so whats the best 'first mod' for my car?

[jazzyc]

ok, so i now want to start with some mods on my car but dont have big bucks to spend this month.

whats the best way to spend my spare £100

do i look at the k and n panel filter or n75j or is there other more worth while mods?

could even be interior stuff

all suggestions welcome

 

[Lowlife]

K&N's are a waste of money, better off drilling the airbox, and thats free! Unless you've got a reciept for a service in the last few months I'd spend it there.

 

[shineydave]

short shifter, mod your own for sod all and spend the money you saved on petrol

 

[jazzyc]

K&N's are a waste of money, better off drilling the airbox, and thats free! Unless you've got a reciept for a service in the last few months I'd spend it there.

so keep the standard air filter and drill the airbox. I have seen that on here somewhere so i will have a go at that the weekend

and its free......

have serviced the car myself so am happy that side is taken care of:icon_thumright:

 

[jazzyc]

short shifter, mod your own for sod all and spend the money you saved on petrol

now i like the sound of this

is there a 'how to' on here anywhere?

 

[Beerzo]

so keep the standard air filter and drill the airbox. I have seen that on here somewhere so i will have a go at that the weekend

and its free......

have serviced the car myself so am happy that side is taken care of:icon_thumright:

I done this with mine and just bought some cheap ducting and ran a feed from the lower grille on the front bumper to the holes just so it had a little more cooler air coming in.

You wont regret this mod. Also i would remove the fins inside the air box as well. You will know what i mean once you look inside. Also remove the trumpety thing off the end of the MAF sensor housing inside the box aswell. As with it on the ducting pipe sits about a pinkys width off the side of the air box.

After all this with mine i great a lovely but not too loud grunt. Plus you should get a bit of dump valve noise and wastegate chatter.
Then order up your N75J valve and a 710n dump valve and the rest on some V-Power!!

 

[jazzyc]

whats the 710n dump valve and how much does that cost? I am not in a position to do any chipping or remaps at the moment so will these bits be ok on the standard set up.

what kind of gains are achieved by these mods.

Am i right in thinking that the really big gain on the 1.8T 150bhp is when you get the car chipped? This is the one that adds 30ish bhp is it?

 

[Beerzo]

The 710n is a dump valve from an S3 meant to be a bit more agressive in the way it operates. It wont give you a power increase just meant to be better. Vag-parts website sell them. But best to call your local VW/AUDI/SKODA/SEAT dealer with the Part Number from the vag parts website as they might be able to better the price. Same goes for the N75J valve.

The N75J valve should get you a couple more PSi of boost. Yeah the best way to get more power is to chip the car. If your car is DBW you can get a demo chip from most companys that lasts a certain amount of hours. Would let you know what it would be like chipped. If its non DBW then you cant get the demo chip.

DBW - Drive By Wire ( no direct throttle cable )

 

[jazzyc]

mines a 2000 facelift 1.8T

Dont know if thats DBW or not

Are these chips simply a matter of just plug it it then?

how can they do a demo chip? I mean, does it only work for a couple of days or something?

which companys do this?

If i am going to fit the n75j should i also consider fitting a gauge that shows the boost? if so where do i get this from, are they just a fairly standard aftermarket gauge that you just wire in somewhere?

 

[Beerzo]

For the chip they baiscially just flash the ECU. Revo do it but you will fine most manufactuers do it but they only give you about 60-70% of the power you would get with the car fully chipped. Last something like 5 hours driving/ignition on time.

You can if you wish fit a boost gauge. I have mine in the drivers side air vent nearest the window 30-40 min job tops. Any boost gauge will do.

 

[Danielson]

i would save that £100 and add another 3-400 and get it remapped, best bang for buck

 

[shineydave]

710N isn't a dump valve it's a recirculating valve. reason it's better is the diaphragm is thicker so it's less likely to split. still a good mod in terms of reliabillity though

 

[jazzyc]

710N isn't a dump valve it's a recirculating valve. reason it's better is the diaphragm is thicker so it's less likely to split. still a good mod in terms of reliabillity though

so other than being more reliable there is no performance gain?

better to go with the n75j then?

 

[mwarrey]

I done this with mine and just bought some cheap ducting and ran a feed from the lower grille on the front bumper to the holes just so it had a little more cooler air coming in.

You wont regret this mod. Also i would remove the fins inside the air box as well. You will know what i mean once you look inside. Also remove the trumpety thing off the end of the MAF sensor housing inside the box aswell. As with it on the ducting pipe sits about a pinkys width off the side of the air box.

After all this with mine i great a lovely but not too loud grunt. Plus you should get a bit of dump valve noise and wastegate chatter.
Then order up your N75J valve and a 710n dump valve and the rest on some V-Power!!

Personally, I wouldnt mess around with the Air Intake or Drill holes, Audi don't spend £££££ on R&D for nothing. It will certainly make more noise, but I doubt if it will produce anymore power, may even produce less and cause other problems e.g. idle in cold weather etc.

Changing the 710n is good advice as far as maintenance is concerned. As for other mods, my advice would be to leave it for the time being, get to know the car a bit better first. In my experience there are always unforseen jobs that need doing on a s\h car, they aren't all apparent in the beginning, save you money for those.

If you have to spend some money a power run on a reliable rolling road or Vag Com check will tell you more about the health of your car and whether it is producing all the power it should be and there aren't any other common problems such as MAF failure etc.

 

[jazzyc]

short shifter, mod your own for sod all and spend the money you saved on petrol

So how do i do this?

 

[Beerzo]

Personally, I wouldnt mess around with the Air Intake or Drill holes, Audi don't spend £££££ on R&D for nothing. It will certainly make more noise, but I doubt if it will produce anymore power, may even produce less and cause other problems e.g. idle in cold weather etc.

Changing the 710n is good advice as far as maintenance is concerned. As for other mods, my advice would be to leave it for the time being, get to know the car a bit better first. In my experience there are always unforseen jobs that need doing on a s\h car, they aren't all apparent in the beginning, save you money for those.

If you have to spend some money a power run on a reliable rolling road or Vag Com check will tell you more about the health of your car and whether it is producing all the power it should be and there aren't any other common problems such as MAF failure etc.

They also dont make things so that they are as best as they can be many comprimises are built into a car. Doing the above has done not adversley affected anything in my car, still idles fine and runs like it did just gives a bit more grunt.

 

[Nessy]

People may laugh at me saying this, but one of the best and cheapest mods I've ever done to my B5 was to buy a VagCom-compatible lead off Ebay and then using the free version of VagCom change various control settings on the car......
Car now beeps the alarm horn (as well as lights flash) when remote is pressed to lock car....before I could never be sure if car was locked or not!
Doors also auto-lock when a speed of 15mph is reached , and first press of remote only unlocks drivers door, 2nd press unlocks all the others.
These changes were all done for a max outlay of £25 and has made a big difference to my enjoyment of the car.......would definitely recommend it to others.

 

[shineydave]

short shifter mod -

i've done this on several S4's, whether it's possible on anything else i'm not sure. you'll need to check the actual lever, anyway............

in a nutshell you pull the lever out of the car, there's plenty of posts kicking about on how to do that so i'm not going to repeat them here.

once you have the lever out of the car you will see that at the bottom of the lever is a nut and bolt which goes through a monkey metal cast joint which attaches to the shift rod that goes to the gearbox. on the S4 there's around 20mm of material below the bolt. all the mod entails is drilling a hole below the bolt so you can move the pivot point down. this makes the throw on the shifter shorter. i leave the two bits bolted together, drill a pilot hole, unbolt them and open them up to the proper size.

the bottom of gear lever is nylon and has a metal bush in it so the hole in there will need opening out a bit bigger to accomodate it. now bolt it back together through your new holes, refit the lot and then take a 12.0mm x 1.5mm pitch die and extend the thread for the gearknob by 30.0mm or so and just lop 30.0mm off the top of the lever

 

[John@ECM-TECH]

whats the 710n dump valve and how much does that cost? I am not in a position to do any chipping or remaps at the moment so will these bits be ok on the standard set up.

what kind of gains are achieved by these mods.

Am i right in thinking that the really big gain on the 1.8T 150bhp is when you get the car chipped? This is the one that adds 30ish bhp is it?

This cat sholud have 180BHP stock and be remappable upto 212ish bud.

Mine is a 2000W NDBW and had mine done for £275 bestr money I've ever spent on a car

 

[Danielson]

like i said earlier, chip/remap best bang for buck mod. enough said

 

[jazzyc]

This cat sholud have 180BHP stock and be remappable upto 212ish bud.

Mine is a 2000W NDBW and had mine done for £275 bestr money I've ever spent on a car

where did you get this work done for the remap. That seems quite cheap?

 

[John@ECM-TECH]

Had mine done off Simon Coe http://www.ccctech.co.uk/

Its a generic remap not a custom one but he travels to you and does a while you wait job. He had to desolder my ECU and solder a a new customized one in.

Some difference after I thought it was a bit flat when I first got the car after having a vr6 then Simon put the smile back on my face!

I've got his mobile which is not on the site, pm me if you want it.

 

[jazzyc]

Had mine done off Simon Coe http://www.ccctech.co.uk/

Its a generic remap not a custom one but he travels to you and does a while you wait job. He had to desolder my ECU and solder a a new customized one in.

Some difference after I thought it was a bit flat when I first got the car after having a vr6 then Simon put the smile back on my face!

I've got his mobile which is not on the site, pm me if you want it.

got simon coe coming out on friday to chip it so hope all goes well.

I have fitted my 710 and k and n panel filter also. Just need to sort out the n75j now

 

[stapo69]

Just bought and fitted a short shift kit off ebay for £30, loads of em on there, easy to find, well worth the money considering I couldn't find any difference between this and the really rather expensive B&M one, £170+!. Comes with the option of 3 different throw distances, was gonna mod the standard one but this replaces all the plastic audi parts with machined aluminium, my originals were quite worn. Highly recommend it.

 

[jazzyc]

Just bought and fitted a short shift kit off ebay for £30, loads of em on there, easy to find, well worth the money considering I couldn't find any difference between this and the really rather expensive B&M one, £170+!. Comes with the option of 3 different throw distances, was gonna mod the standard one but this replaces all the plastic audi parts with machined aluminium, my originals were quite worn. Highly recommend it.

that dont sound bad, have you got a link for them? was it much of a job to do?

 

[stapo69]

Here you go, always loads on there and they're pretty much all the same kit.
http://search.ebay.co.uk/search/search.dll?sofocus=bs&sbrftog=1&catref=C6&from=R10&_trksid=m37&satitle=a4+short&sacat=-1%26catref%3DC6&a6=-24&a39=-24&a39702=-24&a10244=-24&alist=a6%2Ca42078%2Ca39%2Ca41%2Ca39702%2Ca10244&pfmode=1&reqtype=1&gcs=2390&pfid=3528&pf_query=a4+short&sargn=-1%26saslc%3D3&sadis=200&fpos=pe8+6ap&sabfmts=1&ga10244=10425&ftrt=1&ftrv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&fsop=1%26fsoo%3D1&coaction=compare&copagenum=1&coentrypage=search

Christ that was bigger than I thought! 1st time I've said that for a while!
Here's the instructions for fitting too.

http://www.bmracing.com/media/products/pdf/25.pdf

Easy enough really, the only pain in the **** was getting the bolt back into the link afterwards, but with plenty of swearing and thowing tools it'll go in, oh and if you've not got any circlip pliers they would be ****** handy.
Hope thats of help to you.