RS4 B7 Stated Power claim of 420ps

[SR71]

David,

The issue does affect all FSI engines:

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthrea ... Megathread

Its just that no one cares whether a 1.6FSI engine makes 100 or 110hp...you don't buy the car for that reason.

On this thread you will see Arthur writing the same stuff:

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthrea ... p-Clean-Up

The issue is clearly gaining traction in the US. We are away behind here in the UK.

His best line in that thread is:

I seek no quarter, nor compassion or understanding...you do not exist to me, and vice versa...so save the psych 101 for someone who gives a crap and has a modicum of respect for what you say...you have been sadly mistaken if you think I give a %&^$

Whilst he lays claim to his engineering credentials, he has not taken a single measurement in support of his contentions. About the only thing he has measured is acceleration...using the onboard laptimer and the Mark 1 eyeball.

He glosses over the fact that another poster has found that the times registered by this method and using VAGCOM differ by ~0.5secs. So, the previous thread on this site dealing with acceleration times...you all ought to add 0.5 secs to your times if you've used the onboard lap timer...



But thats not really the point...

You can see US owner after US owner contributing to the aforementioned threads talking about the state of their manifolds, the constant CEL lights, the recovery of hp post cleaning and Arthur still digs his heels in.

Remember, even VAG engineers have written:

Directly from the technical staff of VAG is complete acknowledgment of the FSI intake valve deposit issue, and it's impacts, including: decreased performance, misfires, catalytic converter damage ... etc.

"Gasoline engines with direct injection of the fuel into the combustion chamber, i.e., not into the intake port, suffer especially from the problem of the formation of carbon deposits on components. Carbon deposits form especially in the neck region of intake valves. A more exact analysis of how these carbon deposits form leads to the following result: Oil and fuel constituents first form a sticky coating on the components. These constituents are chiefly long-chain and branched-chain hydrocarbons, i.e., the low-volatility components of oil and fuel. Aromatic compounds adhere especially well. This sticky base coating serves as a base for the deposition of soot particles. This results in a porous surface, in which oil and fuel particles in turn become embedded. This process is a circular process, by which the coating thickness of the carbon deposits continuously increases. Especially in the area of the intake valves, the deposits originate from blowby gases and from internal and external exhaust gas recirculation, and in this process, the blowby gasses and the recirculated exhaust gas come into direct contact with the intake valve."

"Especially in the area of the neck of the intake valves, excessive carbon deposits have extremely negative effects for the following reasons: In the case of Otto direct injectors, the successful ignition of the stratified charge depends to a great extent on the correct development of the internal cylinder flow, which ensures reliable transport of the injected fuel to the spark plug to guarantee reliable ignition at the spark plug. However, a coating of carbon deposits in the neck region of the intake valve may interfere so strongly with the tumble flow that ignition failures may occur there as a result. Under certain circumstances, however, ignition failures can lead to irreversible damage of a catalytic converter installed in the exhaust gas tract for purifying the exhaust gas. Furthermore, the coating of carbon deposits in the neck region of the intake valve causes flow resistance, which can lead to significant performance losses due to insufficient cylinder filling, especially in the upper load and speed range of the internal combustion engine. In addition, the carbon deposits in the neck region of the intake valve may prevent correct valve closing, which leads to compression losses and thus sporadic ignition failures. This in turn could irreversibly damage the catalytic converter. There is the potential for small particles to break away from the coating of carbon deposits in the neck region of the intake valve and get into the catalytic converter. These hot particles may then cause secondary reaction and corresponding local damage of the catalytic converter. For example, a hole may be burned in the structure of the catalytic converter."

"Globular deposits are found especially on the valve stem downstream from a partition plate in the intake port. Due to the dripping of high-boiling hydrocarbons from the partition plate towards the valve neck or valve stem, globular carbon deposits eventually form there by the sequence of events explained above. These deposits on the valve stem can result in flow deficits due to undesired swirling and turbulent flow around the globular carbon deposits. This may persistently interfere with the formation of stable tumble flow from cycle to cycle."

The most telling thing for me is that Arthur contributes next to nothing else on this forum or any other.

Yet he pops up time and time again on Audi forums all over the WWW whenever anyone questions why their FSI'ed car is down on power.

Call me suspicious but if that doesn't suggest that he does have an agenda, I don't know what does?

Lastly, inspite of his claims to have observed the nil effect of carbon buildup in FSI engines, he has not posted one single controlled experiment to support his contention.

