Hi all, as most people know the ITG induction kit has become the standard of the market at the moment due to its proven performance gains in the regions of 20bhp. The only improvement which could be possibly done to the kit to make it better was to reduce the bends in the pipework and also give a proper enclosed forced cold air feed, due to lack of air concerns and heatsoak. In order to achieve such a task I called Andy at ITG (btw what a great chap, always willing to go the extra mile) and had a lengthy talk about a no compromise induction kit for the S3. Andy suggested two options, one was to get the carbon fibre kit or the inline aluminium kit. The carbon kit was good for 600 bhp and the aluminium kit was good for 450 bhp on an NA car and 550 bhp on a turbo car. There was roughly £100 difference between the carbon and aluminium kit, Andy suggested if it was his car, the best kit overall for me would be the aluminium kit, due to its design. However this option as you maybe aware requires the battery to be moved or either get a smaller slim battery.
I first disregarded the idea of smaller slimmer battery, I didn't want any headache of the car not starting in winter and the battery not holding enought power. And since the A3 3.2 comes with the battery in the boot, all the relevant parts were ordered from audi which included the front positive post (with bracket and bolts), front and rear grounding straps, rear isolator fuse box, rear battery mounting kit. However the two positive wires running from the front to back were on back order and would not come quick enough since the car was booked with Andy on Friday. So I was hoping to buy a welding cable as a substitute. My installer had an R32 to hand (which has the same rear battery setup as the a3 3.2) and once we unpacked the car to see the wiring, this job became more complicated then expected. The rear fuse box had inputs for the battery and output for sending the wire to the front but it also had three other outputs which I think were for the AC and starter motor and something else. Plus there was a input socket cable to make the isolator work which was not in the S3 so things got complicated. Plus the cost of the parts from Audi alone was £350 inc vat and this was at a discounted price (this price includes everything and the positive cables which were on back order but not labour). So in order to make things work properly I would need to wire this input socket for the isolator and at this point I gave up not mainly due to the cost but also I didn't know after doing all this that everything was going to work without DIS errors.
So the slimmer battery option came back in my head. I looked at braille, varley red top, powervamp and odyssey battery. I finally settled on odyssey racing extreme 40 battery simply because I needed a battery which was 97mm wide or less and had the most power. And as a matter of fact the odyssey battery is really good since its deep cycle and has a 45ah with 87 reserve time and ofcourse 1100 amp 5 sec cranking power, so this is definitely up for the job. Got my installer to fit the battery and he had to cut and remove the original battery tray and surroundings as seen in this pic:
After trimming up the surrounding bits it was thought to cut more to give space to the new big induction kit. btw from the engine cover to the battery at least 205mm of space should be available in order to make the induction kit fit. The battery was secured with a strap and a small wooden frame at the bottom of the battery was made so it doesn't move at all. 8 layers of paint were applied to the wood and the result can be seen as follows:
With the battery you need to order the conversion terminals but the ones I received where both negative posts (i machined the negative one to make it fit) but a proper positive terminal is ordered along with battery terminal covers to make things look neat. Make sure you ask the company first that one post is postive and the other negative since most companies are selling both same battery posts (and this is not good.) As a side note the racing battery is not really that light compared to the standard battery, its only 3.5kg lighter (standard battery weights about 16 kg, this one weighs 12.5 kg) but the cars feels more nippy for some reason plus the power delivery is much smoother then before. Gives the feeling as the car is not struggling at all through the revs when the foot is set assured. Might be because this is a racing battery and gives the car a better and faster supply of power but it does feel slightly different (in a good way). I have had no prolems what so ever, starting the car or with the ac/lights not powering properly, everything is fine electrically, which was my biggest fear.
The car is going to ITG this friday so i will edit this post once the new bigger induction kit is fitting, fingers crossed and watch this space.
(sorry about the long post, but much mores to come :icon_thumright
I first disregarded the idea of smaller slimmer battery, I didn't want any headache of the car not starting in winter and the battery not holding enought power. And since the A3 3.2 comes with the battery in the boot, all the relevant parts were ordered from audi which included the front positive post (with bracket and bolts), front and rear grounding straps, rear isolator fuse box, rear battery mounting kit. However the two positive wires running from the front to back were on back order and would not come quick enough since the car was booked with Andy on Friday. So I was hoping to buy a welding cable as a substitute. My installer had an R32 to hand (which has the same rear battery setup as the a3 3.2) and once we unpacked the car to see the wiring, this job became more complicated then expected. The rear fuse box had inputs for the battery and output for sending the wire to the front but it also had three other outputs which I think were for the AC and starter motor and something else. Plus there was a input socket cable to make the isolator work which was not in the S3 so things got complicated. Plus the cost of the parts from Audi alone was £350 inc vat and this was at a discounted price (this price includes everything and the positive cables which were on back order but not labour). So in order to make things work properly I would need to wire this input socket for the isolator and at this point I gave up not mainly due to the cost but also I didn't know after doing all this that everything was going to work without DIS errors.
So the slimmer battery option came back in my head. I looked at braille, varley red top, powervamp and odyssey battery. I finally settled on odyssey racing extreme 40 battery simply because I needed a battery which was 97mm wide or less and had the most power. And as a matter of fact the odyssey battery is really good since its deep cycle and has a 45ah with 87 reserve time and ofcourse 1100 amp 5 sec cranking power, so this is definitely up for the job. Got my installer to fit the battery and he had to cut and remove the original battery tray and surroundings as seen in this pic:
After trimming up the surrounding bits it was thought to cut more to give space to the new big induction kit. btw from the engine cover to the battery at least 205mm of space should be available in order to make the induction kit fit. The battery was secured with a strap and a small wooden frame at the bottom of the battery was made so it doesn't move at all. 8 layers of paint were applied to the wood and the result can be seen as follows:
With the battery you need to order the conversion terminals but the ones I received where both negative posts (i machined the negative one to make it fit) but a proper positive terminal is ordered along with battery terminal covers to make things look neat. Make sure you ask the company first that one post is postive and the other negative since most companies are selling both same battery posts (and this is not good.) As a side note the racing battery is not really that light compared to the standard battery, its only 3.5kg lighter (standard battery weights about 16 kg, this one weighs 12.5 kg) but the cars feels more nippy for some reason plus the power delivery is much smoother then before. Gives the feeling as the car is not struggling at all through the revs when the foot is set assured. Might be because this is a racing battery and gives the car a better and faster supply of power but it does feel slightly different (in a good way). I have had no prolems what so ever, starting the car or with the ac/lights not powering properly, everything is fine electrically, which was my biggest fear.
The car is going to ITG this friday so i will edit this post once the new bigger induction kit is fitting, fingers crossed and watch this space.
(sorry about the long post, but much mores to come :icon_thumright
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and even brailles more powerful lightweight battery (B3121C) has 31 a/h. This is what gave me cause for concern but the odyssey has 45 a/h, which is over double the braille varient (B2015C) and 3/4 of the standard battery. The optima yellowtop which is a very capable battery has 55 a/h. The battery hasn't given me any bother with starting so far and I did read on one of the forums that I guy had this odyssey 40 battery and he left his car in the winter period for 2 weeks and this battery started the car fine, that's what really pushed me towards this battery. But if this battery does give me any problems, I can place a battery the standard battery in the boot compartment and since all the car electrics are connected to the front battery all that would be required would be to place a positive wire from front to back, ground the rear battery in the tire well and place an isolator in between, but i thing this battery will hold up fine.
