beginners guide

[bobjebb]

Hi all

Now it looks like the new RS4 isn't likely to happen for me, I am looking to keep my B5 for a long time. I know mods are discussed ad infinitum, but I'm loking for a beginners guide, but most importantly advice on the realistic ceiling before any special care is needed due to over stress. In other words how far is 'far enough'

I really no little more than stage 1 ecu upgrade (mtm or amd are most convenient for me)

other option is obviously exaust, but understand these come in different stages too, and not sure of how this all works


Thanks in advance for dealing with a novice

Bob

[JohnW]

Bob,

this was posted recently by JR, and many agreewith him.
Stage 3 (458bhp-ish) is sufficient if you want to keep reliability and some sense of control over your bank balance !
Basically, once you go beyond this you start needing different clutches, getting problems with drive-shafts, and potential unreliability due to other minor things failing.
Once you get into different heads, turbos, etc the money flows very fast for fairly small improvements.

Have a look at both the AmD and the qst-tuning web sites. They detail the AmD and MTM routes to stage 3.
Stage 1 is chip ~420bhp & £1k5
Stage 2 is chip & cat-back exhaust ~428bhp & £2k4
Stage 3 is chip & full system incl free-flow cats ~458bhp & £4k

Just look at www.qst.uk.com and you will see how fast the price rises for small power gains after this...

I should add my car is standard tuning-wise. Why ?
Because imo the extra power is negligible, and what makes the real difference is brakes and suspension. This was borne out last year at Spa/ring where the stage 3 cars weren't noticeably quicker, and even if they were the cars with better brakes could reel them in no probs at the ends of the straights.

So, in order of preference, I would do the following:
1) quick-shift (not much money and well worth it)
2) front brakes
3) suspension
4) stage 1/2/3 as you can afford.
5) rear brakes (unless you can get a deal by buying them all together).

Hope that helps mate.

Cheers,
John.

[bobjebb]

very kind John, cheers.

Will do some research. brakes... I am due some soon so should maybe make that my first reckless purchase. Do these come in various forms? Presume Audi dealer will just do stock? Afraid to ask unless I feel confident what I'm asking for!

Ta.

[JohnW]

You have a few options for brakes.

You could go for gmbh, but it seems these are not favoured,
You could go for Movit, which most seem to have now, or
you could try something different like a brembo or AP setup.

I have a Movit setup on the front of mine, which consists of Brembo 4 pot
monoblocs (Porsche GT3 mk1). The disks are also GT3mk1 but bolted to
Movit centre bells.
I have no idea how much they are new as I brought mine second hand.

It seems that Movit now favour 6 pot caliperws on a slightly smaller disc.
Best thing is to have a good search for 'Movit', or '6 pot'.
DaveP and FlashyG stopped in to Movit HQ last year after Spa to have
these fitted, so probably better for them to fill you in on the details.
I don't think you'll get much change out of 3 and a half large though

I should add, the stopping power of these things is trmendous
You don't need much pedal effort at all to make the thing stop. I have to
recalibrate my right foot when I get back in the RS4 after driving the other
car

[TarmacTerrorist]

Short shifter is definately the first thing on the list, if you haven't got one already then go get one! (if nothing else)

Uprated brakes are a big expense, but then so is replacing the standard discs and pads, this is something you will have to decide yourself as to wether you can see any benefit from the extra 1-2.5k you will have to spend (just for fronts). Dont be dooped into thinking you need better brakes from all you read on here, many have change them through shear necessity having found the limits of the standard set-up on a race track, others have changed them just to tell impressive tales of size and diameter across the pub bar.

Chips, exhausts and engine work is simply down to personal tastes and mentalities , Im runnning stock code and exhaust and happy with it. After covering a few thousand miles around race tracks and over Europe with a posse of RS4's all in different states of tune I would personally say that any difference you will see in performance will be in the acceleration zone when already travelling at speeds above 80mph, from standing starts and low speed 2nd gear corners upto speeds of 70/80 theres not a great deal of difference other than the noise, but I'm sure other will argue that point