Axel

If only they brought the RS4 in Avant trim here. One of my biggest pet peeves.

sakimano

funny...I already gave JHM your ECU screenshot 6 months ago when I logged your car. Could have told them to dig out the old email and save you a trip (I sent them your stock logs to see what they thought...)

sakimano

there's only one guy who has (properly) turbo'd a 4.2 and he has pretty deep intellectual pockets. I'd be impressed if you were able to do such a thing on your own. His resume is pretty mindblowing, and he's the only one to do it so far. To do so, you need to build the motor (otherwise what's the point of turbos if you're not making 500+ whp....just get a blower that makes 425 whp on stock motor. Since nobody on earth can do a 4.2 S4 motor build except JHM, it's going to get real expensive. Basically you're looking at 15-20 if you hire JHM to do it for you (build + turbos). If you want to DIY it, you're probably looking at 40-50 when you figure out what the job entails, and the research/testing that needs to be done.

3.2 A3 would be fun. FWD FTL though (even if it's haldex)...you should strongly consider a 4.2 S4 Avant or a more practical 2.0T B8 A4 Avant. The 2.0 FSI engines are ridiculously succesful for making power. Your big dog won't be happy in the back of an A3. Our Rottwheiler hopped in and before I even closed the hatch, I said 'eff this' and we grabbed a B8 A4 Avant isntead. Wasn't very 'spacious' for her. Considering all the sacrifices required to have a 2.0T A3...and the money required to have a 3.2 A3 (which is still Haldex at best) the 2.0T A4 was a no-brainer. It feels like twice the car.

p.s. you can't claim to have a good sounding 4 cylinder without putting up a video!

Axel

They may have tossed it aside, forgotten about it, or wanted something more recent?
Who knows

cheeba

I should have said that I'm also considering a B7 A4 Avant.

Link to the turbo 4.2 car? I'd build the engine myself for sure, but probably couldn't fab a turbo kit until I bought a third car to drive while I did it. I'm fully capable of building a turbo kit (not knowledgeable enough to tune it yet), and am quite familiar with motor engineering/physics. I'm the type of person that doesn't let anything stand in my way when I want to so something - if I don't know it, or can't do it, I'll learn it. That said, it's a task that I probably wouldn't get around to for a while.

Thanks for the info, though - I guess I better have my dog hop into an A3 before I even consider it! As anyone that has driven in my car with me can attest to, Haldex isn't going to be holding back anyone in terms of performance. Set the car up right and any difference between Haldex and Torsen disappears everywhere but at 10/10ths on the track (and even then it would be a very slim margin, if any). I know pretty much everyone disagrees with me, but I don't think anyone who does has ridden in a properly sorted Haldex car.

I'll get videos and pics someday! I'm moving houses and designing/building a man-cave basement right now!

Axel

Just installed an illuminated shiftknob:

sakimano

nah, they just didn't know that you were one of the logs they have on file. I didn't give them your name or anything.

well the Haldex is still a sacrifice...because in your own words, even spending money and sorting out the Haldex weaknesses...you still aren't as good as Torsen. That's what I meant...you're giving up...even if you reverse the diff and spend a bunch of money 'fixing' it's FWD weakness. Why not just grab an A4 and not have to deal with it? That way your engine will be in the proper way too

As for the turbo car, that's the thing...you can't 'build' the engine yourself.

I mean you could...but the learning curve is too expensive to 'try' on your own. A friend with connections to racing teams in Detroit exhausted all of his connections and basically got told 'no thanks...not with that engine. Too expensive, too risky, too hard'. The reason being, nobody has done the legwork, and therefore you'd have to blaze the trail on your own. JHM has connections to the OEM side which they use very effectively...and they are STILL the only guys to attempt this.

Here's an example...let's say you buy a 4,2 S4 and start your build. Do you know which piston set you have? nobody does. There is not '1' set of rods and pistons for the B6/7 S4 engines. There are half a dozen different ones. In order to get them 'built' you need to tear down the engine and do some pretty intense measuring to determine what you have, and then get a ONE OFF custom set of pistons. Why one off? That's something entirely different about the engine block that again nobody expects. This is not a 4 banger with a drop in forged internals kit you can buy off ebay. It's a real PITA this engine (for builds).

JHM wasted a few sets of forged rods and pistons, a couple of engine blocks and all kinds of parts in testing how to do this. It, as I said, will have cost them about $50,000 before they are even able to do one setup for a customer. Since there's no way they'll share how they did this, you'll have to go through the same steep as hell learning curve to do it.

The engine build is the hard part, not the turbo kit fabrication...and the turbo fab is a ****ing nightmare lol.

Axel

Well, dropped the car off at Twins this morning for the install. Can't wait for them to be done.

bangoman

Sweet!

halo777

Looking forward to the next update!