Trying to do justice to the 1.6 engine (A3 8L)

[Kunj]

Alright, so let's talk a bit about the naturally aspirated 74kW 8-valve AEH/AKL 1.6 liter petrol engine from Audi A3 8L. I know, I know, it's not the most exciting engine, but hear me out.

I've tried searching for some info on how to improve its performance, but whenever I did so, I was met with an avalanche of "jUsT sWaP iT WitH a 1.8T" comments. Some poor dude even tried asking people not to say it, but they still did. We get it, everyone wants the 1.8T because it's clearly the superior engine with lots of people having modded and tuned it. We really do get it, ok?

But hey, an engine is an engine and engines can in principle always be modified to gain some power. So, what I'm specifically trying to ask is — how would one improve the performance of an AEH/AKL/APF engine?
A few points to make things crystal clear:

• what would I consider an improvement in performance? — either raising peak power at the crank or increasing the area below the RPM-power curve, anything above 1%, not asking for much
• although reasonably practical and affordable solutions would obviously be preferred, consider it a theoretical challenge with an unlimited budget, time and skill
• although I am speaking strictly about the AEH/AKL engine itself, of course I'm interested in any modifications that would be necessary as a prerequisite to increasing its performance, such as a stronger clutch or a different flywheel, anything of that nature... or any prep-work necessary to solve potential clearance issues for some modifications
• yes, forced induction is allowed if the engine could handle it
• yes, ECU modifications are allowed
• please try to refrain from asking BUT WHY?, just humour me — as I said, consider it a challenge, stop yourself from telling me to swap it, I really do get it, the 1.8T is the king

 

[<tuffty/>]

Did you delete your thread this morning after I took the time to reply to it?

<tuffty/>

 

[Kunj]

Did you delete your thread this morning after I took the time to reply to it?

<tuffty/>

No, I accidentally got banned by some mod and my post was lost, an admin helped me restore my account but I had to post this again. Fortunately, I had the text saved, but sadly, I didn't have the opportunity to read what you wrote :/

 

[FactionOne]

Tuffty wrote a pretty comprehensive post before there was the mishap in which the thread was deleted. I couldn't quote it in detail, but some significant points which probably bear my repeating are:

i) You're likely to get the best bang-per-buck improvements out of it (such as they'll be) by making it breathe better - induction and exhaust.
ii) You might find more inspiration on VW boards, where the 1.6 NA is a lot more common. (I think it follows for the post-facelift 16V engine too, but the pre-facelift 8V engines were very much golf lumps.)
iii) It may or may not like forced induction; you probably couldn't push it too hard because the engine wasn't built for it. A little bit of supercharging might be preferable to turbocharging.

The truth is 'put a 1.8T in it' has basically been the advice for donkeys years - an administrator on here was told the same thing when he arrived in the early 2000s with his first Audi (a 1998 A3 1.6 Sport) - and not without good reason, the gain vs. outlay (and/or other compromises/issues) isn't really there on small NA engines.

Arguably the best thing you can do with a 1.6 based car, rather than make it go faster, is make it so you don't have to slow down so much once it gets going; but that's not plain sailing, either. The suspension and braking setup is also largely unique to the 1.6, meaning there aren't as many options on the market - the brakes are a particular pain in the backside because they're an odd arrangement whereby the caliper carrier is integrated into the hub (as I found out when a garge cross-threaded a pin with a windy gun); although swapping the hubs for those off a 1.8 *I think* is fairly straightforward.

If you do decide to fettle the engine, a word of caution: choose wisely if you do anything to the intake. The 8 valve 1.6s were always plagued with really lumpy idling, and something like a K&N misting oil on the MAF absolutely doesn't help.

In the end, I just made mine *look* fast, and didn't get into any races to get found out

R

(n.b. To run genuine Avus wheels, you have to grind/file the corners off the back of the brakes or else they *just* rub.)

 

[Tj 0785]

Ditch the 1.8t idea just go for the 3.2 vr6 instead

 

[Kunj]

@FactionOne I was specifically talking about the engine itself, I'm aware of all the other necessary/possible upgrades, but I appreciate your help. You did, however, mentioned exhaust, which is something I planned to do, happy to hear it from someone else! And yeah, not messing with those oily filters, but I did fit a cold air intake... I don't think it actually does much, but log data does show a teeny-tiny bit more airflow, here it is if anyone's wondering...

Red one is stock, blue one is cold-air intake... the scatter plots show RPM vs temperature-normalized intake air mass per stroke (specific units not relevant). But hey, it sounds much much better with the cold-air intake

Mine ain't lookin' half-bad either, I love this little car ^_^

@Tj 0785 You've totally missed the point, my dude... however, I was thinking about a VR6 or a dirty VR5 at some point in the future, but not yet. This thing pulls just fine at legal speeds anyway, my wish to learn how to make it perform better is a learning project anyway