Advice

[RS2NZ]

Hi guys

I Have recently bought a RS2 (New Zealand) could anybody give a bit of advice on tunning, I know the sky is the limit but what’s the best bang for buck?

Cheers

[VaudiGR]

you could start off with a chip to go up to 350Hp and then my suggestion is to go deep into the pocket to go over the 400hp barrier.Injectors are good enough for 400hp,as well as internal components but i would not recommend it as life span of the engine will be reduced.
For the over 400hp you will need a bigger turbo,EM,gas pump,with the same injector you will roughly get a 420 to 430hp(with a managable program),but you will need larger injectors after that,rods,..

mine has the mtm chip and goes beautifully for now.I am too thinking for later changes to go over the 400hp limit,but im starting to think against that for now.Maybe a good exhaust stainless steel and that is it for me!(milltek preferalbly)

[AAH!]

In my mind one of the first things to do with a newly bought RS2 that might get it going quicker is to give it a good health check and get the car working as intended before you start doing "stuff". This is probably the best bang for your buck as this is all fairly cheap (sometimes) to do and if you want to do more all this will need to be sorted first anyway.

First have a good look through these sights, they will give you a lot of info about what does what, how to fault find and how to put things right. Although not totally dedicated to the RS2 the info on these sites are relevant to our cars:
http://www.s2central.net
http://www.sjmautotechnik.com/index.html
http://www.sjmautotechnik.com/trouble_s ... boost.html
http://www.sjmautotechnik.com/trouble_s ... 0vtecu.htm
http://www.s2-audi.co.uk/technical.htm
http://www.20v.org/
http://etka.auto2.ru/?lang=eng

Also look through the archives of this and other forums:
http://s2forum.com
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/RS2list/
http://www.audifans.net/

Get Vagcom to do a diagnostic and see if any fault codes come up there are aslo a multitude of sensors that can fail which can slow down your car via the ecu. i.e. knock sensors, hall sensor, Throttle Valve Potentiometer etc, etc, etc. There are tests you can do yourself with a digital multi meter for many of the sensors.

Fit a boost gauge and see what sort of boost you are getting, more importantly pressure check the turbo hoses for leaks in the main hoses and the small vacum hoses and if not done recently replace the recirculating dump valve (cheap) and also check and if need be replace the following items: wastegate Frequency Valve (WGFV), Multi Function Temerature Switch (MFTS), Lambda and so on. More expensive to replace but worth checking: coil packs, MAF, TPS. Check the throttle cable is opening the throttle to the max when you push the peddle down. Change fuel filter. Clean the injectors. The list is potentially endless.

Also find out if your car been modified in any way by previous owners. There are some rather dubious ways of getting a bit of cheap extra power from our cars that do more harm than good in the long run.

Once your car is running as it should be you can then decide if you want to do anything else.

You can start with a basic remap, which as papvas said, should get you 350bhp and some more torque.

If you want to do some straightforward stuff (more or less what I've done), worth considering would be 3" exhaust either turbo back or cat back ( you can also remove the catalitic convertors or get racing cats or get a cat bypass valve), bigger turbo (more power, but more lag), 7a cams (more top end power but slightly less bottom end), Cone air filter (questionable improvement, but comes with go faster noises) and an up-rated fuel pump. Then you would need a custom remap. With all that you could get about 375-385bhp.

After that you could go for bigger injectors, head work, water injection, uprated rods, tubulor exhaust manifold, custom intake manifold, bigger intercooler, etc, etc, etc. Then the sky is the limit, or at least the depth of your wallet.

You will rarely get your money back on any of these mods if/when you decide to sell your car. A standard car will always be more desirable to a potential purchacer than a modified one, especially a RS2. You might even make a profit on an unmodified and original RS2 when/if you come to sell it.

HTH

Angus