'Fecks Nogaro S3'

[feck_on_a_stick]

Hi everyone.

All being well I'll be picking up my new S3 tomorrow night and looking forward to it. It's 2002 Nogaro with just over 74,000 miles.

This will be my first Audi and my first turbo car, having driven n/a Japanese stuff pretty much my whole life. My last car was a 2008 Honda S2000 GT so the S3 is going to be a big change. I've also recently bought a Mk3 Golf GTI 8v to use as an everyday beater so the S3 will be kept good.......at least for now.

Bodywork-wise it looks in great condition but it still needs a few wee odds and sods done. There's no battery cover, and some of the climate buttons have worn, but these are things that can be changed, and fingers crossed are all I'll need to do. A spring has rusted and snapped at the top, but the current owner has ordered a replacement so I'll have to get that fitted too.



I do have a few questions though........



- I'd originally taken a different S3 out for a test drive with 100,000 miles on it and found the acceleration to be very smooth with no noticable boost kicking in. When I drove this one, there was definately more of a noticable change. The current owner says it's standard but what settings should I be looking out for in VAGCOM for a standard BAM map?

I've a friend with VAGCOM so going to let him test it when I pick it up. I've been trawling through the search and found bits and pieces. I've found out that I'd need to check block 115, for requested boost on full load and a figure of around 2200mbar if its mapped. What would it be if it's standard? Is there a page somewhere showing standard settings?

- My other question is about a whistle that I heard when driving it. In 6th gear, when I accelerated, I could hear a whistling sound. It wasn't there when accelerating up through the gears. Does this sound like a simple boost leak, or could it be one of many things? lol

Ta

 

[feck_on_a_stick]

I've owned it for 4 weeks now and I'm really starting to enjoy it. The colour attracts alot of attention and friends can't believe it's 10 years old.....I can't believe it's a 10 year old car lol

It's a real nice place to be!

At the weekend there I finally got round to giving it it's first good clean (just a snowfoam and dry) and thought I'd put up some pics. It really needs a good machining as it looks to have been washed by the local forecourt carwashers lol

I've ordered a few replacement engine trim pieces as these seem to have gone missing during servicing.

I borrowed a drilled airbox from a friend's Toledo but have mixed feelings about it.

My next plans are to get it mapped in the next couple of weeks, followed by a B5 TIP and decat.

Also on the to do list is to figure out how to fix the one squeek from the car; the armrest!

 

[Sandra]

Good looking car. I like the colour. Glad your enjoying it.

 

[patTTpoa]

The paint work looks in really good con!
Smart looking S3 you have there

Pat

 

[fran-s3]

Lovely looking car mate - enjoy it!

 

[Jimgrim77]

It does look great! Lovely colour and welcome!

 

[jcs356]

Nice looking motor there. Just washed mine this morning and she doesn't look bad for 11 years old either.

 

[superkarl]

just a snow foam?1 what the hell is the snow foam your using?

looks a great example externally.

did you do any logging in vagcom to see if it was mapped or not?

and a simple solution to your squeek.....sell me your arm rest

 

[sportstractor]

Well if your going down the badger 5 tip, presumably you will be running it with the Jetex filter so don't need to worry about drilling your air box. I'd personally get the B5 tip before hand so it can be factored into your remap dyno results
That does look very clean though. Would be interesting to know what you paid for it if you don't mind sharing.

 

[sportstractor]

Also best way for test to see if it's remapped is logging the airflow, divide the peak airflow by 0.8. That should give you the approx bhp, if all it working well anyway.

 

[feck_on_a_stick]

Thanks for all the messages

It's Valet Pro snow foam. Great stuff and just sticks to the car. Smells great as well.

Haven't logged it yet since I brought it home to find out if it's mapped but have a reference point locally that I've used to compare it to other cars I've owned and it did better than expected, although if it had a stage 1 I'd be a bit disappointed lol

I've a friend with VAGCOM and we'd originally used it when I'd bought the car to check for any errors so will use it again to see if anythings been done now I know how to work it out.

I'm staying with a panel filter rather than cone filter as I want everything to still look OEM.

As for mapping, there's nobody local that I'd really want to use to map it, but have a friend with an S4 which has had an MRC map. I really like how smooth it is so at the moment I'm considering shipping the ECU to them to get done

 

[s3dave]

A good test to see if its been mapped is the boost pressure, so log that, can you hear the dump in the meantime? unmapped are very quiet

 

[S3 AUO]

wonderful colour mate - look after it!

