- Joined
- Jan 22, 2003
- Messages
- 2,163
- Reaction score
- 1,433
- Points
- 113
A bit late but now that I am planning a stage 2 tune I thought I'd start a "build thread" like others have done.
I guess the story of my S5 sportback actually starts with my S4 avant ownership. I personally imported a brand new B5 S4 in 2001. Two years later I took it off to AmD (who were near Bicester at the time) for what I guess would have been termed a stage 2 on account of the remap with full Milltek exhaust. It also got an APR bi-pipe, short-shifter, H&R coilovers, Porsche front brakes and a drivetrain stabiliser bar. I changed the wheels to 18" RS4 replicas, fitted the OEM satnav plus with TV using kit I got via German e-bay and also a boost gauge with turbo timer (using the 'afterrun punp' instead of keeping the engine going) which had a heads-up display which I guess was a bit of a novelty at the time.
I loved that car which is why I kept it so long. It was not until early in 2014 that I started thinking about replacing it. Whilst I had fancied uprating the turbos to KO4s the value of the car had become so low that it was less than the stage 3 tune would cost and that fired my 'financial sense' brain cells. So I started thinking about what I would replace it with. Now one of the things I disliked about having a modified car was dealing with insurance companies. As we all do (?), every year I would check if my renewal price was competitive, but for a modified car this process can be a bit time-consuming. Hence I decided that my next car would not be modified, and so it needed to have good performance out-of-the-box. I also planned on buying used.
I'll simplify my research. I went for a test drive of an TTRS (probably a 2012/13 model - 340PS). I loved it until I got to practicalities. I have two teenage daughters and so my car has to do taxi duties. In my naivety I thought that the rear seats of an TTRS can be used. So that killed that idea
Next I went for a test drive of a 2009 Nissan GT-R (unmodified). I found that if I put the driver's seat forward I could sit in the back with just enough legroom. I could then get back in the driver's seat and, although the seat was more forward then I'd like, I could put up with it during taxi duties. But I still had concerns about price (around £40K at the time and then there's the servicing costs) and the fact that IMO the GT-R is really a track car and not a road car. I discussed my concerns on the GT-R forum. The members there are great and they did not try to persuade me to get one. In fact they generally agreed that my concerns were genuine. And then one fine member suggested "if you like Audis, why don't you get a B8 S4 and modify it to stage 2 - this will be near the same performance as an unmodified 2009/10 GT-R".
So I started with what turned out to be quite a lot of test drives of S4s and S5s. Coming from a B5 I was very impressed by the interior of the B8. And considering that my S4 had around 320PS but a whopping 56oNm at peak, I was concerned that the stock B8s with their 440Nm would not impress. But it was the opposite. As I have written many times before, to me the broad torque curve of the supercharged engine coupled with the fantastic s-tronic gearbox was just a better experience. Yes I noticed the lack of a torque "punch" compared to my B5, but this was more than compensated for by the usability of torque not only at the top end, but especially at the bottom end. Suddenly 13 years of living with turbo lag became a problem.
Well those numerous test drives showed me that not only did I want a B8.5, but that I really wanted an S5 sportback and with a lot of options. So for about 6 months I searched hard for a used one which would meet my exact spec. I gave up. I had been planning to buy a used car somewhere in the £30Ks, and had ended up looking at some of the nearly new ones in the £40Ks. Then I noticed comments on forums about Carwow, Orange wheels etc and put in some requests. Suddenly the idea of buying a brand new S5 sportback to my exact specification seemed viable. So at the end of 2014 my order went in to Audi Hitchin.
In April 2015 I took the train up to Hitchin to PDI my new S5.
Then a few days later I returned to collect.
And thanks to the members of forums such as this I had seen the sense of getting paint protection done by a professional detailer, so shortly afterwards it got a full Gtechniq treatment.
Ownership of my new S5 sportback was a joy (except for the worry about where to park it) and any doubts I had about moving from the modified B5 were quickly dispelled. I installed a dashcam as detailed here, but planned to live with the car as stock for a year. I had modified my S4 after 2 years because as a personal import I only got the 2 years manufacturer warranty. However nothing went wrong on that car for at least 5 years so I reasoned that maybe I could risk my warranty on the S5 (which I had bought near the end of the B8.5 production run, as I had done for the B5 S4, validating the theory that Audi does fix the major flaws in the end). But it made sense to wait a year.
Whilst I had been searching for a suitable used S5 I was aware of the fact that the SIMOS 8.5 used in the B8.5 had not yet been cracked, but I was confident that it would be. Indeed by the time I took delivery of my new S5 it had been. But at the time I had not realised that the new engine cover on my S5 was hiding more secrets below. It got me interested so I started to look for as much information as I could find. I saw that the engine was the new CREC code, and Audi had started production of it around May 2014. It soon became clear that this new engine also had a new ECU - the SIMOS 16 - and that it had not been cracked yet. No worries - surely it will be cracked by early 2016 when I wanted to get mine tuned?
No.
