[s-cars] New Purchase - 1992 S4

[Charlie Smith]

Earlier, Mike Bishoff wrote:
>
> Hi folks,
>
> My wife and I just bought our first urS4 and it's a rocket ship! What a
> blast to drive. It doesn't quite have the acceleration of the Kawasaki ZX9R
> and ZX11 we drive, but it moves quite nicely. It's clear why this is such an
> amazing vehicle. We're pretty pumped on the car and have sent off our dues
> to Audi Club of NA, purchased a Bentley manual on CD and parts diagrams. The
> car has 79,000 miles, cosmetically in very good condition in and out, but
> there are some anomalies.
>
> Please keep in mind that I'm an Audi newbie as I possibly ask stupid
> questions. I'm very mechanical, but need some advice on a few items. Your
> help appreciated.


> 4. Intensive Windshield Thing - I can see where the reservoir is for this,
> but I don't understand what it does. Do you put acid in here to keep things
> really clean? :-)

Audi sells a concentrated washer solution.  It gets mixed with water for
a normal washer solution reservoir, and gets used at 100% for the intensive
washer reservoir.  The 'go' button for the intensive wash is on the side
of the wiper lever on the column, and I think it only fires while you are
also spraying the regular washers.


> 5. Seat Heaters - The passenger seat works well, but is controlled by the
> driver's control. The driver's seat does not work even when using the
> passenger control. Any ideas here?

Yeah.  There is a broken wire in the seat heater element in the driver's
seat.  Look at some of the writeups here:
    http://www.elektro.com/~audi/seatheater/


> 6. Headlights - The lighting while on low beams only is very poor in my
> opinion. Hitting the high beams works well, but obviously is irritating to
> oncoming drivers. I now ride with the fog lights on all the time to get
> extra lighting up front. Can this be remedied with higher output halogen
> bulbs for the headlights? Something like 85w for the 9005 and 100w for the
> 9005?

What I did was install Xenon HID 9006-type bulbs (with ballasts) for the
low beams.  That made a huge difference.  There are other things that
can be done, such as European light assemblies, or just Euro lenses.
Those generally tend to be more expensive.


> 7. More Horsepower - There seems to be a wealth of information on basic
> chipping to boost horsepower. Is there a "most popular" tried and true
> technique?

Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee!
How fast do you want to go?  How much do you want to spend?

Over 400 HP it gets quite expensive.  Perhaps 350 can be achieved
with reasonably sensible strain on the bank account.  Please
note, that as used here "reasonably" is a subjective term.  :-)


> Thanks all!

You may want to reconsider after thinking about this ...

    - Charlie


  Charlie Smith   charlie at elektro.cmhnet.org  614-471-1418
  http://www.elektro.com/~charlie      Columbus Ohio   USA
  http://www.elektro.com/~audi     photos & technical info

  95 S6 Quattro  -  24 PSI, RS2 6 speed, and other features
  97 Dodge Ram   -  35 PSI, 4x4 w/Cummins turbo diesel