The life and times of my B7 RS4

[marc1]

Good review. I thought you may something along those lines.

[JCviggen]

My girlfriend is feeling neglected when she saw how much car stuff I brought back from Europe.



But a quick heads up: if you're ordering a new glass for your wing mirror, make sure you get the right one. I was a wee bit too quick in grabbing a number out of ETKA and I ordered the "flat" mirror glass rather than the "convex" one. It's essentially useless. Why they even make this version I have no idea, it's a safety risk. You can't see a bloody thing, like looking through a magnifying glass. Most of what is behind you sits in a blind spot and what you do see is barely recognisable. Oh well, 30 quid well spent.

At least changing tires in Russia can be remarkably convenient. No lines, no traffic jams.

[docurley]

Tell the girlfriend you will take her for a spin once all the new parts are fitted so that they can enhance her beauty and that your car will be more worthy of her presence.

[JCviggen]

She gave me the raised eyebrow. So that's no good

She pushed back my Nurburgring trip to next year as well, so the XP10 pads will be staying on the shelf till then... can't win them all. At least I get to take the car to Norway in June which should be good.

Train Moscow-Helsinki then a ferry to Stockholm and a 550 mile drive from there on proper roads

[docurley]

Very nice reminds me when I drove to Austria for the Worthersee VAG event 1000 miles of driving...... loved it quite fancy the idea of doing it in the RS4.

[JCviggen]

Update since it's been a few months.

Never did take the car to Norway as Porsche borrowed me a 991 cab and aside from the fact that it was awesome for those roads it also gave me time to get the gearbox rebuilt here in Moscow. Took the place like 6 weeks as some tiny parts needed to be ordered from Germany. Box now a lot better without crunching but I need to swap whatever sh!t gearbox oil they put in for OEM stuff as it feels pretty notchy and only shifts smooth-ish at a particular temperature in between cold and operating temp. The clutch also needs doing but for reasons that are too long to get into it couldn't be done at the same time which sucked.

The JHM tune has been good, no issues aside from a slight glitch with the "launch assist" feature which doesn't agree completely with the non-US car. Don't need or use that feature anyway.

I had been thinking of removing the resonators from the exhaust, but the plan was always to try a JHM exhaust eventually as it does provide some documented performance gains unlike most. But with the Ruble exchange rate being awful these days, the shipping costs and then VAT it's just awfully expensive (20-25 percent the value of the car!).

Then, as luck would have it, I was googling and came across a link to a JHM exhaust being sold on a Russian Audi board. Being google I assumed it was posted years ago, not much hope of it still being for sale. As it happened, the topic was from February '15 so I figured I had stupidly missed out on the only JHM exhaust in this country. But turns out the seller was still bumping the topic and lowering the asking price on page 3. Sent him a PM and 30 mins later the money was sent, 5 days later it arrived from Ekaterinburg 1500 miles away.

It's the perfect spec with high flow cats, resonators and black coated boxes/tips (a 250$ option apparently). Only used for a week as he found it too loud inside the car. Paid 600 quid worth of Russian money for it



Will do some logging right before and after to see what it's all about.

It did sound pretty loud in the owner's old video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFxGNLyK7fI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBWyXI3dx-k

Now I'm just looking for a bloody T9 Torx so I can finally swap the badge on my steering wheel. I've also ordered a new OEM gear knob as mine looks knackered from repeated contact with the previous owner's wedding ring or something. Another 170 quid for a slight cosmetic improvement but the wife actually insisted on this one.

[docurley]

How jammy was you with the JHM system

[FaisalJ]

How jammy was you with the JHM system

What a result!!!

Video pls....

[docurley]

Thinks this one of the guys car sounds better or gives you a better idea.

Watch "audi RS4 b7 JHM motorsport exhaust" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/iFxGNLyK7fI

also looks like he handbrake it round the corner of the first vid

[JCviggen]

The JHM exhaust is on. Two initial thoughts: I don't get why they make a non-res version at all. And never buy this exhaust if you have a bread van.

I have the quietest possible version with cats and resonators and its borderline in terms of outright volume and drone below 2k. At some rpm spots some of my interior pieces start vibrating along. But at highway speeds it's more than acceptable as in barely audible really. It does make slow driving more of an occasion but it's very American sounding. Culturally a bit sensitive in some places to show up with your car sounding like this.

But if you like listening to the V8 it is pretty damn epic. I'm still taking it in and getting over the initial shock. It also has very few miles on it and the yanks are reporting cases where the drone largely goes away after sufficient running in. Anyway - YouTube vids don't do it justice. I'll try to make something with my Dslr and external stereo mic later.

[marc1]

Their ears probably get less sensitive to it and they probably accept it more because they love the howl at WOT!

Does it feel like it breaths better / is it more responsive to throttle input? 'Apparently' the JHM is 2.75" and 'does' add performance gain. What's your view (appreciate early days of course)?

[JCviggen]

I'll do some objective testing and logging with VCDS to see what the gains are. Quite curious myself. I should be able to match atmospheric conditions pretty well with previous runs. As I already had gutted precast I'm not expecting massive differences but there should be something.

It's hard to tell the difference in performance as the whole car feels different now. It's bordering on sounding more powerful than it actually is. I did notice when I revved it out once in first gear that I ended up revving 500 rpm higher than I was going for so maybe revs do climb a little quicker.

It seriously pops and burbles on overrun, I was expecting something less full on considering the cats and resonators. I certainly can't put a mother with young child in the back anymore

[marc1]

All sounds good, looking forward to your results. How is public transport in Russia? Maybe the Mrs and Kid's can use that.

Although you still have the C5 too don't you? His and hers...

[JCviggen]

Testing:

When I had the precats removed the car did the 3-8K test somewhere between 2 and 3 tenths faster than fully stock. That testing was on winter tires so not 1:1 comparable to the current summer tires. Ever since I fitted the new summer tires I wasn't able to replicate the best 3-8K times. I suspect a slight difference in circumference perhaps combined with higher frictional losses for the Michelin PSS. Anyway, the best run I've done in cool conditions on the usual stretch of road with the summer tires had been about 8 seconds flat. I did get a 7.8 during a highway run (better engine bay cooling maybe tailwind) but that was a single attempt in a different location so invalid for comparison. It was a few degrees C cooler today, I assume the old setup may have done as low as 7.9 seconds. Stuff like gradient and wind direction can make a big difference so I'm purposefully sticking with repeatable numbers not outliers.

I did 3 runs with the new exhaust and got 7.6 - 7.6 - 7.55s. That's from 120 FPS video and the frames counted in between 3 and 8 so pretty accurate. This performance gain is definitely at the higher end of my expectations and considerably bigger than the gain from just gutting the stock precats. It'll be interesting to see if it gets any better when the winter tires go back on. Either way it's pretty good considering it has probably never had a carbon clean done. Unexpectedly I am also seeing some increase in MAF flow readings compared to earlier logging. Expected flow was 157-158 g/s per bank in these conditions but I saw peaks of 164-165 g/s at 8000 RPM. Cyls 1 and 3 saw -2.3 degrees of <beep> which is slightly less than before I think (requested overall advance 34.8 to 36.8 degrees above 7000rpm so still a lot) Keep in mind this is the JHM tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B8orNQvq5I

I've also discovered that a cold start with the SAI running seriously makes you laugh. And your ears bleed.

But it's rather entertaining to drive with a window down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmkp4H7px8w

[docurley]

Check to see if any rear lights are out or possibly a faulty brake switch can also cause these issues.