2002 Audi S3 (8L chassis)

[feck_on_a_stick]

Bit of a quiet day in work today so figured I'd post up a few pics of my other car.

 

It's a 2002 and I bought it almost 2 years ago with just over 74,000 miles on it. 

 

There's now just over 79,000. Nogaro Blue with blue alcantara/black leather seats. It's the 225bhp BAM engine and was pretty standard bar an unknown remap! For an eleven year old car it's been very well cared for with very little to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were a few engine plastic trim pieces missing so I first replaced those and stuck in a drilled airbox for a bit of induction noise.

[feck_on_a_stick]

I soon realised that it felt a bit flat higher up the revs and spent an evening taking it up and down a road connected to a laptop to log boost, air intake and temps.  The logs showed that it was losing boost over 5,000 rpm. I had a feeling that the standard TIP pipe was compressing under load due to whatever way it had been mapped, so ordered a Badger 5 80mm one and fitted it.  It's alot bigger than the usual replacement TIPs. I'm not a big fan of coloured 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.

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

 

[feck_on_a_stick]

I then fitted a stronger Forge recirculation valve and a race N75 valve.

Next on my to-do list was to look in to a replacement downpipe and decat. I had a proper look under the car and discovered that both cats look to have been opened and rewelded again, so it seems that someone has already gutted them.

I then put my three digit plate back on it which has really cleaned it up.  In Northern Ireland we can't put private plates on retention so I had to put it on my friends camper van for a couple of months between selling my S2000 and getting the S3 registered.

 

[feck_on_a_stick]

A couple of pics from a local VAG meet along side my mates old hybrid turbo'd S6+

 

 

 

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I took it to Titanic Dubs for the craic. It's a fairly new car show and is held down at the Harland & Wolff dry dock which was constructed to build the Titanic.   It's certainly no show car but I put it in just to park it in the show and get the nice lunch lol

 

 

[feck_on_a_stick]

At the start of November last year I took it to to a RR day organised by my local car club.

 

 

 

It ran 243bhp which I was a bit gutted about and from the results knew something wasn't right.

 

The first issue was the haldex system.  The S3 isn't permanent 4WD and is mainly FWD but fitted with an electronic Haldex system that transfers power to the rear wheels when needed.  Looking in to things a bit more I realised that the rollers confused the haldex system in to thinking the car was losing traction and started transferring power all over the place lol

 

I plan on taking the car back to the same RR at the start of next month and pulling the fuse for the haldex to just run it FWD.  Glory bhp FTW!

[feck_on_a_stick]

The next issue was a suspect boost leak.  My mate (who built the S6 above) set aside a week where he put it up on his lift and had a real good look around it.  It only took him 5 mins to discover the turbo pipe looked like it had split, so replaced it with a nice Forge one. The rest of the pipes were solid, although he also replaced a few clips just to make sure everything was firm.

 

 

Whilst he was at it he also built me a new 2.5" stainless steel downpipe and removed the cats, which a previous owner had already guted. The design of the downpipe on the S3 is a weird one. It's very tight and must be why it splits in two to go either side of the propshaft, however, it must still be restrictive. A nice straight pipe is therefore bound to help

 

This was only a rough mock-up. It looks pretty tasty now. The whole thing is made out of good quality stainless.......from a local milking parlour supplier lol

 

Standard DP on the left

 

[feck_on_a_stick]

Apart from this, Ive done very little to it the past few months.  As with most VAG cars they go through coil springs lilke nobody's business and I've gone through three this past 18 months.

 

A little bit of rust started coming through just below the driver door blade so I had it repaired and the door and back quarter repainted

 

 

I've a full set of Pagid brake discs and pads to go on next week and hopefully she'll show some improvement at the RR in a few weeks

 

Future plans I've no clue about.  It's not the most exciting car to drive round country roads and it's weight is a definite disadvantage, but it's a nice boosty machine and whilst it struggles with modern hatches I do love surprising some folks in it who expect it to be slower than it is.  I can't see me doing too much to it over the next while especially as the MB6 has just cost me an arm and a leg to repair.

 

If you've read all this, you deserve a medal lol

[NIKH25]

Certainly looks a very clean car mate, shame about the RR results, it's always worth running these 2wd mode on the rollers as you've found out.

 

Now where's my medal.

[feck_on_a_stick]

Yep, first time on rollers and lesson learnt

 

As promised.....