S4 avant in gear times?

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maff125

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Does anybody know the in gear times for a B5 s4 avant, such as 30-70, 60-100, and also whats the 0-100 for these cars?

cheers matt.
 
you can use the 'performance calculator' at the side if you know your vehicles exact weight/power.

this is a theory calculation, so it assumes you get a perfect launch and perfect gear changes etc.
 
14 second 1/4 miles seems a little generous to be fair (for non-mapped cars).
 
I dunno, an XE powered vauxhall Nova will do a 14second quarter, and its got the same power to weight ratio as a stock S4, and its FWD...
 
aragorn said:
I dunno, an XE powered vauxhall Nova will do a 14second quarter, and its got the same power to weight ratio as a stock S4, and its FWD...
Click to expand...

Most XE'd Novas tend to be in the mid 14's (unless they're on TB's etc). My F reg one wouldn't have done a 14.

I only managed a 13.9 in my 1000KG Astra GTE with 280bhp lol,........though a seasoned stripper who weighs less than me could get that car into the low 13's.
 
Has anybody got any timeslips from fairly standard S4's at the Pod by the way?
 
ive still got my timeslips...:yes:

and apart from my own custom downpipes, straight through system, 1 bar superchip map.. 13.2 1/4 @110

and with my 100 shot of noz.. 12.222@116... which as yet no one has beaten at pod ..:happy:
 
I should have some of my own times given VCDS can give you such figures but I don't. Anyhow here's some for reference ...(stock avant included)

http://www.s4-mtm.com/images/Abt_S4.pdf


Given ABT only managed to get 310BHP out the S4 and tuners are now getting 320-340ish out of Stage 1 and 2 cars, these figures have to be taken as modest.

Some comparisons from magazine data I presviously compiled:


30-50mph (3rd)

Mototune B5 S4 - 3.3 secs
Stock B5 RS4 - 3.5 secs
Stock B5 S4 - 3.2/3.3 secs (two sets of test figures)
Stock RS2 - 4.0 secs
Stock B7 RS4 - 2.9 secs
Stock RS6 Avant - 2.4 secs (kick down - cheating really as I guess that means 2nd was also used)

30-50mph (4th)

Mototune B5 S4 - 4.2 secs
Stock B5 RS4 - 5.0 secs
Stock RS2 - 5.8 secs

50-70mph (3rd)

Mototune B5 S4 - 2.8 secs
Stock B5 RS4 - 3.1 secs
Stock B5 S4 - 3.3/3.4 secs (two sets of test figures)
Stock RS2 - 2.8 secs
Stock B7 RS4 - 2.8 secs
Stock RS6 Avant - 2.9 secs (kick down - cheating really as I guess that means 2nd was also used)

50-70mph (4th)

Mototune B5 S4 - 3.5 secs
Stock B5 RS4 - 3.8 secs
Stock B5 S4 - 3.9/4.0 secs (two sets of test figures)
Stock RS2 - 3.9 secs
Stock B7 RS4 - 3.7 secs

50-70mph (35th)

Mototune B5 S4 - 4.5 secs
Stock B5 RS4 - 5.1 secs
Stock B5 S4 - 4.7/4.5 secs (two sets of test figures)
Stock RS2 - 5.3 secs
Stock B7 RS4 - 4.6 secs
 
Is there?

The rate at which a car accellerates is largely proportional to its power to weight ratio...

Two cars with 300bhp/ton and the same drive layout will complete the quartermile in roughly the same time.

A 4wd car should get a better launch, so should return better times than a RWD or FWD car. Similarly a RWD car will return better times than a FWD car, due to weight transfer on launch.

The letstorquebhp model has been tweaked over many years with real data, and gives a relatively accurate picture of what a car is capable of.

Its not perfect, but your talking it being out by 10ths. If it says 14.2sec is possible, your not going to manage a 13.0, nor are you going to get a 15.5 unless you make a complete ham fist of it...

It even goes as far as giving you two figures, taking into account the different grip levels found on a properly prepared dragstrip and a normal road.


The one variable is the weight. Not all cars weigh the same, and under the model listings it obviously has to choose a weight. The S4 is down as being 1500kgs, but i can imagine that depending on the options selected it could easily be more than this.
 
If my S4 was a typical example then the notchy clunky gearchange alone would slow it down (as an example).
 
4wd eats a fair bit of power up too. If you had an a4 with 200bhp and an a4 quattro with the same power and they both weighed the same i would bet the fwd would be quicker once moving. Not by much but it would be.
 
