i was thinking about doing a custom cat back on my 2000 2.8 30 valve, leaving the cat's, removing the resonator and doing 2.5" piping from the cats back to a magnaflow muffler. anyone ever seen this or think its a good idea? i would like to point out that i am going for power more than tone, although some tone would be nice. also i was thinking about getting this blacked out detagged grille for my car, its dark blue and i want to know if it would look good or not i cant find any pics of it on cars. if anyone has one post some pics. grille// http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/96-01...item2a10e55837

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/96-01...item2a10e55837 , actual link to grille, messed up last one

 

You won't gain much power at all (maybe 3-5hp) but it'll be motherf*cking loud. Use a 12" Vibrant resonator with the muffler and it'll sound great.

 

well my car doesnt have much for power....my fans are loud as fu** sound like a v8... it almost seems like they are restricting the engine. i dont know what else to do for power by DYI maybe plugs and wires?? wont do much either but anyone has ideas for cheap HP let me know

 

you cant do much with the 2.8 only thing that comes to mind is exhaust and air filter (the cheap stuff) the only real gain would be a supercharger... your out of luck if you dont want to spend that much.

 

Your best bet for cheap HP on a 2.8 would be to sell it and get a 1.8t. Power options for a tight budget are next to none for a 2.8; your options are air flow and chipping the ecu, thats about it, and between the two you'll get, if you're lucky, maybe a 20 HP gain to the wheels, hardly even noticeable (I know, I've done all the basic, cheap bolt ons for mine and it moves just about the same as it did stock) If you've got about 5 grand to play with, you can supercharge it with a kit from PES Superchargers, but that'll only net you about 100 to the crank and 75-80 to the wheels - far from worth 5 grand for only 100 HP gain where that 5 grand could buy you a 1.8t and leave you some spending money to chip and exhaust it and get you moving VERY noticeably quicker.

If you're really interested in the cheap HP gains for the 2.8, opening up the exhaust, depending on how much of the pipe work you do yourself and what parts you get, will run you around 200 bucks. A high flow air filter for the stock airbox will be 50-60 (cold air intakes are useless on any A4 cuz the stock airbox has been proven by many a tuner to flow enough air to handle a 350 HP setup (big turbo status for the 1.8t guys) so theres no point in spending the ~150 bucks or so for a cold air intake when a 60 dollar high flow filter will be sufficient) and then there are a few chip options available: SpeedTuning is what myself, ImTheDevil, and several others have; they're about 150 bucks outside of group buys, and have the same effect on the tuning as the 400 dollar GIAC chip power wise. I've heard, but not fully verified that upgraded cams can free up some power, but unless you can turn a wrench yourself and know your way around motor internals, that'll be a fairly pricey upgrade as well (at minimum 1 grand, probably closer to 2) so you can spend a little under 500 and get a 20ish HP increase, spend 5 grand and get a 100ish HP increase, or take my first bit of advice and get a 1.8t if you really want to move quick

 

Don't bother with cams. Pointless unless you're moving a lot more air and probably turning higher RPM. Plugs and wires won't do anything for you unless yours are bad - these cars react differently than Hondas. Right out of The box they came with better parts and better-designed breathing, which is why changing those parts does zip-point-**** for output. The sad fact is, if you want to mod for power, you bought the wrong car.

 

^ Thanks for the clarification on the cams. I was skeptical about them doing much, but I've been wrong before in knocking someone else's suggestion of ways to squeeze a few more ponies out of the motor so figured I'd throw it out there and see if it got a positive response or not.

 

Yeah they really aren't going to gain much. The 2.8 can flow so much more air in stock trim than it can possibly ingest without some sort of power adder (boost, spray) that the effects of the cams would be transparent to very mild at best. Now, throw a 75-shot or a G2 on it and those cams might be more noticeable, but that's only speculation.

 

The only thing you can really do is hollow out the stock muffler. I would go and spend 20-30 on a glass pack muffler. That will give it alittle tone.