Audi A4 3.0l 2002

apdc

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Location
Gatineau, Quebec
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Audi A4 3.0L 2002
I have been driving this car for a few years now and before the financial crises I was about to trade up to an Infiniti G37x.

I have decided to keep the A4 a bit longer and I'm thinking that a few mods may make a couple of years more interesting. I love the ride, feel and performance of the A4, but I would like to know how it would be if it actually packed 300hp rather than its OEM 220hp.

So far, I have only added a K&N air filter - I am not sure I ever felt any difference, but it appears to run a bit more efficient. What can I do next...?

I normally drive my car slowly, but often times I like to have it perform for me in the city (of course, within reason for safety) in all kinds of street conditions - wet, snowy.... The car does wonderfully winding around the city.

I have been hearing conflicting advice about chipping or remaping my ecu. My best understanding is that chipping the car would not boost my hp by more than 10hp, but the power will be modestly enhanced for all speeds I may drive my car. Is it worth it??

I currently have 17" rims/wheels in the summer and I am thinking about going to 18" or 19", which one is 'better'?

What else can I do that will have a noticeable difference in performance?

I am not very knowledgeable about cars and would have any work done by professionals.

My power steering pump is apparently in need of replacement. Are there performance considerations with this part?
 
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Hi and welcome. The NASP engines do not give very good power gains with remaps as you have discovered.

Getting the head properly ported and flowed and a set of fast road cams will be about the best modification you can do to it.

It would be worth seeing if you can get an FSE fuel boost valve fitted, this makes acceleration seem more snappy.

Bigger wheels will actually make the car slower due to the alteration of the effective final drive ratio. You also will suffer from tramlining and other handling issues with big wheels.

Most owners go with a larger allow and lower profile tyre to keep the overall rotational diameter the same.
 
Thanks Waynne!

So I guess from your reply that remapping is not worth it. The three suggestions that you offered ... how much power would it contribute and what would be the cost if I go to a pro shop - guestimates welcomed...
 
Guestimates are pretty hard. Bear in mind that parts all work together so adding a cam may add 10bhp and the head work adds 10bhp put them both together if done right and you are looking at say 25-30bhp of a gain. A lot depends on the condition of the engine.

My gut feeling is that you will see a 20% gain overall - enough to make a very noticable difference. By all means use a remap as the last step to squeeze every last bit out of your other mods. Remaps on NASP engines are only worth doing if you have made substantial changes like head work and cams.

The Fuel boost valve does little for power but makes the throttle response much more snappy.
 
Thanks Waynne: Lots to think about. Are you feeling generous enough to estimate all of these modifications of a pro shop would do it for me - parts and labour???

Thanks!!
 
With the currency rate fluctuations it is near impossible. Locally in the UK £sterling I would guess the work would cost around (bear in mind these are real guesses and prices vary even over here a lot from garage to garage!)

Power Boost valve - £80-150 fitting £30
Exhaust - £400 - £800 fitting £30
Cams - £100 - £200 fitting £100
Head porting and gas flowed - £1500 - £2000
 
Hi there, I have the same car and have spoken to a prof and he has said that if you want serious power (which i do) then fit a supercharger, PES do one for around £3500 + 30hrs fitting so all in all £5000 apx plus all the other things to do port and polish, Cams may get an extra 50-80hp
 
Thanks very much guys. My A4 3.0, is tiptronic and I was told that supercgargers installed on 'automatics' could be unreliable because of the software.

I have also spoken to a prof about remaping and he believes that I will not get a significant boost in hp but will get better responsiveness especially at lower speeds. He contends that installing an FSE boost valve would be redundant because the remap would cover the same ground.

What have you heard or learned?
 
dont know about the tiptronic but a remap in the 3ltr will give prob 10-12 bhp the FSE will improve throttle response as it allows delivery at a higher pressure however it may not do anything for overall power.

not sure about the auto issues as think these could be sorted by a custom remap that takes into account the change overs in perspective to the revs and throttle position
 
Try fitting a sprint booster as this will effectively do the same as an fse by cutting the time for the electronic throttle in half
 
have you tried this out ?
bit septicl about this as the electronic throttle is well electronic the delay should be controlled by the ECU not the petonimeter itself.
would like to hear more about them but not wasting near £200 on something that only seems to work on their site. couldnt find any other reviews when i last looked for them.

the FSE is different, the fuel that is over the standard, taking a guess here, 3.5 bar is feed back to the fuel tank. a higher pressure one allow a greater pressure behind the injectors to push the fuel through.
 
I had a sprint booster fitted to my X5 3.0d and it did work as you know on diesels it takes forever for the revs to come back down and for the throttle to react in an auto especially, I noticed an immediate improvement, I understand people worrying about spending near £200 but i have nothing to do with the industries we are talking about and i would reccomend one.
 
Hi there, I have the same car and have spoken to a prof and he has said that if you want serious power (which i do) then fit a supercharger, PES do one for around £3500 + 30hrs fitting so all in all £5000 apx plus all the other things to do port and polish, Cams may get an extra 50-80hp

I bought and fitted the PES G3 supercharger and that's a fair cost estimate. but you really need to uprate the transmission valves to deal with the extra 100-odd BHP and 50 lb/ft of torque and that set me back a further £1800.

Add to that the fact that the only authorised fitter in the UK didn't want to install the unit because I bought it directly from PES instead of through them unless I paid them £500 for their own ECU remap, and the fact that PES refused to flash the remap to another specialist - like AMD or QST - and the costs kept rising.

So you can imagine that, having spent £70 per horse gained, I was very frustrated to discover the the horrible whine, low end delivery and the impact of an additional 40lbs ahead of the front axle actually detracted from that most priceless of things, an enjoyable day-to-day driving experience.

The outcome? The supercharger now resides in my bookcase where it does a pretty decent job of looking sculptural.
 
sorry, i was so involved in lamenting the g3 that i forgot to recommend using Shell Optimax and/or replacing the standard exhaust. It's almost unbelievable, but upgrading to a milltek exhaust increased my car's outputs from 230bhp and 199lb/ft to 259bhp and 234lb/ft. But it's not the peak outputs that are a game changer - it's the availability of so much more power at low and mid ranges.

I can only assume that the standard Audi kit is really subpar. has anyone else had this experience?
 
Welcome to TorqueCars Nader0102, good to have you with us. You sound like another big Audi fan!

I think when you start tuning any car the weak spots really start to show. VAG do knock out pretty reliable cars with lots of potential but as you say if you tune them up you need to pay attention to other parts and strengthen these.
 
too true. i have to say, the longer i live with my car, the more i appreciate why drooling over a cutting edge supercar with a 2 year shelf life isn't quite the same as seeing another petrol head's obviously much loved, understood and attainable car. i've got a reventon and a billion and one csls, db9s, r8s etc parked outside my office in mayfair and every morning, they make me happy. but there's also an Alfa SZ and a mk1 golf GTI. and the truth is, i think i'd far rather spend a few hours with their owners than with people who treat their cars as a status symbol rather than a passion.

anyway, happy new year and all that. nader
 
It's the extra mid range go you get with a remap that counts far more than the headline figures. I'm going to get mine done by Revo but I have the 220bhp 2.0Tfsi turbo for my sins and hope to get around 250-260 initially before the turbo upgrade.
 
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