Karls 3.0 TDI build thread

[desertstorm]

Small mod in anticipation of the hybrid and a remap. Looking around at several of the more powerful 3.0 TDI cars with the hybrids they have fitted larger intake pipes.
The standard one I think is good for 240bhp but with potentially 50% more power that will probably be having an effect.

The intake pipe is 78mm stainless, and instead of tapering down to 57mm and then feeding into the silencer at the front of the turbo where the crankcase breather is. I have used a 45 degree silicon reducer to go from 78mm to 57mm this makes the transition from the large pipe a lot more gradual and I can now hear a bit of induction roar as well.
The original intake silencer fitted to the car

How it looks with the reducer on the end of the pipe

The stainless pipe with the crankcase vent pipe welded on

How it looks fitted

Decided to paint it black and try and make it look as OE as possible

Karl.

 

[desertstorm]

Had some fun at the Weekend at a local sprint track just up the road from me, Curbrough.
This was an event organised by the the club GTI forum so loads of Golfs, S3's and a sprinkling of other cars including an awesome Radical SR8.
I took some in car videos with a cheapo version of a GO-PRO. I think this was the fastest lap I managed on the day.
I definitely would fail my test with all the arm crossing. Managed to go 0.5 a second faster than last year which I put down to the tyres and Bilstein B8 shockers.
The car still rolls too much and understeers so after looking around at possible options to improve this I have ordered a H & R front and rear ARB kit.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321176170278

My car is an SE spec and has the original front ARB 25.6MM and S line/ S4 ARB is 26.5mm the H and R one is 30mm and 2 way adjustable.
I made a cheap upgrade on the rear ARB going from the standard 19.6mm SE bar to an S-LINE /S4 bar of 21,7mm. That small change did make a noticeable difference to turn in so the H and R item as 24mm should help a lot more.
Also going to lose 10mm or so off the rear ride height which will lose some of the rake on the car and help to reduce the roll slightly. This should easily be achievable by a small mod to the top rear spring buffer which is well thick.
Looking forward to September which is the next meeting will have the hybrid turbo on the car then and with the suspension tweaks should make it a lot easier to get around the corners.

 

[JG51 AUD]

Awesome work Karl, your thread updates are always a good read.
JG

 

[umbrella]

WOW you are a right Audi fanatic Karl, loving your upgrades. Just about getting mine done!! LOL

Quick couple of questions, currently awaiting my calipers and carries to be delivered. Was going to buy the discs and pads and was confused. Guess want to be sure I am getting the right stuff!

So seen these discs: http://www.carparts4less.co.uk/cp4l...7ba95130f05977df9583a596eba26d6bb77883&000027 they the ones you were talking about yes? good to buy?

The pads. Again confused. ll be using both the calipers and carriers from the S5 setup I am getting. So unsure which pads to get. There are so many variations. Not sure If I should be going for the normal a4 3.0tdi pad specs OR different. Seen these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EBC-REAR-...Cars+Type:3.0+TDI+quattro&hash=item487b81acd5 are these what you were referring too??? OR do I need some for the S5 version?? you used both the calipers and carriers for your brakes I think so did you use the normal pads available as per link? or different? could you kindly point me in the right direction...

Also the bolts and pins don't come with the calipers and carriers am getting. Guy has also suggested that I get the seals. Going to Audi to find out the cost BUT can I get these anywhere else as you know Audi would just bend me ova and take me for everything I've got! and that's putting it mildly!

Again appreciate the help and looking forward to finally putting some real stopping power back into my car and posting some long awaited pics!

 

[desertstorm]

Those are the discs I use on the front of my car. As for the pads they are the same on the 3.0 TDI as the S4 /S5 as they are the same calipers with just different carriers.
Car Parts for less do the red stuff front pads for around £83. they are in the performance section of the catalogue. There is a 10% discount off all the performance stuff. They don't seem to stock the red stuff rears.
The rear pads seem cheaper at Camskill
http://www.camskill.co.uk/m31b0s626...KE_PADS_-_DP31988C_-_EBC_Redstuff_Brake_Pads_
I never replaced any of the bolts.

Karl.

 

[adamss24]

Still not fitted that turbo yet Karl ? Big boys toys and all of that...

 

[Gazwould]

Yes , we are all waiting impatiently .