(After all, it'd be easy for someone like him to take some measurements, open up his manifold and clean it, and take some more....oh wait, how many people have already done that?)

Au contraire, there are dozens and dozens of cases of owners out there who have gained substantial levels of performance back post-cleaning. Certainly all our local owners here in the UK rave about the performance of the car post cleaning.

The general consensus is that as a result of carbon build-up, through a mechanism that no-one really understands, the car pulls timing, which combined with a slightly reduced mass flow rate, all contributes to reduced power.

Surely, we can agree that the debate is about how such an issue should be combated?

Anto simply disconnected his knock sensors but that is a little extreme for most of us...

[HYFR]

thats a good post SR71...interesting reading

[Sims]

....all of what he said!

Once again the doors close firmly on the power output of the RS4....Phew!

No.

In the words of Joschka Fischer " I am not convinced". Subsequent US diatribe,snide remarks, insults only found favour with a very few brown nosed's.

There is smoke here, there are many different opinions, there are conflicting RR reports, AFAIK this is relatively new technology. I am confident Audi will resolve this issue, even if it eventually turns out to be not that serious an issue. VDT

http://www.rs246.com/index.php?name=PNp ... hlight=drc

Audi's written opinion about the DRC was there is no mechanical problem. And now? And yet there are the misguided who still are in denial on this too - perhaps they should do a search on DRC on this very forum, but here's something to get them going.

http://www.rs246.com/index.php?name=PNp ... hlight=drc


Different opinion's, however, make this forum valuable.

As I have stated previously, I shall make my own inquiries directly with Audi.

so all who see the logic are 'brown nosers'?
you are the one slinging the backhanded insults, all that shows is a lack of balls you choad...what a loser

go ahead and contact Audi:
let them know you believe they have committed criminal fraud by over rating the engine...let us know how that works out for you...

or better yet, put your $$$ where your mouth is, ante up and sue, do the testing, let's see the reulsts...

Sir, you are an engineer – that I acknowledge.

In this constructive debate about the carbon build up you brought up

• 'Audi haters les miserable'

• the wars,

• Haiti, etc.

• not to listen to a bunch of well to do guys moan about their imaginary issues with their expensive hipo

• that we bitch about things of absolutely no consequence...and don't even exist!

• while others have amputations without anaesthesia

• seek a piece of rat meat to feed their kids

• we could have FED someone or rendered medical aid, or housed them

You said you come here for a diversion - you come here for your own unpleasant agenda, and that is sad

If I choose to raise my concerns, I will but I don’t prevent you from getting on with your life as you suggest I should

There are people on this forum who are impressed with your hyperbole – and some are not and many are silent.

You cast doubt whether I owned an RS4, you cast doubt when I carried out my timing tests and although I explained, you chose not to believe. Do not judge people by your standards.

You have been insulting, rude (and not just to me) and continue to attempt to bully. The old guard were quick enough to pull me up on a “cheap shotâ€

[P_G]

To be honest this is beginning to be a bore and the thread is heading the same way as all the ones of a similar nature have. Moreso for me it does nothing but damage the reputation of an excellent car.

SR-71 is no doubt right, carbonisation exists, but none of the discussions substantiate by how much. yes I'm sure cleaning them will help, but if you pulled apart any engine and cleaned the inners it will help; its predominantly the nature of an old fashioned tune up.

Audi engineers have acknowledged that theoretically the system 'may' and 'could' develop issues (its what they wrote) that lead to a loss in power, but then if they are designing it like Arthur has said would they not build into the design to compensate for these 'known' theoretical issues, a larger than needed throttle body, valve seats etc. No-one except those engineers appear to know so the constant conjecture gets us nowhere. As much as Arthur may ignore some facts as stated by others he is by no means the only one and manipulation of statements and data is commonplace in every one of these discussions and moreso, omission of basic facts in most cases.

And then there is how people drive their cars. Carbonisation may be increased by putting the engine under high stress during short periods. All this debate still does not explain why in my instance for example, I have a car that after 50k miles and a vacuum leak still posts 396bhp on a rolling road (for how accurate it is worth) and measures near the production acceleration times even if my eyes are not that good to start and stop a timer. If by the theories put on this forum my car should be near expiring yet it appears to be in rude health. It may well be better after a clean but to spend the time and considerable money to have that done for what? In my case perhaps another 10bhp if lucky? There are easier ways if need be and if I was unhappy with the way that it is.