 

[MURRAYS444]

Nice car, and the BEST colour

 

[Ian W]

Looks like you got yourself a good one there, very tidy.

The 8L S3 is certainly ageing well imo

 

[*Rich*]

I like it, looks like it's been looked after, a lovely example.

i think i need some of those alloys though....

 

[MattW86]

Lovely car dude... And there was me thinking I was the only noggy S3 in Northern Ireland.

Matt

 

[Nilz]

Welcome to the site dude, the car is beautiful, my fave colour on the S3, only wish one came up when I was looking for mine.

 

[feck_on_a_stick]

Thanks again for all the positive posts

I'll have to keep this uptodate when things progress.

Matt, good to know there's another local owner. I haven't seen another S3 in the last four weeks I've been out and about, nevermind another Nogaro. I've a friend with a Nogaro S6 and know of a Nogaro S4 on a local forum. Trying to get them together at a local VAG meet for a photoshoot if you are interested

 

[Dan-Jnr]

Really nice example you have, what is the interior like?
When I got mine I too was missing some engine bay trim, battery cover, and dust deals.

 

[s3dave]

Welcome to the site dude, the car is beautiful, my fave colour on the S3, only wish one came up when I was looking for mine.

Traitor..........

 

[feck_on_a_stick]

It's the blue alcantara/black leather interior and no real wear on the seats. I've treated them with Gliptone cleaner and conditioner and they've come out really well.

The climate has some wear on the buttons which seems to be a common problem and is on my list to get seen to. Engine mods will be first though

 

[MURRAYS444]

It's the blue alcantara/black leather interior and no real wear on the seats. I've treated them with Gliptone cleaner and conditioner and they've come out really well.

The climate has some wear on the buttons which seems to be a common problem and is on my list to get seen to. Engine mods will be first though

The climate control buttons are a nightmare especially if the previous owner was someone with long nails

 

[LD3]

Agreed!

Nice car, and the BEST colour

 

[MattW86]

Thanks again for all the positive posts

I'll have to keep this uptodate when things progress.

Matt, good to know there's another local owner. I haven't seen another S3 in the last four weeks I've been out and about, nevermind another Nogaro. I've a friend with a Nogaro S6 and know of a Nogaro S4 on a local forum. Trying to get them together at a local VAG meet for a photoshoot if you are interested

I think in the last 2 yrs of ownership i have seen 3x 8L S3's. Loads of those 8p's though. Cheers for the invite but i feel my car would only ruin the pics... it is in drastic need of a new set of wheels and like yours a proper paint correction.

Matt

 

[feck_on_a_stick]

With funds running low this month I'm counting the days until payday til I can start ordering more bits to the car. I asked a friend who's a keen photographer if he would take some proper photos of the car and we went round the corner to a nearby industrial unit and he took some snaps. I've attached a few of them, and I'm well chuffed with how they turned out

 

[Dan-Jnr]

Top pictures. Hoping to get some done of mine when it's been paint corrected.

 

[feck_on_a_stick]

I've had my S3 for 3 months now and just put 1,000 miles on it. I'm really loving the car and getting there with the engine mods.


I had planned to send the ecu over to MRC for a map but after running some logs on VAGCOM I've discovered that at some point in it's life the car has been mapped. RESULT!


The logs also showed however that it was losing boost over 5,000 rpm. I had a feeling that the standard TIP pipe was compressing under load so ordered a Badger 5 80mm one and fitted it today. It's alot bigger than the usual replacement TIPs and got fitted today. I'm not a big fan of blue pipes, so keeping it still looking OEM, I got a black one. It's now a completely different car. I can't believe the difference it's made. Def a recommendation for a replacement

My OEM on the left vs the replacement on the right.

I've also fitted a Forge recirculation valve and a N75 race valve (I know the J valve seems to be frowned upon here, but it was free and hasn't caused any issues just yet so we'll see how it goes lol).


Next on my to-do list was a downpipe and decat. I had a proper look under the car today and discovered that both cats look to have been opened so it seems that someone has already gutted them. Another nice surprise.