 

[Rab97]

What kind of calipers could i upgrade on this ? thanks

 

[Djwoody]

Hi Karl.
Have you upgraded your Clutch at all?
My pedal is a bit jurky especially when changing from 1st to 2nd. Wasn't sure if this is my clutch on the way out as I have 90k on the clock now.

Chris

 

[desertstorm]

No my clutch is standard and on about the same mileage as yourself just over 90K miles. I don't have any real issues.

 

[desertstorm]

Fitted these bad boys the other day

They complete the suspension upgrades I had planned and I am very pleased with the handling of the car now, it was quite good before but I am really surprised the difference this package has made.
Another good saving by going to German Ebay these were about £100 cheaper than pretty much anything in the UK.
The B12 suspension kit I fitted helped to kill a lot of the roll and dive /squat that the car used to have but these bars keep the car really flat and have killed some more of the understeer in tight corners, there is no really noticeable reduction in ride quality, I would say that potholes / drain covers etc are more noticeable but thats about it.

As my car is an SE it came with a 25.6mm front bar, the S-Line and S4 get a 26.4mm bar. I don't know if the S4 bar is solid or hollow. The SE one on my car is definitely hollow as it only weighs 3.3Kg and the H & R front bar weighs 7.4Kg with a 30mm diameter . A doddle to fit, the front one is adjustable and I have put it on the softest setting .

The rear bar is a bit more difficult to fit requiring the exhaust to be dropped down and some fiddling around trying to feed the bar out and the new one in.
I had already previously changed the standard SE rear bar to an S-line / S4 spec bar which did improve the car but not as much as upgrading both the front and rear bar. But a second hand S-line bar is only £40 off Fleabay so is a cheap upgrade if you have an SE car.

The picture shows bottom to top an SE spec 19.6mm bar, S-LINE spec 21.7mm bar and the H & R bar 24mm. I think these are all solid bars.

Whist I was under the car I decided to lower the rear ride height a little . The Bilstein B12 kit with Eibach springs gives the car a bit of rake front to rear with the rear sitting higher than the front. This seems typical of Eibach springs but the rear has always I thought been a little too high.
So looking into possible options I removed the rear spring upper seat.

You can see how thick it is , The rubber seat is about 15mm thick, I used a hacksaw to trim down the rubber where the spring sits, removing 10mm from the seat part.

This of course helps with handling as reduces the roll in the car by lowering the roll centre.

Karl.

 

[Gazwould]

Did they do an Eibach kit ?

 

[desertstorm]

There is an Eibach kit but the bars are thinner both front and rear and neither is adjustable.
The Eibach bars are 28mm front , HR is 30mm and Eibach rear is 23mm , HR is 24mm.
The price is pretty much the same. The HR bars seems to get a better write up, Either will give the car a good improvement in handling I am sure.

Karl.

 

[Gazwould]

Definitely the edge lies with H&R.

 

[desertstorm]

Went to GTI International today, glorious weather and some nice cars.
Of course I took the car up the strip just to blow out a few cobwebs, I was second quickest diesel last year and was hoping to have the hybrid turbo fitted in a hope to get under 13 seconds. and maybe get the fastest diesel. Well that hasn't happened yet and as it happens I saw the Darkside people with there 500bhp nitrous equipped little yellow rocket that runs sub 11 second passes so I wasn't going to beat them.
I watched it go up the strip on it's first run and it was very fast and very smokey , however the engine blew up just on the finish line and it deposited the entire sump full of oil on the strip. This meant they had to stop for the best part of 45 minutes while they picked up all the debris.So they loaded it up and left.
My fastest run was the quickest I have ever done a 13.29 at 105 mph against an RS4.
Heres the ticket and a video of the run. The GPS speed on the phone is useless, it's miles behind the real thing and the boost readings are low as well by a few PSI

You can here how the new exhaust sounds with the downpipe, it really doesn't sound much like a diesel.



My name was called to attend the trophy presentation as I did last year they ask for 1st and 2nd place to go although second gets nothing but a round of applause.
This time though I got a nice first place trophy ,

Karl

 

[adamss24]

Very good results karl, bet you're chuffed ! So the new hybrid does not deliver as you want it to?

 

[Gazwould]

It's not been fitted yet.

