RS4 B7 4.2 FSI Engine - Good or Bad??

[coffey555]

I don't give a sh1t about mileage. I look after my car properly and will keep it forever.

+1 on that

+2

Well that and there is nothing else out there that I want to replace it with.

What else is there with a V8, a manual box and the abilty to carry two bikes inside?

If it really had to go the only thing that comes close is the M135i.

[PetrolDave]

I don't give a sh1t about mileage. I look after my car properly and will keep it forever.

+1 on that

+2

+3

What else is there with a V8, a manual box and the ability to carry 4 people and 100+ bottles of wine back from the Loire - and entertain you at every peage?

Anyway there's no such thing as an indestructible engine (or any engineered item), so long as it's well engineered and built (which the B7 is), and then well looked after then you'll be hard pressed to find anything better.

Plus on audizine you regularly see posts from guys who have done 100k+ miles in their RS4 with nothing more than regular maintenance needed.

[Starrfecker#1]

Please have a look at this car selling home page from Germany - can't see any reason for your concern regarding the RS4 engine life time.

http://suchen.mobile.de/auto-inserat/au ... LSO_EXPORT

572000 km devided with 1,609 gives 355500 miles.

[V8mark]

That's a completely different engine from a time long gone by. There's no way an engine developed in 1992 (assuming mark4) would get even near to current regs.
Anyway a 3l 6 twin turbo and yet pretty much the same torque as the RS4 and way less power.

Pushing out 400+bhp N/A is much much harder and needs more effect than using a turbo.[/quote]

yes from a different time, not sure I agree on the power though, with stock turbos and a simple bleed valve pushing 1.2bar (or there abouts) yielded 360bhp at the rear wheels and low 13's on the 1/4 mile through the auto tranny, so not too far away given I bet the weights are not too far apart.

anyway my point was that way back in 1992 (the 2jzgte in the mk4... not the 7mgte as that was <beep> and lovvvved headgaskets) was ultra reliable with stock servicing, no dicking around with carbon cleans, coil packs, software upgrades, AFM's etc... so surely we could expect more given we were 14 years later when the RS4 came out???

agreed 400+ from a N/A is quite an achievement and I'm not knocking what Audi have achieved....loved it so much I bought one...... I do have the solution however ........ move the injectors back to the inlet ports to keep it all clean and put a supercharger on there to bring the power back up with good throttle response... simples

[V8mark]

Please have a look at this car selling home page from Germany - can't see any reason for your concern regarding the RS4 engine life time.

http://suchen.mobile.de/auto-inserat/au ... LSO_EXPORT

572000 km devided with 1,609 gives 355500 miles.

OMG ... imagine how many nectar points he racked up doing that !!!

[coffey555]

I assume the roofbox is for the camemebert then?

[adsgreen]

weight not too different but losses of rwd vs 4wd is more than what you'd expect from a slushmatic.

The comparison with the older engine is that a 3litre 6 twin turbo pushing out 400ps or there abouts isn't something that would be stressing the engine really at about 133ps / litre.
You'd expect it to be reliable (esp having an iron block) as with the turbo it wouldn't be spinning (relatively) fast.

In my view, as a unit the concept of the BNS B7 Engine is very good. It's a strong engine as it's large and can take very high sustained rpm whilst coping (in supercharged form) quite high levels of torque.
Coil packs were not specific to the RS4 and were essentially a bad batch - not really a fault of the engine design and covered under a service campaign.
Software upgrade is a fact of life with any modern engine.
The main failure of MAF's is using oiled air filters (from what I can gather) - I personally have never changed MAF and the car is 48k.
Moving the injectors from Direct to non direct is a possible move but would hurt the power making hitting the regs even harder.
Supercharger wouldn't be something that would be possible with the regs (unfortunately).
Now carbon... the issue there is that the BNS was one of the first generation of DI engines so expected to be a little new ground. However I don't see it as a catastrophic fault of the engine design itself. IF the bulk of the problem is related to valve stem seals and or internal exhaust recirculation then this could be one of the things that changed with the B8 cars.

[V8mark]

excuse my ignorance but what are the regs you mention in your post.... you say that supercharging would not be possible with the regs.... obviously I know that the engine regs especially with respect to the emissions are changing year on year, but are we saying that they are disallowing supercharging at some point... or have I miss interpreted?
Back to the carbon, its my assumption that this is probably in the large part due to internal exhaust recirculation, now if Audi utilised say an external control valve that would be just the ticket, a quick blanking plate, probably software mod and no more problems.....happy days.... would be interesting to know if the B8 is different....however as a consumer I still think Audi should have done better as such maintenance was simply not required on the old engine I'm going on about....BUT I also take the point that without the DI design you cant have the power output, and with this design you get the carbon build up...... catch 22 eh?
Your point about the drivetrain losses, I don't know how true it is, but I did read an article once that said 4wd is more efficient as the effort required to drive the wheels is less than the effort required to drag/pull the undriven wheels. This was with respect to the Ur-Quattro, stuck in my mind as very interesting - if true.

