I thought this was pretty funny.

I wonder how the RS4 guys feel about this.

How To Make An Audi S4 Perform Like An Audi RS4 In Five Seconds

 

I suggest you subscribe to the DRIVE channel on Youtube if only for the "Chris Harris on Cars" videos. If you know anything about Chris Harris then you know what i'm talking about.

 

To be fair, tuning the lower end model of a car to make it outperform the top end model isn't exactly new. Car tuning itself isn't actually new.. isn't that why we're all here?

 

"tuning the lower end model of a car to make it outperform the top end model isn't exactly new"

Clearly... but the spotlight, it seems, is on the ridiculous amount of throttled performance on the manufacturer. Granted, I don't know how much is "fudged" in this video, meaning if it really is only a reflash, but if that's the case, then I think it's newsworthy.

 

A buddy just picked up a 2013 VW Golf TDI. Stock it makes 140HP and 236Lb/ft of torque. He had APR reflash it with their Stage 1 tune. Its now making 170HP and ~300Lb/ft of torque.

Point is, its a whole different ballgame with OEM forced induction engines. A little software trickery and you gain a ton of power.

 

and in the end it was still a supercharged V6 manual versus an automatic naturally aspirated V8. it doesn't really surprise me that the outcome was similar performance.

manufacturers always detune force inducted engines, warranty is a bitch.

 

FTFY.

 

Perhaps I am not being clear enough as you are stating what a lot of old timers here already know.
There's no denying the superior tunability of forced induction over NA.

This is suggesting a nearly a 30% power increase with reflash alone.
In my experience, that is unheard of from a reflash alone, without a robust intake and exhaust throughput upgrade.

 

that was freakin awesome....

all with a simple reflash....

 

Tuning and getting more power out of a diesel or FI car has always been easier than one that is gas NA. I think you guys just like to argue.

 

+1

with current technology it is as simple as plugging in a flash device and pushing a button.

still working with the older rotaries mazda left a chunk of power on the table, all for reliability. this is nothing new, just simplified because everything is controlled by the ECU and reprogramming is as easy as ever.

 

Find me another scenario where a car makes 30% power boost from Stage 1 (stock hardware) reflash alone then I'll concede that it's nothing new.

 

its all comes to reliability. you can turbo the **** out of a 13B making 500hp but it will probably last 30k miles where if you turn it down to 400hp it lasts 60k miles.
its not new for some of the turbo/supercharged engine to detune for reliability.

 

So basically Audi is doing the same thing Subaru has been doing all along.

 

No. Subaru power gains by reflash only using stock hardware is around 15% or less. Same with Mitsubishi.

The alleged gain of 30% stated in the video using only reflash and stock hardware is unprecedented to my knowledge.

 

Without back to back dynos from each car, it's hard to know how accurate those numbers are and a graph would be way more useful in terms of actually meaning anything other than the peak number.

According to revo's site (the company tuning the car in the video), the power increase is from 333 stock hp to 410 hp with a stage 1 tune. That's 77 hp, or 23%. I believe his claims may have been inaccurate unless he got a different tune than what they list for stage 1.

APR and AWE claim 55 and 60 hp increases, respectively, on the B5 S4 for stage 1 tuning which would be a 21% or 23% increase. So, all in all, it doesn't seem that vastly different. It's still above average.

As for reliability, it's not always terrible when you go higher. The 2.7t in the B5 can handle a bit over 400 hp without any modification to internals. The real problems are all other components like sensors, vacuum, turbos, etc. Of course, if you replace most of those components along with the power upgrades, you can avoid many of those issues.

 

Finally... a relevant reply from 8 Maniac. Thanks. :D