2.0TFSI Intake Modification Guide

[RobinA3]

I have been looking on Awesome GTI website and they have a carbon fibre intake tube for the 2.0TFSI engine as the standard one is quite restricted so as i am off work till the new year i thought i'd investigate to see how restricted the standard one is. I didn't fancy paying £135+vat for the carbon version!

Looking at the whole set up it does look quite restrictive so i decided to de-restrict and here's a FAQ guide on how to do it.

So the thing in question is the pipes from the front of the car leading to the air filter on the bottom right hand corner of the picture.

Remove the cover from the top.

Undo the screws at both ends of the middle section.

Remove the connecting pipe, good old mole grips are handy in this step!!!

This is what it should look like now

Remove the middle section (its held on with 2 clips on the side and 2 at the bottom

Remove the section which fixes to the front of the car (its held on with 2 screws on both sides).

Now time to remove some material.

I used some snips to remove the plastic on the part that sits on the car.

Then used a knife on the middle section.

And once you are happy with what you have done then refit back together!

Any questions please ask.

 

[A3simon]

I fitted the carbonio intake and its a lot more than just removing restrictions its also supposed to keep the air cooler. Not so sure you have removed restrictions as if i remember correctly it is split in 2 the top goes to the intake and the bottom is sort of a release. By removing the split between them you may effectively release more air as opposed to taking more in. I could be wrong im no expert

 

[RobinA3]

There is a split and i don't know why they have done that to be honest.

How far does the Carbonio intake go? i am guessing it replaces the whole section and plumbs into the engine cover yeah?

i can't see the temp of the air being increased by a huge amount by travelling through that small of a distance from the front of the car to the engine cover.

i probably won't notice any difference whatsoever but its worth a shot

 

[A3simon]

it replaces the whole thing and is alot bigger it also means allair that goes in has to go to the engine. It keeps it cooler as the carbon doesnt heat up like the plastic does

 

[FreddieS3]

Hmmm....why are you destroying your car?! I don't think you noticed any difference doing that, correct me if am wrong.

 

[RobinA3]

why is that classed as destroying my car?!

i have removed some plastic to make the air flow into the intake better

if thats destroying my car then i'd hate to think what you would call crashing my car!

 

[FreddieS3]

Didn't mean do offend, sorry if you got me wrong. You have such a nice car and carving away some plastic hurts my Audiheart I just agree with Simon that its just much more than removing restrictions. Look at Oettingers intake system and you know what I mean.

 

[FreddieS3]

http://www.oettinger.de/inc/showbild.php?bild_id=4036

 

[RobinA3]

Didn't mean do offend, sorry if you got me wrong. You have such a nice car and carving away some plastic hurts my Audiheart I just agree with Simon that its just much more than removing restrictions. Look at Oettingers intake system and you know what I mean.

hey no offence taken chap

i know what you are getting at, in fact seeing as i paid for the car it should bother me alot but i know that removing excess plastic will help airflow as that part of the breather system is quite restricted, now i don't know why Audi designed it like that, probably for a reason but i can't think of one and my everyday job is to develop engines.

 

[RobinA3]

simon does that the carbon jobbie still split the air in the intake in 2 like the standard set up?

 

[S3DBW]

Robin,

Can you clarify what you have done?, From looking at the intake in standard form it appears that one half goes into the air intake and the other half just feeds cool air into the engine, does this effectively feed all the air into the air intake?

Cheers

 

[A3simon]

The Carbonio is one piece and the air goes in the front and out the rear there is no other outlet on it

 

[A3simon]

Robin,

Can you clarify what you have done?, From looking at the intake in standard form it appears that one half goes into the air intake and the other half just feeds cool air into the engine, does this effectively feed all the air into the air intake?

Cheers

No to do that you would need to close off the bottom hole

 

[RobinA3]

Robin,

Can you clarify what you have done?, From looking at the intake in standard form it appears that one half goes into the air intake and the other half just feeds cool air into the engine, does this effectively feed all the air into the air intake?

