S3, Great bit of kit... (and build thread...sort of)

Dt_racing

Dt_racing

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Thought I would introduce myself, usually a pretty active forum member but have been sculking in the background for a little while.

Bought my 2007 S3 a few months back and have been reading all about it since, gleaning every bit of info I can from you good people of ASN and planning my upgrades accordingly.
I know how much we all love a picture so here she is...


Looking over her at time of purchase I knew there were a few things I needed to do for me to be happy but as much as anything I like to feel like I can improve something and buying something already pristine wouldnt be much fun.
The paintwork had been subjected to what I like to call 'normal person car care' it appeared to have been washed with fairy liquid and rocks and the dealer had done his best to conceal this with heavy filler waxes but it showed through. Overall she drove wonderfully had a full Audi Service history and average miles for the year, so that very moment i dropped the cash and parted with my much loved Mazda Rx8 R3 and started my S3 journey.

After a few weeks of driving (not been familiar with turbo'd motors i perhaps assumed some issues were not issues just my ignorance) I did start to notice a few things and looked them up on here, initially i popped the DV out and found the rev G had a slight nick out of it, so fitted a Rev D, so much the better for it.
Once used to the car I next noticed the most obvious handling floor of the S3, understeer... So ordered up the eibach pro-kit (2 springs) and fitted these, great improvement and much improved look, but not yet enough to dial out the understeer (sorry dont have pics of this).

So i've made a start of the detail of the car but nowhere hear finished.
She's had the usual snowfoam, 2 bucket wash, Iron X, Tar removal, full clay and paint seal, wheels off and cleaned inside and out. At this time I've only managed paint correction on one panel (the worst one) some before and afters here.
Before:


After: (and not yet happy with it)


I now know how Bl**dy hard german paint is...

Next up were the brakes, standard S3 units spot on for the road but being the keen track day fan that I am knew I'd cook them in no time. Research and budgetry restriciton lead me down one route. TTRS stoppers. Piece of cake to fit and immense improvement over standard.
Standard: (Excuse the wheel dust)

After: Been on a few weeks.

Its a cozy fit:




Added the 12mm wheel spacers and this has actually helped with the understeer once again but still just not quite enough.

Next to defy convention in the engine mapping norms, I fitted a TDi-Tuning box that I had re-programmed from my old Toyota Rav4 Diesel. Always had these on my diesels and are great bits of kit so thought why not use what I have. Anyways, as is the case with these took me 10 mins to fit, stuck it the top setting and boom off we go proper power! Stuck my OBD2 dongle on and took a heap of live measurements make sure everything is tickityboo and as it was left it there. Happy camper.

Last but not least, and only fitted it this morning managed to get hold of a DV+ from Muzzo80. Only had my run to work so cant tell if we have an improvement or not, nice piece of kit though.

So thats pretty much it for now, more on the cards but when that will be I'm not sure, maybe in the new year. ARB's next for sure and upgraded brake pads all round but after that who knows.
 
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Nice car and great write up. Like the paint work detail. Recently done this on mine nearly got the whole car swirl free but weather stopped me.

What air mass figures were you getting?
 
I was mainly looking at air/fuel ratio which was spot on and never gets anywhere near leaning out. Just taken a look at my logs (needing to be a littel specific here) and under full throttle, 5th gear, at speed of 100mpg my flow from the MAF was 209.77g/s or 27.75ib/min. Sorry not really sure what your after? I use dash command so dont have full VCDS logging facilities. I do want to get my hands on VCDS however, looks great.

More info on the F/A ratio, pretty common figures seen here - 0.749 or 11.0103:1 (rich but not ultra rich) at very high engine loads, watching the figures from 1000 rpm to 6500rpm in every gear under acceleration it never leans out at any point, always a nice pregressive richening...if thats a word
 
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If your MAF reading was 209g/s at its highest that'd roughly be 261 BHP, which is pretty much stock. Do some more 3rd gear runs and see if you get a better reading, 5th gear is not ideal for this.

VCDS is a very good tool for diagnostics, analysis, and coding. Well worth the money.
 
Dan-jnr, thats excellent info, so whats the correlation between MAF and power exactly? Just checked some older logs and seeing 245.61g/s in 4th just prior to gear change. I will go do a few runs in third however and report back. You have me intrigued...:idea:
 
First time I've seen TTRS brakes under pre facelift wheels. Looks snug.. Did you have to move the wheel weights to the inside of the rim? And those pics are with 12mm spacers correct? How lowered is the front and does it rub under hard cornering at the front?
 
S3-mat, it is snug, i'd estimate there's little more than 5-6mm clearance from the caliper to the inside face of the rim, I actually have my wheel weight still in place but Imagine they are close. I've not heard or seen anything that resembles touching of the brakes on the rim and I had the rims off yesterday. Your right as pictured it has 12mm spacers and is lowered on the Eibachs, no rubbing on the arch as yet but I will admit that the only hard cornering its had is on roundabouts (have been in understeer at quite tight lock). I havnt encountered any potholes whilst cornering hard yet. I'm pretty confident it wont rub though.
 
Dan-Jnr said:
If your MAF reading was 209g/s at its highest that'd roughly be 261 BHP, which is pretty much stock. Do some more 3rd gear runs and see if you get a better reading, 5th gear is not ideal for this.

VCDS is a very good tool for diagnostics, analysis, and coding. Well worth the money.
Click to expand...
Dan-jnr,

Couple of runs at lunch to check this out, first run max 246.94 g/s. and the second 248.69g/s. Love to know what this means...
 
Divide them by 0.8 will give you a rough BHP figure so about 310 BHP.
 
Not really much to do with the build as such but I was impressed with the work I managed to get done over the weekend and finished today. She's starting to get somewhere near where I want to be.

Quick wash, clay, tar removal to lower parts and rear. Then onto the paint correction, full three part correction with Sonus SFX products and pads various grades. Couldn't get rid of all the marks so using Autoglym super resin polish (it's full of fillers) she had two coats by hand followed by a Autoglym extra gloss protection. Finally to get the depth and wet look it was a final coat of Chemical Guys Vintage Classic paste wax, it's nuts expensive but had it probably 2 years and still half a pot left

Some unashamed shiny pics for fun..

Driver side:

Bonnet:

And finally my favourite:


Chuffed with my work, always hard work but always worth it.
 
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So the S is going on the rollers tomorrow. Looking forward to it, more an exploratory and investigative process for my interest to evaluate the tuning box and make sure it's not upsetting my car. Heading to Castle Motors to see Paul, met him earlier when he had a lovely Clio sport on the dyno he was just putting the last touches to the map.
I'll post up my results so everyone can have a gander and perhaps laugh at ;) we'll see.
 
I will preface this update with...Graphs to come, asked for them to be emailed.

So went on my little jaunt to Castle motors this morning. Arriving somewhat early estimating that the M4 at rush hour would kill me. I chatted with Paul as he opened up (and pulled an absolutely stunning E30 M3 off the rollers) to what I wanted from the runs, mainly to check all engine parameters, A/F ratio, ignition timing etc. just to make sure my littel box of wizardry wasnt doing anything it shouldn't. Paul had me setup and ready to go by 8:45am, really is a great chap and very helpful and knowledgeable. Told me all about the specific dyno setup needed to make an S3 run correctly on the dyno in 4WD mode. He worked his magic on his machine and off we went.



I have a vid but TBH it looks like a car on a dyno and we've all seen those so...