Time for service came and I decided to have a used oil analysis done shortly before. I posted the results here, and plan to get another one done this year. The service was an oil change and inspection, done at Audi Basingstoke. No problems apart from my fear that someone would damage the wheels (yes I took photos before and after just to be sure). I sat near the big window into the workshop trying to appear that I was not constantly spying on the tech doing his work
The rest of 2016 progressed with mixed feelings: Whilst I continued to enjoy S5 ownership, I felt totally frustrated that I couldn't get a tune. Like others I started to lose confidence that we would ever get a CREC tune, especially as the B9 loomed. Then late in 2016 there was news, like mana from heaven, that the SIMOS 16 had been cracked. The first tuner to announce was Unicorn, and then later Celtic. But I wanted to wait for MRC. It looked like I'd have to wait until 2017, but then on Christmas eve MRC posted on Facebook. Finally!
However notwithstanding the Christmas break, I couldn't get my S5 tuned immediately. Since I had to wait a long time until the SIMOS 16 was cracked, I had plently of time to read about tuning the 3.0 supercharged engine. Now most tuners do a stage 2 by reducing the size of the supercharger pulley so that it spins faster. MRC don't, they use a bigger crank pulley instead. There are pros and cons for each method. However over in the US, not only is there a lot of interest and practice of using a bigger crank pulley in addition to using a smaller supercharger pulley ("dual pulley") to spin the charger even more, but it has also become apparent that there is a weak part of this engine - the OEM crank pulley. As for most engines, Audi use a damper pulley in order to absorb resonant vibrations in the crankshaft. The OEM pulley employs an elastomer ("rubber") to do this, probably because it is the cheapest method. But the elastomer can fail and there have been cases of it doing so, and not just on tuned cars. Of course one solution is to use a single piece/solid pulley which can't fail, but it also can't dampen vibrations.
Now whilst I would have been happy to get my tune done using a single piece/solid pulley, something else happened during my wait for the SIMOS 16 ECU to be cracked. As well as other brands of aftermarket dampened pulley available, there is one branded Fluidampr. It is a popular replacement for OEM pulleys, including on the 2.7 biturbo engine that my B5 S4 had (and I can add that the OEM pulley on my B5 did not fail after 14 years so it makes me wonder if the one used in the B8 and B8.5 is not as good!). However there was no oversize Fluidampr for the supercharged engine. So a company called iABED in Canada came up with the vdamper kit (see here). Fortunately I can afford this rather expensive kit so even though there is no evidence that using a single piece/solid pulley can cause problems, I decided that I'd buy one. It arrived this week.
Now I'm booked into MRC next month and I have my insurance cover sorted. Finally my original purchase decision for an S5 will be realised...
I guess the story of my S5 sportback actually starts with my S4 avant ownership. I personally imported a brand new B5 S4 in 2001. Two years later I took it off to AmD (who were near Bicester at the time) for what I guess would have been termed a stage 2 on account of the remap with full Milltek exhaust. It also got an APR bi-pipe, short-shifter, H&R coilovers, Porsche front brakes and a drivetrain stabiliser bar. I changed the wheels to 18" RS4 replicas, fitted the OEM satnav plus with TV using kit I got via German e-bay and also a boost gauge with turbo timer (using the 'afterrun punp' instead of keeping the engine going) which had a heads-up display which I guess was a bit of a novelty at the time.
I loved that car which is why I kept it so long. It was not until early in 2014 that I started thinking about replacing it. Whilst I had fancied uprating the turbos to KO4s the value of the car had become so low that it was less than the stage 3 tune would cost and that fired my 'financial sense' brain cells. So I started thinking about what I would replace it with. Now one of the things I disliked about having a modified car was dealing with insurance companies. As we all do (?), every year I would check if my renewal price was competitive, but for a modified car this process can be a bit time-consuming. Hence I decided that my next car would not be modified, and so it needed to have good performance out-of-the-box. I also planned on buying used.
I'll simplify my research. I went for a test drive of an TTRS (probably a 2012/13 model - 340PS). I loved it until I got to practicalities. I have two teenage daughters and so my car has to do taxi duties. In my naivety I thought that the rear seats of an TTRS can be used. So that killed that idea
Next I went for a test drive of a 2009 Nissan GT-R (unmodified). I found that if I put the driver's seat forward I could sit in the back with just enough legroom. I could then get back in the driver's seat and, although the seat was more forward then I'd like, I could put up with it during taxi duties. But I still had concerns about price (around £40K at the time and then there's the servicing costs) and the fact that IMO the GT-R is really a track car and not a road car. I discussed my concerns on the GT-R forum. The members there are great and they did not try to persuade me to get one. In fact they generally agreed that my concerns were genuine. And then one fine member suggested "if you like Audis, why don't you get a B8 S4 and modify it to stage 2 - this will be near the same performance as an unmodified 2009/10 GT-R".So I started with what turned out to be quite a lot of test drives of S4s and S5s. Coming from a B5 I was very impressed by the interior of the B8. And considering that my S4 had around 320PS but a whopping 56oNm at peak, I was concerned that the stock B8s with their 440Nm would not impress. But it was the opposite. As I have written many times before, to me the broad torque curve of the supercharged engine coupled with the fantastic s-tronic gearbox was just a better experience. Yes I noticed the lack of a torque "punch" compared to my B5, but this was more than compensated for by the usability of torque not only at the top end, but especially at the bottom end. Suddenly 13 years of living with turbo lag became a problem.
