Drag racing times (long)

[JShadzi at aol.com]

More info here for anyone who wants to know about this "controversial" S4: http://www.awe-tuning.com/pages/gallery/slvrbullet/index.cfm

To get an S4tt to 450hp isn't too difficult these days, you basically call up your choice of 4+ tuners, give them your credit card #, a week and $6k later a kit shows up at your favorite mechanic shop, and $3k later its in your car, and you're running 12.5's all day long.  Throw another $50k at it and hire McNeil Competition tuning and AWE and you've got a high 11 second car, etc, etc.  Getting your Audi 80 to 350hp, well, that's another story...

Getting a car into the 11's isn't _that_ difficult per se, it just takes some $$ (the more the easier) and some tuning knowledge.  Either is getting into the 13's, even "easier" to do with less money.  Is it easier to get an S4 into the 11's than an Audi 80 into the high 12's, I guess that's up for debate, but if you throw $50k+ at any car, you can make some serious power, lets leave it at that.

Ti, though you're right that what I do is more "tweek and tinker" than full on product development, I don't think you're doing me justice, here's why.

You can buy an 80 quattro easily, anywhere, right?  You can get a stock MC longblock, manifolds, and drop it into the car, that's not too tough either, correct?  But at this stage we're still tweeking, right, but that's where the tinkering ends, and if you're depending on CIS to get you into the 13's, good luck, and granted if you could get the chip tuning right, the factory Motronic would get you there, and is readily available, but again, good luck on that chip tuning, BTDT.  Anyway, I consider "tweeking and tinkering" bolting together stock, easily sourcable parts, like what Honda guys do to their Vtechs, or VW guys do to drop a 2 liter into their CIS cars.

So, jump forward to present, everything else on my car I did develop, and is available, I won't go into a big sales pitch, but you can but the 034efi StageII just like the one that's on my car, and heck, I can even email you the "set" file that I ran the race with.  I developed that system, yes, on my car, but that wasn't available before I did it, I don't consider something that was developed to be "tinkered".

So, you like the turbo on my car, that's available too, developed special for your Audi application with a K26 hotside flange but Garrett internals.  The header I'll have abvailable soon for purchase as well, but almost everything on my car that I've developed is available for others to use as well.

I know Todd, and I know AWE, in fact I knew them when there were a small online mailorder shop when I was the sales manager at New Dimensions, and Todd has done very well for himself, yes, but my back ground at Eurospec and New Dimensions is in product development too.

What I do isn't just tweeking and tinkering because one, it works, two its totally custom and didn't exist before I built it and 3, I offer what I build for others to use, and it works.  Currently there are about 30 Audi turbos running around this world running my 034efi system, and dozens of other other makes and applications running the same system that aren't Audis or 5 cylinders.

The purpose of my sharing my experiences with these lists is to let other know that "You too can build a great, fast, reliable car", you don't need an AAN conversion, you don't need to spend $20k plus, just do your homework, be smart about your project, and learn from what I've done to make it easier for you, I'm confident is saying that.  My 13 second car also gets me to work and back and gets 20-25mph on the freeway, that's something I'm proud of too.

Granted, there will always be that "monster, 10 second this or that", but lets get realistic, how many of us can build a 12 second car that we can drive everyday for under $20K?  All of us, if what I say is true.  You're right, I don't think referring my $15k car's performance figures to a $100k car's performance figures is fair, yet you're the one who posted it up in the first place, right? ;)

So anyhoo, next time we do lunch you can have a ride, and determine first hand how fast "tweeking and tinkering" will really get you =)

Javad

> Mark (aka SilverbulletS4) did not have AWE foot the bill for his car,
> it's not AWE's car. Todd's black S4 Avant is the company car and the
> showcase for their RSK04 kit, along with a couple other guys driving
> silver S4s other than Mark.
>
> Anyone seriously interested in learning more should come to Waterfest
> at Englishtown Raceway in NJ this weekend, esp. Sunday. I'll be there
> in the exhibition lot and will be roaming around taking photos and
> generally checking stuff out.
>
> Taka
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ti Kan [mailto:ti at amb.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 8:47 PM
> To: Bernard Littau
> Cc: 'TM'; JShadzi at aol.com; ti at amb.org; quattro at audifans.com
> Subject: Re: Drag racing times
>
>
> Taka wrote:
> > Actually, as of last year, Mark had something like $90k into that
> > S4tt, in terms of development costs, etc. so you can't do it for $30k.
>
> > :-)
>
> What Javad has done is fantastic, and those who like to tweak and tinker
> have a lot to gain by following his work.  However, it is not really
> fair to compare his car to the AWE S4 or any other big-dollar tuner
> demos.
>
> Initial development, especially for productization is obviously going to
> be expensive.  All the pieces must be produceable and supportable in
> quantity, not to mention all the thoughts that go into ease of
> installation and documentation etc.  A home brew that might work great
> in one car, but wouldn't fly in a production context.
>
> Once that development is done, though, a customer should
> hopefully be
> able to buy the same setup for much, much less money.
>
> -Ti
> 2003 A4 1.8T multitronic
> 2001 S4 biturbo 6-sp
>