[TimDogg]

Mine's at 48k miles and never had a problem but I'm about to store it again - I do this every 2-3 years. I just want it to be there when I get old

[Bladerider]

Just had my 110k+ miler given the full Stage2 treatment by MRC

Made nearly 440bhp and tight as a drum !!

J.

[toyneg]

Just had my 110k+ miler given the full Stage2 treatment by MRC

Made nearly 440bhp and tight as a drum !!

J.

[adsgreen]

excuse my ignorance but what are the regs you mention in your post.... you say that supercharging would not be possible with the regs.... obviously I know that the engine regs especially with respect to the emissions are changing year on year, but are we saying that they are disallowing supercharging at some point... or have I miss interpreted? .

It's more the fact that in order to pass EU emissions and noise regs with a supercharger then you'd have to build it specifically for that application. You couldn't put a supercharger on the BNS engine as it stood and have it approved. Supercharging itself isn't gong to be banned but it's going to be harder and harder to apply it as OEM on large engines esp when compared with turbos.
TBH, the BNS engine isn't the best candidate for supercharging even after market - the numbers some tuners are getting are quite impressive considering the valve timing is far from ideal and the RPM is so high.

Back to the carbon, its my assumption that this is probably in the large part due to internal exhaust recirculation, now if Audi utilised say an external control valve that would be just the ticket, a quick blanking plate, probably software mod and no more problems.....happy days....

exhaust gas recirculation isn't really something you want to stop. On a modern system it should only be operating under light load and cruise type scenarios to improve efficiency and help cool vavles but when you put your foot down it shouldn't be operating. I think it needs a tweak to the timing of the intake and exhaust valves to limit the exposure time of the exhaust gas entering the intake.

Your point about the drivetrain losses, I don't know how true it is, but I did read an article once that said 4wd is more efficient as the effort required to drive the wheels is less than the effort required to drag/pull the undriven wheels. This was with respect to the Ur-Quattro, stuck in my mind as very interesting - if true.

Ooo now that's and interesting point of view and tbh the first I've heard. However consider that with haldex based systems fuel economy increases when the car is in 2 wheel drive mode and it feels as if that 4wd has more losses.

[CellDamage]

My car had a full engine replacement (under Audi warranty) at 16k due to a cylinder bore defect, have been meaning to do a bit more digging and find out whether this was just a one-off or if others experienced a similar failure but have never got round to it.

Quite an amusing invoice from Chingford Audi "supply and fit complete engine - £0"

[Ginors4]

I love the car but cant help thinking that Audi could have done better..... I used to own an Toyota Twin Turbo Supra, that was pushing our over 400hp all day long, no issues at all over the 7yrs I owned the car, no carbon clean, no issues with the brakes, no worries of bore scoring etc. and all that from a car that was being built in 1993, so I'm not sure this is the progress we should expect, especially from Audi. When I look back now I realise what a fantastic car the Supra was and also good value when you consider the reliability of the thing!
That said, I love the RS4, but maybe because it fits my lifestyle, but then that's the point of the RS4 isn't it?
As for running costs, if you are serious about running an RS4, then you must be prepared for sizeable bills, at any mileage, they are getting on a bit now. If you have had the car for a while and it's getting up on the mileage and you know it's solid, to my mind better the devil you know, as others have said, you could buy a low mileage dog......... its easy to say but keep putting the fuel in and don't worry

I too had the twin turbo supra. Great car. Around 470bhp, just got in it, drove it, serviced it, and barely spent a penny repairing it. Power delivery was awesome. But it doesn't touch the the all round package of the rs4. Milage is irrelavant. If you intend on keeping it for a few years you are going to have dig into those pockets whether you like it or not.

[nij]

My car had a full engine replacement (under Audi warranty) at 16k due to a cylinder bore defect, have been meaning to do a bit more digging and find out whether this was just a one-off or if others experienced a similar failure but have never got round to it.

Quite an amusing invoice from Chingford Audi "supply and fit complete engine - £0"

I had my engine replaced by Audi after my first service with only 7K miles. The service manager told me it was due to failed piston ring, which was a £4 part. Dealer didn't want to strip the engine, so requested a new engine from Audi UK.