So prior to the arrival of my graphs I can tell you that these little black boxes of wazardry and wonder do in fact work and work very well. The curves are superbly smooth and progressive, the A/F ratios are spot on across the whole range and Paul told me that the ignition timing was very conservative and there would actually be much more to come. This is inline with what I have discussed with Steve at TDI-Tuning (also a great fella) who did tell me that of course them map to a 95RON fuel in the worst possible conditions and then pull it back another notch.
TDI-Tuning (far those interested) do offer a bespoke map on their boxes for those who want that bit extra. I might go see them for that knowing what I now know :icon thumright:

So to the figures: 309BHP at the wheels in 4WD mode, cant recall the Torque figure but again in the 300's. Graphs will remind me when they arrive. I was very pleased with that, and mostly pleased that for me at least I know my car is running spot on and I'm doing no damage. Not quite up with a stage 1 map but not far off either, I can live with that.
I'll post the graphs up when they arrive for you lovely people to peruse
 
So I was wrong in my last post of course, 310BHP at the wheels would be pretty awesome :jump: It was 310BHP at the crank.
Anyway as promised here are my graphs...



 
Taking inspiration from many others on here... just had to go for the full LED interior (including map, footwell and puddle lights), sidelight and number plate update. A note of caution to all fitting puddle light LED's, the wiring in the door is da£*ed short and if your not careful you need to pop the bottom of the door card off to reconnect them.







A great mod to bring an older motor upto date.
 
This evenings update is bitter sweet..
First the bitter, my clutch has bitten the dust, started to waver around max boost at 3500rpm in fourth. Initially thought it was something else but after a couple of runs through that part of the rev range the smell was a dead give away. So it'll be back to Dialynx for a clutch at some point in the not so distant future.

And the sweet... NMH is coming over tomorrow to retrofit cruise control for me. Top chap and very helpful, looking forward to it.
 
S3 clutch is marginal at best once the car is mapped,and some will cope with Stg2,and some won't even manage Stg1.

It's always best to budget on a new clutch when modifying a stock car.
 
Alex, you're right, luckily I'd been saving for a set of anti-roll bars so I have the cash for a replacement. Shame the bars will have to wait but thats the way of things. You never really take much notice of a thread until it effects you, searching last night it just shows you how many clutch failures there are in S3's....unbelievable, and not just old dogs with a few miles on like mine. As it goes I think I've been lucky to reach 60k on the original. Sachs on a standard DMF is the way forward for me, will be getting it booked in today.

Also while I'm at it I'll have a yellow powerflex engine mount insert fitted, why the h£ll not :)
 
Dt_racing said:
Alex, you're right, luckily I'd been saving for a set of anti-roll bars so I have the cash for a replacement. Shame the bars will have to wait but thats the way of things. You never really take much notice of a thread until it effects you, searching last night it just shows you how many clutch failures there are in S3's....unbelievable, and not just old dogs with a few miles on like mine. As it goes I think I've been lucky to reach 60k on the original. Sachs on a standard DMF is the way forward for me, will be getting it booked in today.

Also while I'm at it I'll have a yellow powerflex engine mount insert fitted, why the h£ll not :)
Click to expand...

I know....the clutch on mine sort of coped with Stg1,but gave up as soon as the Stg2 software was loaded.

I think the idea was that it might discourage people from mapping the car,but who knows.....the Sachs organic plus DMF is a good choice,and worked well on mine into Stg3,as long as you treat it with some respect.
 
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Short update. Had NHN (Nigel) visit me at work yesterday for my cruise retrofit, as a bonus the change out also fixed my indicator issue. :beerchug:
In the very short time it takes Nigel to work his magic we were chatting away and he nearly has me talked into an RNS-E retrofit, clutch first though. Think that might heave to be on the longer term list.
Big thanks to our own ASN man NHN, top job thanks
 
Dt_racing said:
Some unashamed shiny pics for fun..

Driver side:

Bonnet:

And finally my favourite:


Chuffed with my work, always hard work but always worth it.
Click to expand...

Got to admit when a black car is all polished up, like yours here, you wont get a car that looks better. I also agree that the white interior LEDs are a great addition. I fitted them to my S3

Ross
 
Had my new Sachs and DMF fitted yesterday, managed to drop by Dialynx at lunch while it was stripped down to take a look a the old flywheel and clutch. Friction and pressure plate actually looked ok to my eyes, i'd certainly seen worse but were obviously worn. The flywheel was screwed, flapping about like a fish out of water, didnt appear to be from abuse or wear just age related.
Old clutch:

Old flywheel still in place:

Would have loved to have gotten in there and given everything a clean.