People go on about 4wd eating up a lot of power etc, but i dont think its actually anywhere near as big a loss as people think.

The main reason people often use is that "at the wheels" rolling road figures are much lower on 4wd cars, but the reason for that is that your measuring 4 wheels not two. With a 2wd car, on a real road, the undriven wheels will cause the same drag as the driven ones, but when it was on the dyno, that wasnt measured.

So while the power at the wheels in the 2wd car appears a lot higher, its only higher because your not measuring the losses of the second axle, which while not driven, is still in contact with the road and causing friction etc.

I would really like to see what you suggest ian. Same power and same weight, but one car with 4wd and one fwd. The 4wd car will get a much better launch, so the fwd would be at a loss right away.
 
Cheers for the info folks, just comparing previous cars to my s4 avant, being a 99 uk prodrive impreza which did 30-70 in 5 secs and 20-80 in 7 secs also an old corrado vr6 which could do a 5.7 30-70 purely cause it could do it in second gear!

Still cant find a 30-70 anywhere for the avant and if were to try timing this myself would i be better staying in third gear rather than a 2nd to 3rd gear run?

thanks again matt.
 
aragorn said:
People go on about 4wd eating up a lot of power etc, but i dont think its actually anywhere near as big a loss as people think.
Click to expand...

Correct,....it's worse.

AMD reckoned mine was showing circa 210 at the wheels when I had it rollered at 297.
 
right and you've completely ignored what i just said about the non-driven wheels on a 2wd car.

The majority of power loss occurs as friction between the tyres and road surface.

Take an example 2wd car making 300hp at the crank, and 250 at the wheels. Thats 50hp of loss (and around 15% which is "normal" for a fwd car). Say 75% of that loss is friction on the tyres/bearings etc. That means the front tyres are absorbing 37.5hp. The rear tyres however are also absorbing 37.5hp because they're on the road rolling along just the same as the fronts, you've just not measured that on the dyno.

With a 4wd car, with 300hp, you measure 210 at the wheels. However this time you've measured the loss at all four wheels, so the extra 37.5hp that wasnt included on the FWD car is now added to the transmission loss figure.

Does that make sense?
 
In a nutshell, I'd expect (roughly speaking) a 50bhp loss with a 300bhp 2WD car and a 100bhp loss in a 300bhp 4WD car. Simples.

As with most of your lengthy replies, they rarely have any impact on me or the masses as they're clearly researched,.........but not quite well 'researched/justified/referenced/documented/backed-up by others' enough,.......do you see what I mean?

Feel free to blind us with science and bombard us with an even LONGER reply though lol ;)
 
Last edited:
I still think a 4wd will be slightly worse off as it had to drive a transfer box/prop shaft/rear diff and rear shafts with 4 cv joints. I know the friction between the 4 tyres and the road is going to be the same on both but the 4wd car has to work harder to make everything work. I know its not going to make a massive differance but the drivetrain losses on a 4wd car will be higher.
 
ian, yep sounds about right. i'd imagine a 5% difference maybe 10% tops.

Mr Dan is clearly too dense to actually read what i've written, and understand why theres apparently twice the losses on a 4wd car.

Some real world numbers:

Audi B7 RS4: 414hp, 1720kgs
E90 M3: 414hp, 1680kgs

So assuming the were both RWD you'd expect the M3 to be a tiny tiny amount faster. Since the B7 is 4wd though, with its "MASSIVE" transmission losses that are double that of the beemer, it should be a lot slower?

Yet the 0-200kph on the RS is 15.4sec and the M3 is 15.9sec
Top Gear lap times? RS 1m25.6, M3 1m25.3.
1/4 mile times? RS 12.8s M3 13.1s

So given that its lost all this extra power thru the drive train, whys it putting in similar times to the M3 which should be much faster as it has 50hp more at the wheels? and even faster times when the launch actually matters?
 
aragorn, one other thing to consider is that with 400bhp, 4wd has a definate advantage getting off the line (ie 0-60 and 1/4 mile)

30-70 times etc could reveal more if someone would be kind enough to find them
 
ofcourse, but not by enough to make up this 60+hp difference that dans blindly claiming exists just because its 4WD. If the M3 was really putting down 60hp more, it would properly hump the RS in every test.