But then that doesn't answer sims question and that is is it down on power. Well someone bench dyno their engine, then clean the inlet and then bench test it again. And until that time leave this argument alone and drive your car like it was built to be done.

[Terry1948]

I will drink to that P.G.

[karl]

SR71 / PG - I couldn't agree more with your comments. I was at MRC last month and was shown a photo of an inlet manifold they had in for cleaning recently and I could not believe what I was seeing; the whole port was full of deposits, the valve could not be seen as it was buried underneath it all. The deposits were up to the top of the port - unbelievable. Now don't even try and tell me that's not having a negative effect on power as I will only be offended.

[Sims]

I was at MRC last month and was shown a photo of an inlet manifold they had in for cleaning recently and I could not believe what I was seeing; the whole port was full of deposits, the valve could not be seen as it was buried underneath it all. The deposits were up to the top of the port - unbelievable. Now don't even try and tell me that's not having a negative effect on power as I will only be offended.

And that's how it all began, please see the OP.

Clearly there is a lot of debate about how much power the car outputs.

Stated claim is 420ps, but someone at MRC mentioned some good cars make 370 or 380ps, whilst the mediocre ones make 300-330ps.

[SR71]

Unfortunately I disagree P_G.

This forum and the success in dealing with the DRC issue is testimony to how owner sentiment can get a multi-billion dollar group to do something about design shortfalls.

My own feeling is that peoples idea of how this may affect residuals is clouding the issue.

And yet the patently obvious answer to that question is that for nigh on the last year, RS4 residuals have increased! Granted, they were probably influenced by the sense of impending doom at the end of 2008 that drove some owners to ditch their cars prematurely but none of this forum chit-chat seems to be affecting that aspect of the ownership proposition...

None of this means that the RS4 is a bad car.

It outperforms 99% of what is out there in the "Sports Saloon" category, has a sub 8 min 'Ring time, carries 4 people and some gear at an indicated 175mph across parts of the continent without an iota of fuss and yet purrs away happily in 6th with some shopping in the boot at 30mph.

I first became interested in the issue because I recall many moons ago pulling the manifold of my Celica GT4 after who knows how many miles and it was clean enough to eat my dinner off it. Granted I ran water-injection on it which must have helped, but when I first started to see pictures of dirty FSI manifolds, it struck me as disengenuous that manufacturers, that for nigh on 100 years had tried to reduce the impediments to flow in their manifolds, could suddenly suggest that deposition in the manifold was of nil consequence.

That said, I would not have expected them to claim anything else!

Anyway, why doesn't one of you volunteer your car up to the Quattro Gmbh testbed whilst you're there in May. Surely it'd only take them a few hours to get it out of the car and into a position where they could get some data off it?

Alternatively, maybe they can show you their CFD code and/or some other fancy gizmos and you can clear the matter up for us once and for all.

I can't because I'm sailing in Greece.

[BlingBling]

To be honest this is beginning to be a bore and the thread is heading the same way as all the ones of a similar nature have. Moreso for me it does nothing but damage the reputation of an excellent car.

SR-71 is no doubt right, carbonisation exists, but none of the discussions substantiate by how much. yes I'm sure cleaning them will help, but if you pulled apart any engine and cleaned the inners it will help; its predominantly the nature of an old fashioned tune up.

Audi engineers have acknowledged that theoretically the system 'may' and 'could' develop issues (its what they wrote) that lead to a loss in power, but then if they are designing it like Arthur has said would they not build into the design to compensate for these 'known' theoretical issues, a larger than needed throttle body, valve seats etc. No-one except those engineers appear to know so the constant conjecture gets us nowhere. As much as Arthur may ignore some facts as stated by others he is by no means the only one and manipulation of statements and data is commonplace in every one of these discussions and moreso, omission of basic facts in most cases.

And then there is how people drive their cars. Carbonisation may be increased by putting the engine under high stress during short periods. All this debate still does not explain why in my instance for example, I have a car that after 50k miles and a vacuum leak still posts 396bhp on a rolling road (for how accurate it is worth) and measures near the production acceleration times even if my eyes are not that good to start and stop a timer. If by the theories put on this forum my car should be near expiring yet it appears to be in rude health. It may well be better after a clean but to spend the time and considerable money to have that done for what? In my case perhaps another 10bhp if lucky? There are easier ways if need be and if I was unhappy with the way that it is.

But then that doesn't answer sims question and that is is it down on power. Well someone bench dyno their engine, then clean the inlet and then bench test it again. And until that time leave this argument alone and drive your car like it was built to be done.

