ah. well I ordered new ngk iridium ix plugs and saw a guy selling a set of 6 month old coil packs for $45 shipped so I bought them too. hopefully I can install them this weekend

 

I come from a Honda tuning background, but I've heard VW/Audi engines are extremely picky about tuning.

I skipped forward about 20 pages of this thread. what ECU are you using? is it standalone?

 

He's running a chipped ecu. Remaps fuel and boost parameters under stock ecu. Cheaper/simpler than standalone.

VW/Audi is very picky about tuning. These cars are engineered to run within exacting tolerances, and pretty much require a well tuned computer to run. The valve motions and piston travel comes so close its nuts.

Aledelic - Should've gotten copper. Disperses heat quicker and can help to stop any pre-detonation/misfires/stuttering.

Quick explanation of spark plug gaps and shizz - at higher boost the pressure would "snuff" out the spark so you run a smaller gap to compensate. A "cooler" level plug is important because at higher boost things get hotter and the residual heat on irridium plugs can cause combustion before the optimal time, which translates into a noticable stutter. Thats why lots of boosted applications favor copper, because it looses heat fast. The problem with coppers is that they'll foul around every 5000 miles, so I change mine with the oil. They're a lot cheaper though, so it kinda evens out.

 

honestly, before you do any replacing of spark plugs, I'd go with a full standalone setup and let someone experienced tune it. it could get a little expensive, but it'll be a lot safer/cheaper/faster in the long run.

then again, I don't know exactly what's going on. I saw 23 psi and that's a tad crazy on a non-standalone ECU.

 

Nope. Totally normal. Chips are really much safer/cheaper for these cars. The R&D put into these things is astounding, and they offer stock like reliability with more kick. 23 is a bit high, so I'm not sure whats going on there, but I'd start with the spark plugs.

Spark plugs - $10
Standalone - $200+

 

you know more about it than I do, as far as VW/Audi tuning, obviously. I'm just going off my experiences with a couple extremely picky Hondas. personally, I think replacing spark plugs is just a quick fix.

 

We'll see, but you gotta start cheaper. The software is excellent and probably better than a custom tune. That is, if he bought genuine software. It was used. But most likely he has good software and pre-detonation caused by spark plugs.

 

hm I didn't really think of the copper ones.. these should be fine though. hopefully
yeah I got the ecu from a very well known guy on vortex that wouldn't sell anything bad. $275 for an ecu with the newest giac tune was too good to pass. it only hits 23psi if I floor it, which I don't normally do

 

23 sounds aight, but maybe a bit high. Is this the X-Tune? You might have the race valve too lol.

 

I doubt I have any race valve. I checked the n75 valve and it looks normal

today I got bored, found an ollies gift card, got carried away and failed. I don't like how this turned out. way too much thin splattering. and those colors would look better on black. I think..





bleh. replaced 3 coil packs and all four spark plugs tonight, it's running well and at least 20psi with no bucking..

sedan's back! the problem was the timing. the guy adjusted it and it works fine... didn't have to replace anything.. still having starting issues but I think that's due to the egr valve which hopefully I can clean out/replace to fix. the car's not insured and I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing with it now...