The top gear time is reasonable indication, i've also found nurburgring times of 7.58 for the RS4 and 8:05 for the M3, again doesnt make any sense if the RS4 is putting down "less power"

http://www.fastestlaps.com/track2.html


I'm not saying there will be no more losses due to 4wd, what i'm saying is that they're tiny, certainly nowhere near the figures dans quoting.
 
off the top of my head, transmission losses on a rwd car are in the region of 17-19%. i think, for 4wd youre looking at nearer 30% (dont quote me on the 30% though, i cant even remember where i heard that on, but im confident on the rwd figure though)

youve also got to consider how many times youve heard baout RS4s not making anywhere near the claimed power... which only backs up your theory anyway

i think we could also be looking at a matter where the m3 has passed "diminishing returns" with 400bhp at the rear wheels :p

ive just read some more of this thread though, and im staying well out of it :p
 
those figures (15% and 30% is what i usually hear) only come from running the car on a dyno though.

To directly compare wheel power figures, you'd have to spin the roller on the undriven axle up to the same speed as the driven axle and measure its coast down losses too, then add them to the original transmission loss figure, and if you did that, there wouldnt be much in it at all.
 
im not too sure what you mean there, but my (simplified) view would be...

imagine two cars, both engines make 300bhp but one is rwd one is 4wd

both cars go on the rollers, the rwd car will put down 300bhp - 15% (285whp)

the 4wd car will put down 300bhp - 30% at 4 wheels (210whp)
 
Right, but if 75% of that loss occurs simply due to friction between the road surface and the tyre, then the unmeasured axle on the rwd is applying a drag of 11.5% (75% of 15). This wasnt measured on the rollers

So now on the road, your putting out 300hp, and getting 255hp (not 285, i think you got your maths wrong there) to the rear wheels, however the front wheels are consuming 34.5hp. That means the front axle is applying -34.5hp to the road, and the rear axle is applying 255hp to the road. Total power transferred is? 220hp.
 
ah i see what you mean (and yup i pressed the wrong button on the calc..)

surely turning the front wheels on a rwd card cant be costing 34bhp though

eitherway, enough of the talking, get dan out and lets have a race
 
Remember the loss isnt constant. If you watch a coast down plot, when you first lift off and the wheels are doing 120mph you get the huge loss, as the speed drops, the loss drops off rapidly.

Its also why the loss figure changes dramatically if you make two runs, one in third and one in fourth. Maximum speed is lower, so power absorbed is lower.

At 120mph, its quite feasible the tyres alone will be absorbing 35hp!
 
Matt82 said:
eitherway, enough of the talking, get dan out and lets have a race
Click to expand...

I'm far too 'dense' to race old bean lol

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I believe that maybe........just maybe....Arogant has a pal called Craig (he's mentioned him once or twice on here), and I reckon he would be your man for the S4 side of the race. You'd need to find somebody less dense than myself to race for the RWD opposition team though ;)
 
thats a bit of a let down

ill bring the spanners, someone else can whip their front driveshafts out

we wont need to rely on a bmw for this comparison :p
 
dan, nice to see you can completely disregard newtons laws, and continue to pull numbers out of your head, least you have an imagination, if nothing else. props for that :)

id also need to find another 140bhp to make it a fair compairson, if you did somehow managed to find a brain somewhere in that lovely M5 of yours.
 
i dont know much about the e39 m5, but i wonder if it does make the manufactuer's claimed power figures. either way, the performance times cant be argued with

i doubt an s4 with all the bolt ons (stage 1 car i suppose) would be able to hold a candle to the m5 (apart from a standing start) someone else can dump their clutch from 6krpm though, im not that brave :p
 
I dont think a mapped S4 would beat it, the M5 would still have the edge. It just wouldnt "destroy" it. Lots of people use that phrase, but to me it means the kinda effect you get when you race a tuned S4 against a 1.8T, not a few car lengths down a quarter mile.

Obviously it depends on the accuracy of the weight figures, but if the mapped S4 has 320hp and 1512kgs (211hp/ton), and the M5 has 400hp and 1750kgs (228hp/ton), then your talking a few tenths to 60 in the beemers favour and a similar difference down the quarter mile, helped ofcourse by the fact the audi gets a better launch.

I suspect that 1500kgs is a minimum figure, so an avant will weigh more and various options will add more still. I'll check the weight plate on craigs this evening.

letstorque recons an M5 will do a quarter in 13.0 secs with a 111mph terminal, and a 320hp S4 will do a 13.0s with 108mph terminal, confirming the less power but better launch scenario.

fastestlaps agrees with the M5's time, suggesting a 13.1, but only has figures for a stock S4. It also suggests the M5 is 1795kg, not the 1750 that letstorque uses.

I dont think there would me much in it down a quarter. Anyone got times for a mapped S4?
 
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