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View Full Version : driving impressions of the beast after 2400 mile trip....



covertw12
January 2nd, 2011, 22:33
Luckily the day before I left South Florida I was able to get the car in to my Audi tech for a quick once over and rotation / alignment and code check.... he agreed it seemed a bit dow non what it shoudl have for power and suspects a vac leak..... after extensive checking he reset the throttle body and that seemed to make a large diference..... USP had updated my APR 100 Octane code the day before and Brian and BND snet me a fresh gallon of Aces.....

so at 8pm I left for Houston - roughly 1180 miles according to mapquest and showing a trip time of 19 hours... 20 minutes into the drive the road finally cleared up and I was able to get on it and it was instantly apaprent that the " vaccum leak" was cured by the adjustment of the throttle body.... holy heck it would pull...... with a speed limit of 70 I set an agressive cruise speed and sliced through trafffic as needed. I have to again thank all those that steered me to the KW/ H-sports...... it truly transforms the car both visually but most importantly it's just aircraft carrier stable at silly speeds.

I got to Tallahasee and grabbed 5 hours of sleep and woke early to get a good start before the traffic..... had a nice wide deserted section of road on a downhill with clear line of site that allowed for a good top end run, I'll save the number but it was darn fast and the car was still pulling when I decided it was time to back off.... as well as stable and quiet.... returning to my cruising speed seemed like I was in a golfcart....

amazingly on both ways I encountered only 2 cars that wanted to "run" .... one a damn riced out Corolla, the other a sporty little new GTI that did really well at covering ground.... and other then in the Houston Metro I saw under a dozen Audi's on the trip..... one being an S4 Avant that was doing maybe 55 in the fast lane with a 70moh speed limit..... just made me cringe.

the most amazing part is on both ways I arrived feeling alert and not sore or cramped..... the trip there was 14 hours including stops, the trip back 12.3/4, but I left at 2 am to miss traffic....

mileage was an avg of 13-14, but acceptable given the brisk clip....and a quart of Aces !! I ran the 100 Octane program the whole way and back.

overall the car continues to exceed my hopes, and surprisingly I'd even say it's a better road trip car then my old W12..... mostly because it's so much easier to get thru traffic with.

The exhaust note continues to evolve - hot it's truly growly and will burble and even seelingly backfire on a hard manual downshift..... but there's no drone. I can't say enough for the setup. It's hard to tell if the IC's add to the HP given the cool temps i had but they and the hoses were really preventive and for future mods.

hoping to give her a good wash and wax tonight. she deserves it !!!

hope everyone had a great New Years...

cheers~ :cheers::cheers::cheers:

JSRS6
January 2nd, 2011, 22:43
Great story Erich, too bad you didn't get any kills on the trip ;-)

speedtrapped
January 2nd, 2011, 22:53
Wow Erich that's a nice clip of miles, glad to hear the beast didn't disappoint....throttle valve, did it vag way off?

covertw12
January 2nd, 2011, 23:09
It was fun run....... the "kills" were really like sparows with a shotgun...... new SRT Charger, Rousch Mustang, and a few lessers, but all just shut it down after figuring out they weren't top dog at that particular minute.... strange coming from s Florida where every damn car wants to race it seems .....

The throttle was out of spec - and seemed to cure a good chunk of the issue, we're doing the Injector seals and going to check everything else while my guy is in there...

debating the Snow Meth install..... want to resolve this before but it makes sense to do it while it's apart....

Stephen/ Pat - Any impressions of the rear diff mount ?

Stephen - I'll get in touch tomorrow in the rims - been traveling the last 2 weeks, 5 days in houston then 4 days in the islands.

E

speedtrapped
January 2nd, 2011, 23:28
Well, I know driveline torque feels solid, if that makes sense. But I haven't been able to put it to the screws because of the snow last week. Rims, in shed going nowhere fast. I am traveling end of week, AZ War Eagle!!!!

JSRS6
January 3rd, 2011, 00:57
Haha, like fish in a barrel, eh?

JRS-RS6
January 3rd, 2011, 01:31
The throttle was out of spec - and seemed to cure a good chunk of the issue, we're doing the Injector seals and going to check everything else while my guy is in there...E

Check the plugs too and gap down to 0.026 for your 100 Octane Tune and the exhaust note that continues to evolve will evolve further - "hot it's truly growly and will burble and even seemlingly backfire on a hard manual downshift". This is the last thing that was done on my car (so far) and it cured that and smoothed out the idle. See the thread V8Weight started on this.

V8weight
January 3rd, 2011, 03:40
Erich, I would say the diff mount is worth doing, especially for the money. To be honest, the most noticeable difference is backing out of the driveway and changing directions. However, our cars shift slow enough as it is, and with the stiffer diff mount, it seems to get the shift to the ground a bit quicker, and eliminated the on/off throttle slack. Chances are your original one is shot anyhow, I know my bushing was badly cracked and torn.

PALETTE
January 3rd, 2011, 03:59
Great story and glad you and the car had a great Holiday. Cheers to 2011!

jwestpro
January 9th, 2011, 01:03
How difficult is the rear diff mount to replace? -by an independent Audi tech. I know sometimes a little item can be a pita to get to so people combine projects to make the most of labor and/or time.

hahnmgh63
January 9th, 2011, 03:27
I just ordered the Apikol / 034 Mount. There is a guy off VW Vortex that had good feedback sells much of the Apikol stuff cheaper than on the Website? Says he has mostly 1.8t & 2.7tt stuff. I bought the mount for $210 including shipping. His E-mail is clp230@psu.edu name is Patrick Pabian.

speedtrapped
January 9th, 2011, 04:32
How difficult is the rear diff mount to replace? -by an independent Audi tech. I know sometimes a little item can be a pita to get to so people combine projects to make the most of labor and/or time.

With a lift simple,, support the diff with a tranny Jack, get a socket wrench un bolt the three bolts that hold the diff. Let diff hang enough so you can get your hand and a wrench behind to get the bolt that runs thru the bushing/frame...20-30 minutes max

V8weight
January 9th, 2011, 05:25
How difficult is the rear diff mount to replace? -by an independent Audi tech. I know sometimes a little item can be a pita to get to so people combine projects to make the most of labor and/or time.
I would say that a fair price at a shop would be 1 hour of labor or less. It took me about a half hour on jack stands, so it should go much quicker on a lift. Like Speedtapped sais, it's only 4 bolts.