 

[desertstorm]

As above the hybrid isn't fitted yet, I know it will be a lot better than the standard turbo when it's fitted as the car pulls so much better once it's spooled up and effortlessly to the red line. And that is on the same mapping as the standard turbo. I think with the hybrid in the car the time will be in the high 12's.

 

[Gazwould]

Would it then spank that B7 RS4 ?

 

[desertstorm]

I had 2 runs against B7 RS4's the other run the RS4 posted a 13.21 108 MPH time. That may have been a more standard RS4 . Looking at the net it seems a 13 second time is about right for a standard B7 RS4, obviously times can go up and down depending on conditions and the driver.
With a hybrid turbo on I think it would be close or beating a standard RS4.
Coulda , shoulda , woulda though. Lets see what happens.
Either way I get a plenty of smiles geting any where near these cars in my diesel estate .

 

[Gazwould]

Best buy a trophy cabinet then .

 

[adamss24]

What you're missing is revs Karl, as much as i like diesel engines, the petrol lumps have the edge. In my 380bhp s4 i have mullered 400 bhp 535d and a few 3.0tdi a5... it's all in the driver's response....

 

[desertstorm]

I know what you are saying Chris but people expect Audi's finest S and RS models to be fast, which they are of course. And bolt a bigger turbo on with some nitrous and they go even faster. I have plenty of people coming up to me asking me about the car simply because most people don't associate diesel estates with performance and going fast.
Sure the diesel has a limited RPM range compared to a petrol, It makes it more challenging to get a quick time,especially in a manual, changing at 4700 RPM I change at 26 mph into second 50 into 3rd and 80 into 4th. This means I am not in first gear very long at all.
One of the reasons the 0-60 time is not quite as good with diesels is that they won't do 60 in second as most petrols will so need another gear change.
There are plenty of very fast petrol cars around, not so many fast diesels though.

 

[evans1089]

It looked well down the strip mate! Good job

 

[Ro55]

It was a pleasure to watch mate,well done again,get that hybrid sorted!!!

 

[Dieselburner]

Hello, desertstorm.
I love the mods you did for this car, also I can say that I got few ideas from you which I am going to use on my a5. I have 3.0tdi capa engine, and I had no idea that I could do drive select on car with manual gearbox, it will be first mod to do tomorrow morning. I find this thread when I was looking for a5 exhaust modifications. I was looking for "active sound exhaust", or somebody who had installed exhaust "valve". So my question is: does that electronic valve from china working well or it's just waste of money? Thinking to buy something like that myself.

 

[desertstorm]

The valve for the exhaust works very well and allows me to switch from what some people would consider a noisy intrusive exhaust note to one only a little louder than OE. if you still have the DPF in your car then this reduces the sound from the exhaust quite a lot, you won't get any significant volume from the exhaust until you remove the DPF.

Karl.

 

[Dieselburner]

Well I guess the next mod for my car will be exhaust valve. Only bit worried about mot. My car doesn't have dpf already, and no egr+egr cooler, lambda sensor, and exhaust temp sensor bank 3, or exhaust pressure sensor. Thank you for information

 

[adamss24]

I know what you are saying Chris but people expect Audi's finest S and RS models to be fast, which they are of course. And bolt a bigger turbo on with some nitrous and they go even faster. I have plenty of people coming up to me asking me about the car simply because most people don't associate diesel estates with performance and going fast.
Sure the diesel has a limited RPM range compared to a petrol, It makes it more challenging to get a quick time,especially in a manual, changing at 4700 RPM I change at 26 mph into second 50 into 3rd and 80 into 4th. This means I am not in first gear very long at all.
One of the reasons the 0-60 time is not quite as good with diesels is that they won't do 60 in second as most petrols will so need another gear change.
There are plenty of very fast petrol cars around, not so many fast diesels though.

Yep, i know you can get diesels to be very fast but seriously tuning a diesel engine and you're shortening it's life span due to increased pcp and high egt... I am keeping close tabs on a friends audi a4 2.0tdi with a ball bearing gt2265vklr hybrid turbo, large nozzles and all bells and wistles. Lately the sachs sre clutch slips snd it's only been there a year or so, it was running over 330bhp... 3 turbos later and a engine rebuild and it needs again an overhaul. On the other hand my s4 been trashed daily and it only needed a new exhaust (which i built myself), tyres and a few coil packs and few services in the 3 years i had it... It's not fun when you keep repairing a car as it breaks the appeal gets diluted. Granted a 6 cyl diesel engine will be more reliable than a 4 pot engine but it will cost more in fabrication as the big names don't really modd them due to less appeal to kids... Good luck with yours, the path you choose is un-paved...

