Two years ago we bought our first Audi, a B6 A4 Quattro with a 1.8T engine and a rare 6-speed manual transmission. The next day we bought our second one, a B7 A4 Quattro with the 2.0T engine and a rare 6-speed manual. Thus "Uno" and "Dos" the Audis came to be.
We ended up selling Uno to our next door neighbors (who have since moved away but still have the car) and driving the wheels off of Dos, putting something like 27,000 miles on it in a year. That particular car was truly loaded with every option, including a technology package that had swiveling headlights and heated rear seats. Anyway, it ended up at 180K miles and was ready for it's second timing service and we decided that it was time to upgrade to the larger B8-chassis A4 so the kids would have more room. We found a gorgeous (and well historied) one with mods and bought it.
While it was a good car, it did not live up to the promise of the B7. It was an entry-level trim with few options that were sorely missed, the 2.0T's changes brought about huge oil consumption issues and the mods did not make the car as quick as we thought it should be. After a lot of soul-searching and test driving we figured out that it was time to jump into serious Audi ownership and started looking for a B8 S4. The earlier B7 S4's had glorious sounding V8's that were plagued with timing chain issues (and the presence of the much better RS4 here in the States) but the B8's were something all together different, a 3.0L DOHC V6 with a supercharger that made 333HP stock. After many many hours of searching, driving all over the state for test drives, and much hand-wringing over which options were negotiable or required, we found an absolute unicorn of a car in Arizona.
This B8 S4 had the important stuff, like the 6-speed manual transmission, a clean title, and service records. It also had the options that were "must have" - Sport Diff (limited slip that can be controlled to up to fully locked on the fly), Audi Drive Select (adaptive steering, engine, and suspension), Alcantara interior, and the MMI/NAV setup. It also had reasonable miles (108K), a good price ($17K), and the lock was a rare color (Deep Sea Pearl, a decidedly not gray-scale color that 99.9% of Audi's are). Then, well, this happened:
Welcome back from that, stressful wasn't it? The car then spent weeks at the dealership getting the oil leaks, exhaust system, and steering systems all fixed under warranty. In between trips for servicing we managed to clean up the Alcantara, fix all of the damage, replace the missing components, and try (and fail) to sell Tres the A4 on cars and bids (https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/trying-something-new-auctioning-one-of-our-cars-on/179474/page1/) and also compared the B8 A4 and S4 with each other:
We finally managed to get the A4 sold (on CL) and the S4 fully licensed, registered, insured, and maintained. We fell in love with it despite everything that happened. Our fleet (as of this writing) consists of an autocross-prepped 986 S Boxster that handles like a slot car, a C5 Z06 that accelerates like a rocket, and a twin-turbo Flex that is the comfortable master of the highway. The S4 is all of those things, and that's not just hyperbole. All of our other Audis understeered to one extent or another and the S4's Sport Diff is literally magical in how it can make the car just stick around the corner. It is easily the best diff I have ever experienced, and that's a high bar. The adjustable steering makes for a light touch when your cruising and absolutely amazing feedback and response when attacking corners. And the acceleration, hoooo boy, the acceleration. The blower just hits you in the chest right from the bottom and it pulls *hard*. It is easily quicker that both the Porsche and the twin-turbo Flex and would probably gap the Z06 to the 1/8th as-is.
The thing is, this is just the baseline. The B8 S4 is likely the best tuner car ever because you can go absolutely bananas with them and not hurt the daily-driver characteristics at all. You see, Audi made an RS version with this motor, and tuners figured out that all the hardware was the same, so a simple ECU tune unlocks *over 100 HP*. I am not exaggerating, even the most basic tune is a 20%+ increase in power. From there you can swap pulleys and heat exchangers, port the blower, and do a zillion supporting mods and make over 500 HP reliably with a stock motor. So, that's what we're going to do.
But first, we had to make sure that our foundation was solid, and that means doing some maintenance. So here's the start of this journey:
Next up is rotating the tires and installing spacers, doing the cabin filter, and bleeding the brakes. While we are catching up the last little niggles, we are researching which tune to go with to start the big mods. Right now we are leaning towards Integrated Engineering's Stage 1 tune as it seems to be the only one that plays nice with the catalytic convertors (no stupid over-fueling "crackle") for a cool 87 RWHP. We are hoping to to have the tune and a drag strip at the same time to do a same-night before and after on the ET improvement.
So stick around, this should be fun. And I promise we won't buy any more Audis for at least a month.