Well those numerous test drives showed me that not only did I want a B8.5, but that I really wanted an S5 sportback and with a lot of options. So for about 6 months I searched hard for a used one which would meet my exact spec. I gave up. I had been planning to buy a used car somewhere in the £30Ks, and had ended up looking at some of the nearly new ones in the £40Ks. Then I noticed comments on forums about Carwow, Orange wheels etc and put in some requests. Suddenly the idea of buying a brand new S5 sportback to my exact specification seemed viable. So at the end of 2014 my order went in to Audi Hitchin.
In April 2015 I took the train up to Hitchin to PDI my new S5.
Then a few days later I returned to collect.
And thanks to the members of forums such as this I had seen the sense of getting paint protection done by a professional detailer, so shortly afterwards it got a full Gtechniq treatment.
Ownership of my new S5 sportback was a joy (except for the worry about where to park it) and any doubts I had about moving from the modified B5 were quickly dispelled. I installed a dashcam as detailed here, but planned to live with the car as stock for a year. I had modified my S4 after 2 years because as a personal import I only got the 2 years manufacturer warranty. However nothing went wrong on that car for at least 5 years so I reasoned that maybe I could risk my warranty on the S5 (which I had bought near the end of the B8.5 production run, as I had done for the B5 S4, validating the theory that Audi does fix the major flaws in the end). But it made sense to wait a year.
Whilst I had been searching for a suitable used S5 I was aware of the fact that the SIMOS 8.5 used in the B8.5 had not yet been cracked, but I was confident that it would be. Indeed by the time I took delivery of my new S5 it had been. But at the time I had not realised that the new engine cover on my S5 was hiding more secrets below. It got me interested so I started to look for as much information as I could find. I saw that the engine was the new CREC code, and Audi had started production of it around May 2014. It soon became clear that this new engine also had a new ECU - the SIMOS 16 - and that it had not been cracked yet. No worries - surely it will be cracked by early 2016 when I wanted to get mine tuned?
No.
Time for service came and I decided to have a used oil analysis done shortly before. I posted the results here, and plan to get another one done this year. The service was an oil change and inspection, done at Audi Basingstoke. No problems apart from my fear that someone would damage the wheels (yes I took photos before and after just to be sure). I sat near the big window into the workshop trying to appear that I was not constantly spying on the tech doing his work
The rest of 2016 progressed with mixed feelings: Whilst I continued to enjoy S5 ownership, I felt totally frustrated that I couldn't get a tune. Like others I started to lose confidence that we would ever get a CREC tune, especially as the B9 loomed. Then late in 2016 there was news, like mana from heaven, that the SIMOS 16 had been cracked. The first tuner to announce was Unicorn, and then later Celtic. But I wanted to wait for MRC. It looked like I'd have to wait until 2017, but then on Christmas eve MRC posted on Facebook. Finally!
However notwithstanding the Christmas break, I couldn't get my S5 tuned immediately. Since I had to wait a long time until the SIMOS 16 was cracked, I had plently of time to read about tuning the 3.0 supercharged engine. Now most tuners do a stage 2 by reducing the size of the supercharger pulley so that it spins faster. MRC don't, they use a bigger crank pulley instead. There are pros and cons for each method. However over in the US, not only is there a lot of interest and practice of using a bigger crank pulley in addition to using a smaller supercharger pulley ("dual pulley") to spin the charger even more, but it has also become apparent that there is a weak part of this engine - the OEM crank pulley. As for most engines, Audi use a damper pulley in order to absorb resonant vibrations in the crankshaft. The OEM pulley employs an elastomer ("rubber") to do this, probably because it is the cheapest method. But the elastomer can fail and there have been cases of it doing so, and not just on tuned cars. Of course one solution is to use a single piece/solid pulley which can't fail, but it also can't dampen vibrations.
Now whilst I would have been happy to get my tune done using a single piece/solid pulley, something else happened during my wait for the SIMOS 16 ECU to be cracked. As well as other brands of aftermarket dampened pulley available, there is one branded Fluidampr. It is a popular replacement for OEM pulleys, including on the 2.7 biturbo engine that my B5 S4 had (and I can add that the OEM pulley on my B5 did not fail after 14 years so it makes me wonder if the one used in the B8 and B8.5 is not as good!). However there was no oversize Fluidampr for the supercharged engine. So a company called iABED in Canada came up with the vdamper kit (see here). Fortunately I can afford this rather expensive kit so even though there is no evidence that using a single piece/solid pulley can cause problems, I decided that I'd buy one. It arrived this week.
Now I'm booked into MRC next month and I have my insurance cover sorted. Finally my original purchase decision for an S5 will be realised...
Last edited:
