[s-cars] Neu-neu S4

[Joseph Pizzimenti]

Dan, et al:
What follows is MY opinion, is based on MY experience
and should not be construed as anything else...
That being said, the 2.7T in a B5 engine bay with
K03's was a mistake to begin with.  Even the latest
revision (2002 S4) has been blowing turbos.  It's a
ROUGH platform to upgrade from, just ask anyone who's
done K04's on a 2.7.  Fantastic motor, though.  Real
torquey and with k04's with external wastegates, it's
a sick bastard child of a machine.
But, Audi didn't want to pay for these turbo
replacements any more, hence the movement to V8's.
There's nowhere for the heat to go in that cramped
engine bay, especially with those inefficient
manifolds.  So they shy away from the V6TT and move to
a V8 with maybe a V8TT in the wings for the NeuRS4.
Less liability and they will have, by that time, have
put a system in place that will make swapping ECU's
damn near impossible and chipping a difficult
proposition.  Already, with the 2002's, it is damn
near impossible to get a spare ECU without the
regional service director signing off on a fried,
nontampered, stock ECU.
A friend of mine who had a 2002 1.8 for about 6 months
before swapping it out for a 2001 S4 was having all
sorts of problems with chipping his car.  ECU's were
unobtanium and fuel delivery was a problem.  Granted,
he used GIAC, but Audi is protecting themselves more
these days from paying for turbos for chipped cars.
I believe that "Uncle Bob" Pastore is dead on with his
assessment of the future of Audi, unfortunately.
Although an RS4 V8TT wouldn't be a BAD thing...

-Joe, "can I break that, too?" Pizzo

--- Dan Bertram <DBertram at McLoughlinPromotions.Com>
wrote:
> This seems relatively logical, but why not instead
> improve upon the design,
> as opposed to drop it all together.  The in-line 5
> went through various
> incarnations over many years before finally being
> laid to rest.
>
> The turbo failures on neu-S4's were happening even
> on non-chipped cars, and
> led to an eventual change in design.  They won't be
> scrapping the 6 cylinder
> engine, so is there some sort of market research to
> suggest the buying
> public doesn't like turbo's?
>
> What about the 1.8T?  Probably one of the most
> successful engines for the
> VW/Audi group.  Will that become normally aspirated
> as well?
>
> I'm just a little confused about a company who has
> had 20+ years of turbo
> engines in their line-up deciding to go the other
> way.  Am I way off here?
>
> Dan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph Pizzimenti [mailto:pizzoman at yahoo.com]
> Sent: September 18, 2002 1:35 PM
> To: Dan Bertram; 's-car-list at audifans.com'
> Subject: Re: [s-cars] Neu-neu S4
>
>
> The K03's in the S4 and A6 2.7 series have a
> tendency
> to go:
> Little turbo>
> Lotta heat>
> Tiny oil return lines>
> When you chip the car, it only makes this worse and
> Audi's been footing the bill for A LOT of turbo
> replacements which usually take 12 hours of labor,
> plus about 3k worth of parts.
>
> Yeah, I'd do a small V8 if I was a suit in Germany,
> too.


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