Thus enter the RS4. Utterly civilised, very quick and an engine to die for, a bit like the Jag. So one day last September found me at Harrogate Audi to collect a black, 1200 mile, 1 owner (he was on the waiting list for a new M3, boy will he be disappointed!) saloon. This is where the boring bit comes in - what is there to do with an RS4 that it doesn't already do in spades? I had obviously to think of something, so started with a Stratmosphere short shifter - relatively easy to fit but difficult to adjust properly to activate reverse smoothly. Then a K&N panel filter to aid breathing for what came next, a custom made exhaust by AAS in Newcastle. 200 cats to aid emissions, no exhaust valves but this was not an issue for me as it is purely a weekend fun car. The workmanship is superb and you'll love the price, but by far the best bit is the noise - it now sounds like a proper racing V8 when it wants to.
Only one thing left to do now - a remap. I took advice from t urbo man and booked myself a trip to JDEngineering in Lochem, Holland. This meant a ferry from Newcastle to Ijmuiden and then 100'ish miles to Jeroen. I'd looked at the timings and felt that it could be done in a day so made all the bookings. Hmmm, whilst on holiday in Spain at the half-term, I hadn't heard of the gales back in Newcastle so was blissfully unaware that my ferry had crashed into an oil rig on the opposite river bank and that sailings were cancelled for a week or so. DFDS offered me an alternative, a day earlier or a day later so after calls to Jeroen at JDE, they managed to shuffle their other customers around and I rebooked for a Wednesday evening departure.
On board nice and early to leave at 5 pm but others were not so prompt! Over 1 hour late leaving, but surely we'll make that up on the crossing? Nope, not only an hour late arrriving in Ijmuiden but a lorry had broken down ahead of us in our lane and so we were 8th last off the ferry. Slight signs of panic begin to appear! Satnav on, left at 10.55 and drove Eastwards through heavyish traffic to Lochem, arriving 12.30. I think the LED DRLs I have certainly get people's attention in their rear view mirror - most others move politely out of the way.
I had to be back on board by 5pm so that left around 3 hours max for the work. Because of this time scale, we did not take any before runs on the dyno. There are other dyno traces already out there - see t urb man's post - so Martyn and Hans got to work, strapping the car on the dyno and beginning the computer downloads and reinstallation of the new maps, which took almost 1 and a half hours (or 5 cups of coffee).
Jeroen was actually ill with flu so Martyn sent details of the first run online to him at home. Having analysed this first trace, he felt he had better come in to tweak something and after twiddling with the laptop, we ended up with the following trace.
The results speak for themselves, much more torque and power, very smooth curves. The trough in the lower rev range of the torque curve Jeroen puts down to the new exaust having a little less back pressure. However, there are compensating gains elsewhere as can be seen on the following trace, an overlay of Jeroen's own car against mine. He was well impressed with the results and based on my drive back, the road behaviour is now much smoother with oodles of power and torque available virtually right through the rev range, accompanied by a wonderful soundtrack.
My car received the usual package - full throttle available in lower 3 gears all the time, cold running rev limit reduced to 4,000 rpm, upper rev limit raised to around 8400 rpm, upper speed limit set at 320 kph, 2nd lambda sensors disconnected electronically. Apparently Audi overfuel the RS4 as standard so Jeroen has also cut this back a little so I may see an improvement in fuel consumption. My car only has 2300 miles up so it needs to loosen up for a while yet.
Am I happy? You bet. 251 miles door to door, 59.5 litres of fuel so say 19mpg. Ferry costs £230, exhaust £1550, Re-map Euros 990, 1 day and 2 nights out of your life but very well worth it. If there is a next time, then an overnighter in Amsterdam sounds much better than blasting around on a restricted timetable!
I have a video of the trip but it is stuck in Sony Picture Motion Browser on my hard drive so if anyone can offer any advice as to how I can attach it to this post?????
