Audi S7 Tuning

"Tuning guide to the greatest Audi S7 modifications."

The A7 is a superb car and we got just a little bit excited to learn an S7 version was coming out.

The setup is great, with fantastic handling and oodles of Torque and power on tap to reward the enthusiastic driver.

Different regions got a selection of different engines, all were well suited to the car, but we do prefer a petrol in our S7, the early 4.0 sounded fantastic.

We detail the best approach to S7 tuning and highlight the optimum modifications for your car. Audi S7s have loads of potential and with the ultimate mods you can noticeably increase your driving fun.

Tuning tips and articles

Engine tuning Transmission tuning Care care Intake & exhaust mods Improve handling Forums

See our video which covers all the principles of tuning your Audi.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are top of many to do lists for the S7.

Good suspension tweaks that usually enhance handling for the S7 include a couple of degrees negative camber and 1-1.5 degrees of toe in or out on the front wheels. Toe in for stability, or Toe out to improve cornering. It would also pay to improve the brakes, by adding larger discs and or higher friction pads..

Drop the car optimally somewhere in the region of 25mm - 42 mm. and fit uprated stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Turning our attention to the engine we need to get a bit more power out of the top end.

Following our tips for modding your S7 you will attain a practical but sporty car that will out perform bigger cars.

The best power gains come from larger engine sizes. The more you start with the bigger the return on investment so engine swaps are good value mods for small engined cars.

Power mods.

The following performance kits are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to go before you start.

  • S7 4.0 TFSI quattro  2012–2017 3993 cc V8 twin turbo
    420 PS (414 hp) at 5,500–6,400 rpm
    550 Nm (406 lbft) at 1,400–5,200 rpm
  • 2.9 L V6 TT FSI S7 from 2018 450hp
  • 3.o TDi Twin charged, with clever electric turbo boost - 349hp

Getting the right motorsport modifications for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 motor sport mods just won't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.

Please watch our video which covers the 5 principles of tuning your car. Be sure to keep up with our latest YouTube content and subscribe.

Best Engine Mods for your car

  1. Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings,  aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
  2. Fast road cams are one of the most significant mechanical changes, but they must be installed by someone who knows what they're doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
  3. Intake and Exhaust - Note that on their own these mods will NOT ADD POWER in most cases, but they can help enhance power after other mods by removing the restriction.
  4. Upgrades to turbochargers and superchargers - forced induction is the most efficient approach to increase air supply, allowing you to burn more fuel and make more power. It is one of the most costly upgrades but provides the best gains.
  5. Head work - The goals of porting and flowing the head are to get air flowing into the engine while removing flow restrictions and turbulence.

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Sports exhaust, Alloy wheels, Lighter flywheel, Suspension upgrade (drop 25mm - 42 mm.), Panel air filter, Remap.

Typical stage 2 mods often include: high flow fuel injector, Ported and polished head, Fast road cam, fuel pump upgrades, Power/Sport clutch.

Typical stage 3 mods often include: Competition cam, Sports gearbox, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Engine balancing, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves).

You should keep as much low end power as you can and aim for a long power band rather than a narrow top end power hike.

In this article we shall give your a good starting base to the best upgrades for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance mod.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest performance gains for your money as far as a solitary performance modifications goes on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine.

It improves the intake and exhaust durations and pushes up the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a performance chip. We'd also caution you not to go with a motor sports profile cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

Don't forget to look at the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty.

Using high octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from detonation or premature ignition on your Audi project after fitting other performance modifications. Higher capacity injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.

Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned S7's uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Please note that WE DO NOT FIND IMPROVEMENTS WITH INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car a lot and are finding that the standard air intake has become limited.

Derestricting the air feed into the engine is the primary part of performance tuning so get a better flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean only if you find the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound sporty but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not do much to increase power and usually rob you of power on most cars.

Sports exhausts will certainly help air flow through the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too large or you could very well end up with a reduced flow rate. So generally speaking, keep to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Head work including a gas flow (ported and polished) and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. In nearly all cases of S7 tuning your clutch will start to slip and this needs an upgrade - read our article on clutches for more information. The best mods in our opinion for your S7 are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements.

Turbo engines are just pleading to be remapped. You will see large power gains on most modern turbo charged cars including diesels making a tune/remap one of the most cost effective and large modifications for your money.

We've also seen some tuners toying with twincharged conversions and making some very high power gains.

Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains. Turbos are often harder to add than a supercharger. Turbos increase power in exponential proportion to rising engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.

Superchargers will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is simpler. Alternatively you could perhaps add water injection to control knock.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

The benefits of alloys include a lower unsprung weight and better brake cooling via the extra air flow they allow. Don't forget that your choice of rubber greatly affects your cars grip and handling. It is not worth compromising performance with cheap tyres when you can buy soft compound performance tires.We should point out that although they can look cool on the S7 large alloy wheels will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this to the change in your effective final drive ratio.

With this in mind we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 18 inches, although we know some of our members have gone larger than this with no problems and 19's do look really good but the ride is harder.

If you would like to know more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss S7 options in more detail with our S7 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Audi tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below.

We love hearing about our website visitors projects, especially the mods done and which work best for you on your car. Which helps us keep our guides and tips up to date helping others with their modified car projects. Your feedback and comments are used to keep this page up to date, and help improve the accuracy of these articles which are kept updated and constantly revised.

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