I think that's me pretty much done with the engine. I might try to get a better cold air feed to the airbox, but that's about it. Just need to get it on the rolling road.


I put a three digit plate on it over the weekend which has really cleaned it up.

Next I want to do a few things to the interior, particularly the climate buttons and headlight switch where they have worn away.


I'm also thinking about lowering it, although I'm not 100% sure it really needs it. Sitting still - yes......when it's going, I think it still looks pretty purposeful....... hmmmm.....

 

[MURRAYS444]

Car is looking good mate B5 TIP makes so much difference you should go for the Jetex cone filter you will love it! Good thing about N Ireland plates you can't tell how old the car is but all the car's there look as if they have private plates!

 

[Jimgrim77]

It's a great colour. Do like it a lot. Good luck with the mods!

 

[ChaddyA3]

Soo Clean buddy, Looks awesome all in all looks pretty much brand new Cheers

 

[feck_on_a_stick]

Unfortunately I've no real changes to the car. I got a DA polisher for my birthday and spent about 15 hours on the paintwork. It's certainly changed the appearance. I didn't realise Nogaro had such a nice metallic/pearl paint


Mean and moody pic taken at a local VAG meet.

Titanic Dubs is a new local VAG show held at the Titanic dry dock. I figured I'd take the S3 for a laugh even though it's pretty much OEM. I'd a great day. The show was pretty relaxed and the location was a bit different.

I've a standard S3 downpipe which is soon being modified to replace the twin pipe with a singular 2.5" pipe and hoping that will be done in the next month or so.

Looking at some of the cars at Titanic Dubs has me starting to think about going back to owning something a bit more fun to drive, especially a nice clean mk1 or mk2 Golf with an ABF 16 valve and throttle bodies. I just don't drive it which is a shame. The last tank of petrol lasted me 2 months and I drive my mk3 GTI more

Maybe making it go faster will change my mind lol

 

[MURRAYS444]

Car looks good mate you got a nice day for your meet!

 

[Squirrelofdoom]

best color for the s3 i think (apart from yellow obviously )

 

[feck_on_a_stick]

Oh dear. I've just realised I've not updated this in quite a while Long post alert!

I've also tidied my Photobucket account up and moving my pics seems to have resulted in a fair few photos above going missing. If a nice moderator can help me if I send them the new links I'd appreciate it.

When doing a bit of a health check on it a while back the turbo pipe looked like it had split, so it was replaced with a nice Forge one. The rest of the pipes were thankfully still solid.

A friend also built me a new 2.5" stainless steel downpipe and removed the cats, which a previous owner had already gutted. This was only a rough mock-up. It looks pretty tasty now. I've more pics at home somewhere of it all finished up.

He also carried out an N249 delete, but the car didn't really respond well to it, so its back for now.

Running a few VAGCOM logs showed plenty of promise. The intercoolers still ran super cool and I was logging 209g/s.

After that, I just ran the car for a while. There had been a little bit of rust down along the drivers door blade where water must have collected during the years, so I left it in and got it repaired.



I then got rid of my mk3 Golf GTI and replaced it with a 1999 Honda Civic VTI-S which I actually really enjoy driving, but it has turned out to be a massive moneypit with an increasing stack of things going wrong with it.



I'd put my name down for a rolling road meet last December. I'd been down there the previous year so was keen to find out what it was doing after I'd put a new downpipe and turbo pipe on.



The results were a bit disappointing being pretty much exactly the same as the year before. I've since wanted to figure out how much of it was to do with the Haldex and how much is to do with something else wrong with the car. It's not a smooth curve at all and making me think more about going for a custom map over the next year or so.



There's a big dip at around 3,000rpm. Last years graph did something similar and at the time I'd put it down to the torn turbo pipe.

My mate had his mk2 Golf TDI there as well and I took it for a spin on the way home from ECC. He was pretty happy at 229bhp and 349lb ft of torque! Anyways, it was nice to see the S3 driving from outside and reminded me how much I love looking at it

I've driven the car maybe 6 or 7 times since the rolling road last December

and about 7,000 total since I bought the car in December 2011

I bought new standard font plates off as I've heard more people getting pulled for 'Metro' style plates

I'm a bit gutted as I've had this style of plate on my car since I first passed my test 20 years ago.

The car had a bit of a small hesitation at idle when the engine was cold. I bought some 2.0T TFSI coil packs and adapters which cured the problem.



