A4 2.8 Quattro performance upgrades

[mike liddall]

Hi Guys,

I am keen to get to work on my x reg 2.8 quattro Avant as the new dad mobile. Since I previously owned a Clio 172 cup putting out 190 and weighing 920kg I'm not expecting fireworks but do want some more mid range.

Currently I'm trying to hunt out a skilled and knowledgable individual with experience of porting the B5 30 valve heads. I understand that 5 valve heads are often badly compromised in their ability to ignite the charge mixture very effectively in comparison to a 4 valve heads. Yamaha have perfected it in their motorcycle engines so it certainly is possible and in theory at least the design should offer more mid range due to good flow speed and port open area. So what can I expect in BHP and torque gains and is there anybody out there who would be confident and capable.

Are there any sports cats available for this model?

Is there an inlet manifold/throttle body from another model that would offer a performance benefit?

I don't want to go for Cams at this stage.

What about the MSD ignition module that I've seen advertised stateside as a mod...supposedly give multiple digitally controlled sparks and really improves the burn speed and therefore low and mid range power in particular.

Any advice from personal experience?

Cheers

Mike

 

[hoban81]

Sorry cant be of any help as new to Audi. Sounds an interesting project, good luck with it.

 

[aragorn]

There really isnt much in the way of tuning for these engines.

N/A tuning is just far too expensive for the gains, so when people want to tune a B5 they tend to simply start with a turbo car, either the 1.8T or an S4.

Yes there may well be sport cats, exhausts and other bits available, but tbh your ******* into the wind when you can buy a 1.8T and apply a £400 remap and you've instantly got more than you'll probably achieve from the 2.8 without dropping several grand into it.

The other thing to remember, is tuning NA engines tends to push the power up the rev range. So even if you do port out the heads, find/make a larger throttle body, add some tasty exhaust manifolds, decats and twin 2.5" system etc etc etc, your unlikely to have improved the midrange at all, and most likely have just made the engine want to rev more and unleashed a few more horses at the top end.