 

[desertstorm]

I know what you are saying Chris but 330bhp out of a 2.0 TDI engine is 165bhp / litre which would be the same as me trying to squeeze 495bhp out of mine. We are not quite in the same league there.
If I get mine to around 360-370bhp that only works out to less than 125bhp /litre which would be 250bhp in a 2.0 TDI . There are plenty of cars running that much power quite comfortably and reliably.
I think as the Americans say there is no replacement for displacement.
As for the transmission side of things I went for the B8 A4 because of the dual clutch arrangement on the 3.0 TDI. With effectively two 228mm clutch plates at 750Nm thats only 375Nm on each clutch.There are many A4 / A5 3.0 TDI's in Europe running 750Nm 370-400 bhp with no issues and thats on the standard LUK clutch. I haven't seen any car that has anything other than the standard clutch, they don't make an upgraded item.
The limit for this engine is pretty much around 400bhp because thats all the standard fuel system will provide. And to get that requires WMI as well.I hope to keep this car for several years and I certainly don't want to be spending a lot on it rebuilding the engine.
EGT temps with a hybrid on my car will probably be the same or possibly lower than they are at the moment with the improvement in flow from the turbine, PCP will be higher but I won't be having to advance the injection timing a whole load to try and get enough fuel in to make the power.

Karl.

 

[Gazwould]

Chris tell your mate to get a 3.0 tdi , that 2.0 4 pot is too highly strung.

Karl's is a lazy American V8 muscle car in comparison.

 

[evans1089]

Chris tell your mate to get a 3.0 tdi , that 2.0 4 pot is too highly strung.

Karl's is a lazy American V8 muscle car in comparison.

Mines for sale

 

[bobby singh]

Very nice read Karl
Good job

 

[rich dj]

Wow what a write up, very impressed with your work and attention to detail, I have a A6 3.0 Quattro S-line standard at present apart from audio and VCD's upgrades. Looking to get exhaust mod and remap to engine and auto box.
You have some really good times down the strip. I sat down and read this and couldn't stop till i got to the end.
Will have to pop to Santa pod if you are down there again let me know. Love the grip of these cars.. looking forward to more updates. Rich

 

[makelja]

Great story and well documented.
Sorry to say but reading this thread cost me a good deal of money.

 

[desertstorm]

Been shopping on Ebay again, The only thing I didn't like about the interior of the car was the steering wheel.
Been on my list of things to do for a while and as it's a real easy job just needed to find the right wheel.
I don't really need a flat bottomed wheel, In a TT probably uselful as makes life a little easier getting in and out but my car that's not a problem also the cost is an issue.
I really liked the punched leather steering wheel I had in the Passat, it was nice and comfortable and suitably sporty.
Looking around I found a brand new B7 RS4 steering wheel on Ebay so ordered that and found an associated B7 , 3 spoke air bag.
The steering wheels on the B8 are just a carry over from the B7 so fitting is no issue, just plug and play.
Very happy with the new wheel feels a lot nicer and the leather matches the seats / gear stick perfectly .

Old shiny 4 spoke SE wheel,

New RS4 wheel.

Karl.

 

[Dieselburner]

Nice steering wheel. Didn't know that rs4 had 3spoke wheel without flat bottom. Does your car have oil temp in lap timer?

 

[desertstorm]

There appear to be 2 versions of steering wheel available for the RS4 one is the sport version which is the flat bottom one with the sport button the other the version I have which appears to be the standard wheel.
As for the oil temp thats only available on 2010+ cars. I believe that you can have the software upgraded on the cluster to a newer level of software but this can only be done at a main dealer or a VAG specialist with the correct access.

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showt...VAG-COM-setting-to-enable-the-oil-temperature

 

[Dieselburner]

well, then call me vag specialist then. I have 2008 a5 with monochrome cluster, flashed it to latest sw, and I have oil temp + DIS with efficiency program. I thought , oil temp mode would be good for this high performance car. If you have any friends with odisE (or if you planing visit Ireland), I can help you with this cluster update

 

[desertstorm]

Would be a nice to have but a trip to Ireland is a little bit too far for me.

Karl.