soon to be audi a3 owner.mod tips!

[emery1990]

hello..soon to be getting a 1.8t a3. if you have one what was the first performance mod you done to it. im thinking of having head work before i get it remmapped.

 

[MasterAuron]

Jesus, how much is your insurance? As for head work, that's jumping in at the deep end somewhat. There's plenty that can be done beforehand.

 

[emery1990]

Jesus, how much is your insurance? As for head work, that's jumping in at the deep end somewhat. There's plenty that can be done beforehand.

oh right ok..im new to the modding cars world and that..just bee reading few somne of the articles on this site and that sounded like a good thing to do. and well i pretty pissed off with the insurance..when i was looking last year for insurance on one it was £1200..now its gone up to £1800 but got £600 left from my insurance atm..so aint that bad really for an 18 year old. what would people suggest then on mods

 

[HDi fun]

I'd suggest a brain transplant to be honest if you're prepared to pay £1800 for insurance.

OK, sorry, I'll retract that and apologise for being facetious.

The best single mod you can do is an ECU remap. All will stand 225bhp with ease.

The 1.8T A3s are OK dynamically and will take the extra torque with ease. My only concern is that the earlier ones (pre 2002) had weedy brakes in my opinion so do consider this if you are ramping up the performance significantly.

 

[MasterAuron]

I'd suggest a brain transplant to be honest if you're prepared to pay £1800 for insurance.

I disagree. Seems like a very good price considering the car and his age tbh. Most drivers with their own policy will pay near that on MOST cars (even 1.2s etc) in their first year of driving. It's not the 1870's any more HDi, insurance is a rip-off these days.

 

[turbonutter69]

I'd suggest leaving it standard until your insurance is cheaper. If you modify it in any way then you will have to declare it to the insurers and the premium will rocket.

 

[HDi fun]

I disagree. Seems like a very good price considering the car and his age tbh. Most drivers with their own policy will pay near that on MOST cars (even 1.2s etc) in their first year of driving. It's not the 1870's any more HDi, insurance is a rip-off these days.

If you read the rest of my post you'll see that I did retract that statement.

I agree, insurance for new drivers is horrific these days, even if you drive something very modest and, err, slow.

The insurers should do this:

Charge whatever the will for the first year, let's say £1000, then, for a 1.2 Corsa. This is the deal. If you have a claim free first year then they've got enough money out of you to give you the second year for free. It would encourage insurers to help new drivers. And give new drivers a thorough incentive to build their skills toward a free 2nd year's cover.

OK, if you smash it up and it's your fault then you're going to get stung on year two anyway. But give 'em a chance. When I passed my test (in about 1650) the first year wasn't punishing as it is now. But the second year was if you made a massive claim.

If you remain claim free into year three then the inusrance bill is likely to be around £300. Much kinder and at this point (with a couple of years' worth of experiance) then insurers could offer sensible premiums for 19-20-21 year old drivers on some nicer machinery,

The bunch I really deplore are the over 60 year olds who think they know it all and despise anyone else under the age of 59 years and eleven months.

 

[emery1990]

yes i guess your right about not modding untill my insurence goes down.

yer in my first year was paying 2k for a 306 1.6. my mates girlfriends driving a m reg citreon ac ? and hers is £1800 :amazed: so this seems like quite a good price.

about the brakes. If im getting a a 1.8t sport then itll be 03. but if its a quattro then itll be 02 plate. but too be honest dont have a clue what to go for. quattro is 30 bhp more but is the same to insure for some reason

 

[emery1990]

Just bought an audi a3 quattro sport picking it up mid week. cant wait !

 

[pgarner]

way back to the original post.

if its the 150 engine a remap will bring it up to around 190
if its the 180/190 (some ran with the 190 engine to help with the power losses through the transmission - remember the power figs quoted are at the flywheel ) a remap will take it to around 205-210 bhp from most places.
smooth out the internals off the air box to remove resistance in the air flow. dont know about the A3 but i think the 3.2 air intake might fit as it does in the golf range. this will give increase airflow and similar power figures to CAI for about half the price.

brake wise - if its an earlier model, pre 03, then it might have the 288mm front brake. these can be swapped for the later 312mm setup. the calipers themselves are the same its just the discs and caliper carriers that are different. however these need 16" allows


make sure its fully serviced


to give you an idea of how much the insurance will be affected by the remap ive just looked into it as my insurance is due soon. 4 years NCB, 9k milage a year, myself at 24 driving for 5 years and the wife at 26 driving for 8, fully comp buisness class 1.
£420 ish without the remap
£760 ish with the map
thats with my current insurer admiral

 

[emery1990]

way back to the original post.

if its the 150 engine a remap will bring it up to around 190
if its the 180/190 (some ran with the 190 engine to help with the power losses through the transmission - remember the power figs quoted are at the flywheel ) a remap will take it to around 205-210 bhp from most places.
smooth out the internals off the air box to remove resistance in the air flow. dont know about the A3 but i think the 3.2 air intake might fit as it does in the golf range. this will give increase airflow and similar power figures to CAI for about half the price.