Cheers

In standard form as you say the intake feeds both the engine and inlet, on the inlet side there is plastic which diverts the air away from going to the inlet and towards the engine

i have removed the plastic which diverts the air away from the inlet so it flows easier into the inlet

its easier to see what i mean when you look at system on the car

 

[RobinA3]

The Carbonio is one piece and the air goes in the front and out the rear there is no other outlet on it

thats interesting

i am guessing the other one is for engine cooling then

because at the moment with the standard set up the amount of air flowing into the engine inlet is controlled by how much is being sucked by the engine

with the outlet blocked, all the air will be forced into the inlet as it has no where else to go

 

[MattS]

What Robin has done will work s long as it is sealed, I do like the look of the carbon fibre version and I may get one of these.

FreddieS3, have you noticed much difference with your Ottingerversion?

 

[RobinA3]

i am currently thinking about a way of blocking off the other outlet but i dont want to just block it off as it will cause turbulence within the ducting, it will need to be sloped and feed into the engine inlet

life might be easier if i buy one of those carbon jobbies but i wanna see if this will make the same difference as the carbon jobbies, if it does then it will be a free power uprade, if not then its only a piece of plastic so it can be replaced for a few quid.

 

[FreddieS3]

What Robin has done will work s long as it is sealed, I do like the look of the carbon fibre version and I may get one of these.

FreddieS3, have you noticed much difference with your Ottingerversion?

Haven't got it, was just for showing how it can look like. Thinking of buy it though. Anyone here how have it? Would like to know if it gives a extra sporty sound and extra hp ?

 

[A3simon]

It the same as the carbonio but with dfferent name on it the sound is no different with the filter that comes with it but the k&n sounds better

 

[MattS]

There is a similar thing available for the Vauxhall 2.0 Turbo engines but I was very dubious about whether it would work. So never bought it.

Thins one for the Audi does look more convincing, I'd buy it purely for the cosmetic look!!!

 

[dmaudi]

RobinA3,

from your diagram of the design and my experience with other cars and bikes, the design looks like a venturi, designed to draw only the air the car needs,

by having the lip the car effectively sucks air, if it needs more as engine revs rise then it creates a vacuum as it pulls in the lee of the lip which pulls more air in over the lip, the main airflow forced in by the car moving forward is not crammed into the air intake, causing a ram effect which would require more fuel to maintain mixture, and increase fuel consumption, this is pretty much standard on most cars

most aftermarket systems create this ram effect, which can cause the car to run lean if it does not have enough fuel to cope, the TFSI engines and most modern ones will adjust fuel air mix to cope but only up to the limit of what the injectors can provide,

ultimately any standard system is a compromise between, fuel, emissions and noise, I think this is a sensible mod and effectively free, not going to do any real harm

a good mod, IMHO

.
.

 

[MattS]

The injectors on the standard TFSi engine are from what I have learned capable of handlin up to 265/275bhp then their duty cycle is at the max, hence the S3 gaining bigger injectors.

I can see in the future S3 injectors being used on highly tuned 2.0 TFSi engines. This is what is happening on the Vauxhall scene, VXR injector rails with injectors being used on Astra and Zafira 200PS turbo engines.

 

[Xedos]

People seem to do anything for that extra 0.5hp it seems!

Firstly your not coaxing air into a naturally aspirated engine so perfectly smooth this or that will not quite have the same effect. This engine pulls air in from the turbo.

Removing a bit of plastic other possibly making your engine a hoover for **** off the roads and crap and make your engine po pop. Car companies are tight and would not just put bits of plastic where they weren't needed. To me it now seems like the block might get a bit hotter, youll suck in more **** and won't get any other than placebo horsepower. If you want more power, drop the compression, fit a larger turbo on an equal length manifold, plus injectors etc.