Unfortunately I only had lunch to visit them so didnt see the new clutch and flysheel in place but I certainly felt it when I got in to drive away. I was half expecting some drama as with other uprated clutches I'd fitted to other cars in the past (Helix) and anticapated a little snap and grab, but not the case with the Sachs, feel is totally standard at the minute.

I was cautioned by Dialynx and Alex_S3 to go steady on the new clutch for a little while so thats what I'm doing. I've turned my tuning box down so I'm not making the boost or outright torque to give it a gentle ride initially.

I'd read on a few threads that the sachs was heavy in comparison to OEM but thats certainly not the case on mine. I know i had a new concentric slave fitted at the same time but the pedal feel is lighter if anything. Perhaps this is a legacy of my old clutch been cream crackered and was actually heavier than it should have been but anyways I'm very happy.

I was meant to be having a powerflex yellow insert fitted but it hadnt arrived unfortuantely. Very good on Dialynx however they said pop in another lunch time and they'll fit it for free. Top guys there honestly, brilliant!
 
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Had a notion to take the rear wheels off to tart up the rusty discs and brake backing plates, which I did. High temp stove paint for the discs after a good cleaning after de-rusting and a standard gunmetal for the backing plates.

Along the way found however (always a but isn't there?) some sneaky nasty naughty little issues. Appears the last owner was a cheapskate even to the detriment of safety. 2 puncture repairs in one tyre, one in the shoulder and cuts from stones everywhere.


So full new set of tyres on Monday, Michelin PS2's, found a good deal else would have kept with Goodyear F1 Assy 2's. Love new stuff even if it's forced on me ;-)

And finished discs and back plates
 
So I've put a couple of hundred miles or three on the new rubber and so far not really impressed with he PS2's. I've put a decent heat cycle through them (brake heat and spirited driving) so they're well scrubbed in. Tyre pressures are same as I ran in the F1 assy's but I'm getting little feel through the steering wheel (really light and vague) and the lateral grip just isn't building the front just washes, very frustrating. I'll have a play with the pressures and see if I can get them to bite. More feedback to come, I'm sure this won't be the last post on the subject if they continue to bug me.
 
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Dt_racing said:
So I've put a couple of hundred miles or three on the new rubber and so far not really impressed with he PS2's. I've put a decent heat cycle through them (brake heat and spirited driving) so they're well scrubbed in. Tyre pressures are same as I ran in the F1 assy's but I'm getting little feel through the steering wheel (really light and vague) and the lateral grip just isn't building the front just washes, very frustrating. I'll have a play with the pressures and see if I can get them to bite. More feedback to come, I'm sure this won't be the last post on the subject if they continue to bug me.
Click to expand...

I'm a little surprised by that.

I'd used PS2's,PS3's PSS's etc,and found the PS2's were pretty decent overall,even on what was then a 440bhp car.

The S3's biggest problem from the handling view is the understeer you've already found,and it does take a lot to dial that out.
Being honest,I don't think the spring kit you've fitted is going to get anywhere close to doing that,and you'd need uprated ARB's plus a decent coilover kit to get rid of most of it.
 
Totally understand that Alex, the understeer was there with the F1 assy's but it been elevated with the ps2's, just more pronounced. I'll drop the front pressures and see if I can get some feel and bite in them.

On your main points (appreciate your input), I already have the Eibach adjustable roll bar kit sat ready for fitment just need the time to fit it. Also contemplating the W.A.L.K but not sure on that yet.
 
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Dt_racing said:
Totally understand that Alex, the understeer was there with the F1 assy's but it been elevated with the ps2's, just more pronounced. I'll drop the front pressures and see if I can get some feel and bite in them.

On your main points (appreciate your input), I already have the Eibach adjustable roll bar kit sat ready for fitment just need the time to fit it. Also contemplating the W.A.L.K but not sure on that yet.
Click to expand...