brake wise - if its an earlier model, pre 03, then it might have the 288mm front brake. these can be swapped for the later 312mm setup. the calipers themselves are the same its just the discs and caliper carriers that are different. however these need 16" allows


make sure its fully serviced


to give you an idea of how much the insurance will be affected by the remap ive just looked into it as my insurance is due soon. 4 years NCB, 9k milage a year, myself at 24 driving for 5 years and the wife at 26 driving for 8, fully comp buisness class 1.
£420 ish without the remap
£760 ish with the map
thats with my current insurer admiral

ok thanks mate, yes it is a 2002 plate so i will look into the brakes, bit confused about the cai bit, so if i get the the airbox smoothed out could this bring up to around the 200bhp mark then. I'll have to wait untill my 2nd year to get a remap for this car i think, or maybe just for my 2nd no claims.

yer its got full service history. last serviced 56k its on 62k atm.

and for the alloy size does it have to be 16" or 16" and greater.

what sort of power loss am i looking at aswell, would getting the airbox smoothed out sort this problem out then.?

 

[CitizenErazed]

If you read the rest of my post you'll see that I did retract that statement.

I agree, insurance for new drivers is horrific these days, even if you drive something very modest and, err, slow.

The insurers should do this:

Charge whatever the will for the first year, let's say £1000, then, for a 1.2 Corsa. This is the deal. If you have a claim free first year then they've got enough money out of you to give you the second year for free. It would encourage insurers to help new drivers. And give new drivers a thorough incentive to build their skills toward a free 2nd year's cover.

OK, if you smash it up and it's your fault then you're going to get stung on year two anyway. But give 'em a chance. When I passed my test (in about 1650) the first year wasn't punishing as it is now. But the second year was if you made a massive claim.

If you remain claim free into year three then the inusrance bill is likely to be around £300. Much kinder and at this point (with a couple of years' worth of experiance) then insurers could offer sensible premiums for 19-20-21 year old drivers on some nicer machinery,

The bunch I really deplore are the over 60 year olds who think they know it all and despise anyone else under the age of 59 years and eleven months.

I was paying over 2,000 for my first car, a 1.4 rover 25, but I wrote that off so my next rover 25 insurance cost me 1,600 then I got a 1 L really old corsa merit and it went down to 900, now I've got my 1.4 Tigra it's back up to 1,800. And thats doing a lot of shopping around for the lowest prices. If he's managed to get a 1.8 for 1,800 then much kudos to him frankly.

I have the same problem with wanting to mod but not able to afford insurance bump ups, I've spent ages planning out what I want to do and working out what will effect my insurance the least to do first.

 

[emery1990]

I found it off of bell.co.uk mate. but i put my mum as a named driver. not main. But even if i was named id still earn no claims. without her it was £2800 but with her on it me still being the main driver, it dropped a grand. thats with £500 excess though.

 

[emery1990]

Im going bell.co.uk. Its only cheaper as if i was bymself itll be something like £2800 but with my mum as a named driver it goes down to £1800. My excess is at £500 i could go up to a grand but its not really worth it just incase i do damage my car

 

[MasterAuron]

For wheel size, from a performance point of view you want small and light to improve accleration, whilst still retaining a good width for grip purposes. Then again obviously 13" wheels would just look too silly on an A3.

You don't really want a CAI kit on a turbo car, because the air is heated up by the turbo in compression and then cooled again by the intercooler before it enters your inlet. So, go for a good cone filter or something that will allow you to get AS MUCH air as possible. Smoothing out the airbox will give you very minimal gains compared to this imo.

4WD systems like Quattro are usually heavier and involve more moving parts than 2WD, so there is a greater loss of power from the flywheel to the wheels. This is the power loss that pgarner is referring to.

 

[pgarner]

for the 312mm brake setup - at least 16" to clear the calipers. think the standard was 15 on the earlier models with the 16 and 17" wheels as optional extras.

with the bottom of the airbox smoothed i was getting between 8 and 12 grams of air. this was before putting the larger intake system from the R32 golf on. cant currently find the logs at the minute

you wont get much gains, with the induction kit itself. earlier models had a major restriction with the intake pipe from the airbox to the turbo

 

[MasterAuron]

you wont get much gains, with the induction kit itself. earlier models had a major restriction with the intake pipe from the airbox to the turbo

There's another thing to get sorted then (asap if it's that bad!). Be custom most likely but all you'll need is some pipe and silicone joiners. Could relocate your filter too if there's a better place.

 

[emery1990]

oh right ok thanks. wheres the best place to buy from, looked on google and went on some website called jetex, as it was the top search. Nah i wouldnt be doing no custom job lol

 

[pgarner]

forge make a replacement, speak to herb he had his replaced on his leon.
restriction, i think, was more due to the 2 sharp angles in the air disrupting the airflow

 

[pgarner]

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