 

[DPM]

I sell Carbonio & all other types of cold air feeds and filters and my personal opinion is still that Audi wouldn't spend so much on developing cars and then just stop on the air filters and feeds. It may make it sound better but i don't think you'd really notice much difference on the performance side and that's coming from someone who sells the aftermarket ones!

 

[Xedos]

I don't post to be disrespectful or anything, its just its so stinks of drilling an airbox on a nova. Only having the money to buy a 20k car you would think better.

By all means making the car faster is cool, just there are right and wrong ways to do it. I tripled the power output of a car I owned 4 years ago, and it would still make the same power with the original airbox on it or not.

 

[RobinA3]

Thanks for the replies and i have taken everything on board that everyone has said

I understand where Xedos is coming from for sure, i know messing with this kinda stuff on a £20k is a bit extreme but i am doing this thing to see if there are any improvements, if not then i'll just replace the items, before i set off to chop all this stuff up i rang the dealers and priced up a new ducting pipe which came to £2.49 so i ordered one so that it could be replaced if all went pear shaped.

As for sucking up crap from the road..........thats what air filters are there for, if anything got past the air filter then the air filter is not up to its job, A3's are used all around the world which have dusty roads and have air that is 10times dirtier than that of the air over here.

I have now used fibreglass to block off the 2nd part of the outlet on the ducting so that all the air goes into the engine inlet, so basically what is it doing is the exact same as the carbon inlet jobbie so if you are saying that crap will get into the filter then the carbon version will be doing the same.

Maybe its just me who likes to mess around with cars, then again i am an engine development engineer so maybe i just can't help myself messing with stuff.

 

[RobinA3]

Firstly your not coaxing air into a naturally aspirated engine so perfectly smooth this or that will not quite have the same effect. This engine pulls air in from the turbo.

Removing a bit of plastic other possibly making your engine a hoover for **** off the roads and crap and make your engine po pop. Car companies are tight and would not just put bits of plastic where they weren't needed. To me it now seems like the block might get a bit hotter, youll suck in more **** and won't get any other than placebo horsepower. If you want more power, drop the compression, fit a larger turbo on an equal length manifold, plus injectors etc.

Thing is with NA or Turbo/Super Charged engines the princples are the same, which is that the engine sucks air, now removing the air filter will increase flow due to less restriction and therefore more power due to more air beign taken into the cylinders but obviously you can't remove the air filter, now by removing any restriction in any part of the intake system will help the engine suck air in, turbo'd engine or NA engine the less restriction the better, the harder the engine has to work to take a certain amount of air in the less power you will get.

Anyway i am going to put the car on the rollers when i can find a few hours spare and see what it produces.

 

[Xedos]

Thing is with NA or Turbo/Super Charged engines the princples are the same, which is that the engine sucks air, now removing the air filter will increase flow due to less restriction and therefore more power due to more air beign taken into the cylinders but obviously you can't remove the air filter, now by removing any restriction in any part of the intake system will help the engine suck air in, turbo'd engine or NA engine the less restriction the better, the harder the engine has to work to take a certain amount of air in the less power you will get.

Anyway i am going to put the car on the rollers when i can find a few hours spare and see what it produces.

If you are to go on the rollers, do a with/without, to see.

Im struggle *not* to get my hands dirty everyday. I have a history of going extreme on engines.

When I was 20 I bought a new Punto GT and had that for 5 years. With the money on I spent on that I shouldve bought a house instead but didnt.

It ended up being a Fiat X19 1500 bottom end with tipo 1600 head. The short of it was it boosted at 6500 with a rev limit of 8100rpm and over 320hp from a 1622cc engine.

So not tuning my A3 is hard.... 600hp 4wd but seriously now Im married, have responsibilities, and will one day stick a 1.8T engine into an Elise again and that'll be the fun car

 

[jacinth]

I have just worn out the novelty of my 2007 S3, done 16000 kms.
I want to change the airfilter, but have not figured out how to remove the
cover. I would appreciate any help on this first phase.

Thanks