I think the ARBs make the single biggest change to the handling,other than a set of good adjustable coilovers,and things like the WALK or equivalent( I have the Superpro kit) are useful,but not a huge difference.
Likewise,I wouldn't bother with a Haldex controller until you've done all of the other things,as it's expensive,and doesn't make huge changes.

For me anyway,the list in rank order was as follows:

ARBs
Coilovers
Suspension bushes
ALK
Haldex controller

I then went and changed the whole suspension setup again.....LOL
 
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I have front and rear bars, both adjustable to try and knock some of that front push out I'll be setting the rear as hard as it'll go and front soft as it'll go. Even set in the most compliant settings the increase in roll stiffness is approx 30% with the eibach's

Dean_T thanks, just hoping I get to spend some more time on her soon and really finish her bodywork wise.
 
Couple of small jobs done today. Ordered some rear brake discs earlier in the week, these arrived this morning and started to prep them for fitment. I use a super high temp spray paint for painting wood burners and stoves, good to over 650 deg celcius.

Same time as ordering the discs I ordered a new cabin filter, hadn't checked it but knowing audi service their mechanics would never have checked this. Glad I did....why you should always change your cabin filter when you buy a car....

Been breathing through this for months...
 
Dt_racing said:
I have front and rear bars, both adjustable to try and knock some of that front push out I'll be setting the rear as hard as it'll go and front soft as it'll go. Even set in the most compliant settings the increase in roll stiffness is approx 30% with the eibach's

Dean_T thanks, just hoping I get to spend some more time on her soon and really finish her bodywork wise.
Click to expand...

does the stiffer ARB have any effects on comfort?
 
subscribing to this mate, your progress updates make good reading...
 
As far as the ride quality goes I can't quote from experience on and S3 however I did fit a set on my Gen 7 Celica after full coil over fitment and stiffening the chassis with braces. The ride quality was unaffected in general use, the only time I noticed a difference (negatively) was on extraordinarily uneven roads when you saw one wheel drop hugely compared to the other three. I could quite easily get it tripod with one wheel off the ground, was an extraordinarily stiff car however. Without a doubt though one of my favorite additions to any car in terms of driving dynamics improvement with little penalty to ride quality.
 
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Cool thank you for that little review. Think il add those to my growing list
 
In preparation for next year I've been getting ahead of myself. As previously I'd ordered some rear discs ready for next year and last night I ordered my pads. Full set of ferodo DS2500's, have used these previously ( on lighter cars admittedly) and have found they stand up to track use very well without the out and out harshness of a full track pad on the road. Yes they can squeal, but I found if bedded correctly this rarely happens and after a fair few miles they start again just hit then hard a few times and all is well for another 1000 miles or so.

Always a trauma finding pads especially as I have a mismatched front and rear setup but after trauling the forum, (8p, TT and Rs3 sections) I found what I needed to get my full set. Camskill as always had everything in stock so ordered and hopefully be with me soon. Won't be fitting until the new year as have plenty of life in my present setup but want to be ready for March/April and the first track day of the year.

If anyone is interested, codes for Ferodo DS2500's
S3 rears - FCP1636H
TTRS/RS3 fronts - FCP1334H
 
I hope you get on with the DS2500s better than I did.

I think for road use they're fine but I killed a set of them on a track day and then went to Mintex 1155s

The S3 is quite heavy and I'm sure the weight didn't help.

DaveB recommended the setup I've got now and also predicted the Ferodos would do what they did!
 
Alex, I'm hoping that with the RS3 setup designed for a car with 335bhp and the same weight (mine at 310 bhp) and an updated set of pads I should be ok. I know the RS3 setup on its own won't handle the track work I've read plenty on this on the RS3 forum but with a little sympathy from myself on track I should manage it.

I note your recommendation for the M1155, had these myself in my Lotus (before swapping to Carbone lorraine rc5+, again amazing pad but really is track only) and are superb can't argue with that, I found for my everyday they were just to much so only dropped them in a week or so before a track day and removed them again after, wish I had time for this now but it's never going to happen. Have to find that happy medium and hoping these are it.
 
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