1.8T 180 AJQ budget turbo upgrade?

[Biggied]

Hello all,

I’m looking for some advice/opinions on the best way to extract some more power from my 8l A3 1.8T quattro.

Before people jump in and say “buy an S3 instead” or “fit a K04 conversion” I don’t really want to go down this route as I like having the A3 under dog rather than the S3, My car is a very well maintained 60k mile example, the mods already carried out were based around keeping a K03 layout & I want to keep the cost down.
The engine is a 180hp AJQ so only a K03 turbo, small port head and 19mm wrist pin rods. When I bought the car it already had a Rica Engineering remap, I have since added a Toyosport 3” down pipe and decat with a standard S3 cat back system, SFS supersize TIP & a Darkside Developments single pass FMIC with customer hard pipes including pancake pipe upgrade but because of the little K03 this only seems to have allowed for about aprox 215hp.
I’d like to change the turbo now to make the most of the other parts that are already fitted but don’t want to spend loads more doing rods etc etc, would It be worth while fitting a BeachBuggy K280 or K300 on standard internals and what would be the further suppoting mods needed? or would I be aswell to fit a K250 or K03s?
Any advice on which way to go would be appreciated.

Cheers

Ewan.

 

[A3-Lee]

You won't be getting 215bhp from a ko3 mate it's impossible id say been 180bhp standard you have a ko3s

 

[Biggied]

No, pre facelift AJQ 180 is Defo just a K03. Think when I checked the airflow it was pulling somewhere between 170-175 so I thought roughly 215hp.

Ewan.

 

[antwan64og]

AJQ had the stiffer wastegate so it boosts the ko3 to 12psi in stock form producing 180hp instead of 8psi like on the 150hp models.

For reference my ko3 is pushing 169 G/S, theoretically the turbo is overspinning but it hasn't died yet. I'm doing the same as you, I'm not increasing the boost just making the the rest of the system flow better.

You may aswell get which ever beachbuggy turbo you can afford, and either port a stock manifold or "get the pain in the **** to fit but flows well XS power ko3 manifold".

Apart from a ko3 hybrid and manifold addition the only other thing you didn't mention is conefilter and I got a heat shield to hold it nicely in place

Like so

 

[antwan64og]

FYI the k280 and K300 would need a different TIP as they are ko4 compressor housings.

The k250 would use your current TIP