Woulld you attitude be the same if you had the same experience as Varsity, pippy, 2manytoys, Antonio, SilverRS4 to name a few who have suffered to downside of excessive carbon build? Or if your car dynoed 330bhp as opposed to 396bhp?

[P_G]

SR71, I was never talking about residuals when referring to reputation as economic factors and availability plus brand awareness drive that more than hearsay on a forum. I do however believe like said previously this 'issue' and I say that because it has not been quantified so may not be an 'issue' by definition is over exaggerated in this community. That's not me denying its existence because there is irrefutable proof in photos. Comparing it against DRC is futile because DRC failure is accurately quantifiable, effects of carbonisation is not by the very methods or timing and rolling roads that have all been shot down in flames by their consistent inconsistency.

You talk about your Celica and yes you are right, water injection did signifcantly contrbute to its cleanliness as the same was true of the GT4 based rally cars.

However consequence? How is it that at some point all drivers will experience that their engines get better as they 'loosen up'? If carbonisation was of such consequence surely this would not happen? I have noticed on this FSI V8 and the standard non FSI V8 in the B6 S4 it happens at roughly the same mileage intervals. I am not saying there is nil consequence however there is a huge grey area about what level of consequence is being claimed / suggested. And as for the output figure, at what stage of the bench tested engines life was this recorded? Is it once, is it at several times throughout its life cycle and averaged? Could there even be the case that whilst carbonisation does occur that the engine loosening up may even counteract so that the effect is negligible?

Like said I would suggest a lot is down to how these cars are run and used which is not ideal as you should be able to use it how you want and suffer no detriment but as you no doubt appreciate, most hgigh performance car manufacturers will say their cars should be ran in a certain manner. Aston even suggested their cars at one stage should not be used every day.

As for Quattro GmbH it is a production and research facility and they do not have the workshop to dismantle any part of a car (I already asked) so you won't get any purchase out of them but I will ask the question of them as see what the answer is from the proverbial horses mouth

[Sims]

As for Quattro GmbH.. I will ask the question of them and see what the answer is from the proverbial horses mouth

Excellent

[P_G]

Woulld you attitude be the same if you had the same experience as Varsity, pippy, 2manytoys, Antonio, SilverRS4 to name a few who have suffered to downside of excessive carbon build? Or if your car dynoed 330bhp as opposed to 396bhp?

See but you just shot yourself in the foot there Blingbling because my car did dyno between 350 and 360... and then 375 and 396 and also 402. Like said I am not refuting the facts of carbonisation but the degree and how it 'affects' performance are as inaccurate as the tools used to measure them. I'm sure cleaning will see some gain but at what financial cost and if not done, what would be the effect? For most who drive these cars and for as long as they own them will they really care?

Then comes the debate of perhaps Audi have designed FSI the way that it is because they know most cars will only see a certain length of life where carbonisation would be a negligible issue and the car would be on the scrap heap well before it did cause internal issues enough to compromise the function of that engine. And those who are likely to keep them are predominantly enthusiasts who would open them up and clean them!

[BlingBling]

Woulld you attitude be the same if you had the same experience as Varsity, pippy, 2manytoys, Antonio, SilverRS4 to name a few who have suffered to downside of excessive carbon build? Or if your car dynoed 330bhp as opposed to 396bhp?

See but you just shot yourself in the foot there Blingbling because my car did dyno between 350 and 360... and then 375 and 396 and also 402. Like said I am not refuting the facts of carbonisation but the degree and how it 'affects' performance are as inaccurate as the tools used to measure them.

How did you work that one out? Anyway, you still have not answered the question. A simple yes or no will suffice.

[Sims]

.
How is it that at some point all drivers will experience that their engines get better as they 'loosen up'? .. Could there even be the case that whilst carbonisation does occur that the engine loosening up may even counteract so that the effect is negligible?

Well actually if you expect your engine to get better as it loosens up, and it does not.... it is because there is an engineering problem.

Maybe your well run engine with 396 horses should really be in well excess of 414.

[Sims]

Then comes the debate of perhaps Audi have designed FSI the way that it is because they know most cars will only see a certain length of life where carbonisation would be a negligible issue and the car would be on the scrap heap well before it did cause internal issues enough to compromise the function of that engine. And those who are likely to keep them are predominantly enthusiasts who would open them up and clean them!

Slippery slope, this one.... Don't go there