Feels much nicer now

Up until August I'd also been running a full 2.5" decat but the MOT was due so I fitted a Magnaflow 200 Cell sports cat. I can't believe how its affected the fuel economy

Stupid MOT!!

I also spent a couple of nights in August stuck in the garage buffin the S3 before taking it to the Belfast Audi tour organised by a couple of the members on here. . We had a pretty decent nosy around, out the back, in the stores and through the workshops. I found it pretty interesting for a dealership, even if I couldn't afford a single thing in the place.

I had to get the parts guy to jump start the car in the car park though, which I found out later was due to the battery terminal being a bit loose

A friend carried out another health check on the car and discovered that the wastegate has been leaking air. Hopefully this might make better sense of my odd rolling road graphs. I've a new standard wastegate ordered which I'll get fitted in the upcoming weeks.

This brings me up to now. I've been toying with the idea of selling the car. The Civic does most of what the Audi does, albeit a bit slower. The last year or two I've also been toying with getting something retro, like a quick mk1 or mk2 Golf, but when I look at what I'd get with my money, I don't really know if its a good idea or not. If I hang on to the S3 I might move in a different direction with it.

 

[feck_on_a_stick]

I've been looking around recently for something retro and interesting to replace the S3 with, but realised that I should stick with it and move towards turning it in to something I'd actually enjoy driving, and the only way to do that is to start spending money on it.

The K04-064 turbo setups are def interesting me and it would be nice to eventually get the car to that sort of stage, one step at a time.

Firstly though, the car has recently started feeling like it was lacking power and I was hearing a more noticeable woosh of escaping air when accelerating I decided to replace the wastegate actuator and see if that helped.

New one turned up and replaced yesterday with the help of a friend.



Not the easiest thing to remove, but the old one was indeed worn. Anyone know what the stuff in the syringe was for?

I ran a couple of tests last night and need to make some adjustments. Carrying out a few 4th gear runs it feels a bit more laggier than before and a more pronounced dumping of air when lifting off the accelerator which I'm worrying about. I def need to do more testing on it. At least more of the grunt is back, although fitting the sports cat has def hurt it a bit top end.

I also bought a wifi OBD2 reader and Dash Command. It does look good but the novelty quickly wore off when I discovered just how laggy it is and that it doesn't log boost. I also don't know how accurate it really is or how it calculates its figures. When I was doing my 4th gear runs it was logging the S3 as having a max 210bhp. It's still handy for reading and clearing error codes. I may have to look in to a boost gauge after all.

I also bought a replacement climate control unit with unworn buttons



Just need to figure out how to replace it. I'm guessing I need to remove the headunit?

I'm undecided as to where to go next. I'd like to keep pushing on with engine mods but I've done nothing to the looks of the car. I'm thinking next big purchase should either be an AH Fabs V2 intercooler, Milltek cat back or lower the car on either coilovers or decent springs & shocks. I'm more after an aggressive fast road look than dragging it on the ground.

Cupra R splitters? Part of me likes them. The other part of me thinks it's better to keep it stock looking. Any thoughts?

 

[dannyh]

Good progress mate

I personally wouldn't bother with the Cupra R splitter and would just keep it Standard it looks better that way IMO

my car S3 is on springs 30mm front and 25 rear I think, drives really nice, not harsh and also looks nicer.
If I was you I would get springs over coilovers

 

[feck_on_a_stick]

Good progress mate

I personally wouldn't bother with the Cupra R splitter and would just keep it Standard it looks better that way IMO

my car S3 is on springs 30mm front and 25 rear I think, drives really nice, not harsh and also looks nicer.
If I was you I would get springs over coilovers

Thanks buddy

I'm still undecided on the splitter myself.

Always great to see the progress of other Nogaros on here too, just to see what subtle changes can be made to improve them. I've been watching yours since Dan owned it.

 

[dannyh]

Thanks mate

Ive just updated my thread. When I bought it the only issue was the front bumper had suffered from stone chips.
im now getting it resprayed along with bonnet and wings then a couple of other marks.
then hopefully get the wheels refurdished in the not too distant future and it should be showroom condition

 

[localknoxville]

Just bought another Nogaro Blue S3 myself, this is my 2nd now, love this colour and it turns heads where ever I go.