepped SW20 MR2, which is a trip and half to say the least (one's a purely mechanical physics toy with Tien Flex EDFCA to keep you alive while the rest tries to kill you, the other is the most docile of the "super hatches" known to man). Looking forward to seeing how that dynamic changes with the TTRS taking the "dd" slot in the mix .
Anyone here know of any driving schools around New England specializing in these setups? I've owned quite a few performance AWD cars and no two are alike (my VR4 drifts like a champ if you ask it to nicely and care to replace a VCU if you overindulge). Would be useful to find someone who can help me divine which outputs from the car are synthesizing real conditions, and which ones are blatant lies since i'm pretty sure there's no physical connection between the driver and any running gear . I'm sure i'll get a better sense of the limits as i drive it, but my initial "butt-feel" of it on street conditions is "there probably isn't one" when i did a u-turn at 30%+ throttle without any squeal into the other side's left lane- and that's never good (rule 4 of https://www.itstactical.com/intellicom/ ... perations/ applies).
Anyone else have one of the 18/19 cars who might have some input? Curious to know what novice and advanced drivers have come up with in terms of understanding its chassis/suspension dynamics (no pun intended apparently) and getting some clarity about what's really happening on the contact patches.

[FrazerD]

Welcome along.

Get some photos up of both cars when you aren’t too busy cutting folks hair

Cheers

[ShadeOfNardoGray]

I think http://extrememotorsportne.com should have photos on their site of at least the MR, they're my go-to for all of it - including having hand-built one of a kind VR4 with 15 G's on a JDM motor run through the venerable AEM2, 6sp torsen diffed trans with carbon driveline mated to a 5sp rear-end (stock brake calipers still, they're that good), since i acquired it bone-stock from one of the Shop owners 10y ago. Unfortunately Audi says that having a 3rd party touch the TTRS will drop resale value, and that it may raise issues with all of the extended warranties i purchased for the car.
As for the TTRS, i'm not a big social media or photos person myself, so actually hadn't even considered taking any snaps while she's at the dealer. I'll likely grab some video and photo evidence when i take delivery (if they ever bother to register and title it).

P.S. Under the right conditions you an use a wood chipper or a plane turbine to "dress hair" - i think that in the case of the RS, it's pushing the limits of hair dressing into scalping.

[ShadeOfNardoGray]

Few days into the car, still in the break-in period (avoiding being over 5k RPM, progressively working my way through the g-meter to settle the chassis/suspension), and i honestly have to wonder what the automotive journalists comparing this car to an m2 or cayman are smoking. While i'm not yet at the point of the "track comparison," the road-car application is a wholly separate proposition. Rain doesn't affect how the car behaves in the 1-6/10ths range in terms of traction regardless of pavement, its capable of graceful rear-end mid-corner correction while holding about a lateral G before and after this activity (in dry conditions), without making any fuss or cutting power (i've yet to even put TC into sport mode). The cornering dynamic is far more reminiscent of my MR2 than a VW R32 (or any R-car) - the chassis and driveline behave far better under acceleration, even in decreasing radius turns, permitting a boost-built-and-revs-up corner exit. If i had to guess, the automotive journalists didn't use the force . They trusted their sense of the car's limits, and like a VR4, this car is more machine than man by far, and responds far better to being driven like a high-powered rally car on the tarmac than a sports car. It really does behave quite RW-biased in dynamic mode, and with the short wheelbase, and some ghastly amount of "vehicle dynamics" assisting the charade/responding to inputs, it delivers grins as consistently as grabbing a live wire will cause a muscle contraction. I can't wait to get her settled and out on the track.