why are they particularly unreliable cars? which audi should i look at if i want a mod friendly and potentially powerful car that is still reliable if i choose to stay stock for a while?

 

Well it depends on how much power you want. It also depends on how much reliability you want. The 2.8l 30v is very reliable and fairly torquey and well geared but it's not engine mod friendly. The 1.8T is the engine of choice for the modification geek but it requires a little extra attention and the 2.7T in the S4 is the money gobbling, super slutty bad girlfriend of the bunch.

 

right im diggin the twin turbo s4, but someone was hinting that theyre unreliable... maybe what he thinks is bad is not what i think is bad. as i said i just got rid of my 500 whp evo and im very familiar with the needs of a powerful car, my question was about audi's reliability... that is, i have had to change clutches and such on the evo but all in all even as powerful as it was i didnt have to replace transmissions or any engine internals as they never failed me of course everything was built to handle the power or upgraded, are people just upping the boost on the s4 engine and parts give out or what? what about the 03 a6? i have been looking at them and they have a twin turbo v6 available does anyone have an opinion of those and do they have a decent aftermarket following? would love to get that car and slap some gt30s on it

 

Nah the internals and heads and all will take 600hp easy. It's all the ancillary ****. Vacuum leaks, SAP failures, this breaks, that fails, K03 turbos eat their shaft seals and hemorrhage oil etc. seems to me that the stage 3 cars I've been around are far more reliable than the stock ones because most fail-prone parts are upgraded. An S4 is a fun car and can make a ton of power (you can go all out with water-meth, internals, and 2.8L heads and push over 1000hp). The A6 uses the same engine as the S4 and gets all the same benefits (and the same failures) as the S4. A stage 3 A6 would be a sleeper AMG killer.

 

thats good to know seeing as how a6s are easier for me to find than the s4... and since its the same engine im guessing mods for the s4 are good on an a6 engine. i wanted to get the new audi somewhat close to the power of the old evo lol and this is good to know. Devil u seem to be pretty knowledgeable where do u audi guys get ur turbo kits, fuel system upgrades, and cams? and will i be able to plug into the ecu and road/dyno tune it myself, any software available? thanks for all the info!! also is it true i would have to pull the engine to replace the turbos or is that just recommended?

 

You can get the hard parts from a lot of vendors (034Motorsport, AWE, APR, etc), most of whom also have a tune available. For tuning, from what the stage 3 guys I know have said, Vast is the most aggressive tune for timing under boost, boost pressure (25ish psi), etc. a local Vast stage 3 car has a boost ramp-up curve that feels like a board to the face - hits very hard and fast. Another local stage 3, AWE tuned, was set up for 20psi and had a quick but very smooth spool up, less violent than the Vast tune, but still lethal.

All that being said, if it was my money going for the mods, I'd talk to Mike Hood (mike-2ptzero on here). His shop, Ringer Racing, is great and he's extremely helpful to the AF community. Many guys on here have dealt with him and had nothing but good things to say. Hell, I called him on a Sunday evening just on the chance I would get him (not to buy, but to confirm a torque spec that didn't seem right to me). He called back within the hour with everything I needed to know. Rare levels of customer (and non-customer) support like that are worth supporting.

 

thanks for the link... they seem to cater more to the 1.8t rather than the 2.7t as far as turbo kits and valvetrain but i will definitely look into it more thanks again. do u know of software available that these tuners are using so that i dont have to get a generic or pre packaged long distance tune i would like to tune it real time myself if thats at all possible

 

Not 100% on this, but I don't believe you have the option to flash your own ECU with anything on a B5 platform. Pretty sure the B7 uses an EEPROM chip that allows you to upload at home but even so, that's preset programming (although you can spec the parameters yourself ahead of time, such as boost limit, injector size, etc). The only true flexibility in tuning you'd have would be a spec'd off the shelf setup that you augment with piggyback units (EBC, S-AFC, Rebic III if you wanted additional injectors, etc) or to use an AEM EMS system where you'd have to wire everything, and (unless AEM has a base start/idle map for a B5) you'd have to tune everything yourself , right down to the starting maps.

 

hmm... thanks a lot for the help man i will have to look into the available online tunes and aem would be nice, but not sure it would be worth it. maybe if i push one of the tuners they may help me with getting the software they use, but anyway thanks again for all the help it is very appreciated!!

 

Anytime man - I agree that EMS would not be worth it really. Way too much labor fabricating your harness. The upside is that there are estaished tunes for a lot of hardware configurations. You can get them with N2O controls, two-step, all kinds of stuff, and with your power goals in mind, talk to Mike and he can guide you on hardware and software selection, with the add-on controllers above to fine-tune what you have.

The final alternative is to build the car and dyno-tune it for a fully optimized program for your setup.