Emzy Build

[Emzy]

Hi

Just making a thread to track progress of vehicle mods, plans, dreams, etc. Have a '14 A4, runs ethanol (woo) and petrol, and is the nicest thing I've ever bought. Love it.

Well, I've done everything I wanted to the car except the audio and wheels. Wheels come next time I need tires, car audio will probably be next fall, the stock speakers aren't great but aren't terrible. Well, they are terrible but I can deal with it lol.

Done:

• Everything is done now but I'm too lazy to fix all this html bs
• APR ECU tune stg 1
• S4 Grille (black optics, headed to chrome trim soon)
• Stoptech Cryo Slotted rotors (stock size)
• Hawk HPS pads
• ECS SS brake lines
• Suspension phase 1
• Engine phase 1

Suspension
-Phase 1 (Installed 10/27/16)

• ecode F/R sways
• ecode F/R endlinks
• HR OE Sport springs
• ecode Alu Kreuz subframe
• ecode differential and transmission inserts

-Phase 2 (Installing 01/16/17)

• Bilstein B16 coilovers
• Lykt Control Arms

Engine
-Phase 1 (Installed 10/27/16)

• APR intercooler (coated black, cerakote or something like that)

-Phase 2 (Installed 12/23/16)

• APR KO4 package
• ecode HFC
• APR Carbonio Intake
• ecode intercooler piping
• ecode turbo inlet piping
• ecode turbo muffler delete

Brakes
-Phase 2 (once i manage to warp the current rotors)

• Q5 two-piston calipers F/R
• Matching rotors F/R

Audio
-Phase 1

• JL Fix
• JL Twk
• JL C5 components F/R (have already)
• JL HD 900/5 (have already)
• associated wiring/rca/etc etc (have already)
• Audison Voce 3.0 (center channel)
• suppose I'll have to address the center channel not having a slot at the moment, new amp or new plan

Wheels

• HRE FF15 18x9 or 19x9.5 (undecided)

[Emzy]

hm why no option to embed images?

[johnnySV]

@avantagg check the audio options


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[Emzy]

Finalized my grille trim swap/install today. Now matte black with chrome trim S4 grille. Very good looking on the cuvee silver v blacked out imo.

Do I have to rep up or something to post images (that I upload from my computer) to a thread I've started? Mod pls?

[petraman]

Interesting that you installed an intercooler before an HFC... that would probably be my first power mod (after a tune) since it seems like that would net the most gains (besides a turbo swap, of course.)

Also, you can use BB code for your images... [img]your url here[/img] if you upload them to imgur, you can generate them from an album you create. Message me if you have any questions.

[Emzy]

Oh ok, I just have to host the pictures elsewhere and link them here, cool.

I installed the intercooler because I wanted to have my shop replace my grill and figured I'd kill two labor hours in one. Since my rs style grille is very open I wanted the crash bar coated black and figured the intercooler should be the same. The kicker is I didn't like the rs style grille once it was on. Bought the s4 grille and the rs had to come back off anyway lol.

I plan to ko4 within a year so I was just getting it out of the way.

[Emzy]

[Slim0531]

Great job with the front grille! I commend you from going to stage 1. What's your mileage if you wouldn't mind me asking. Always wanted to pull the trigger on Stage 1 APR but every time I read someone's horror stories about being flagged as TD1. I right away chicken out and tell myself to be contented with what I have.


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[poweredbyaudi7]

I applaud your patience. That grill had to take forever to change over. I'd be willing to bet the S4 guys would be willing to buy the black optics parts from you.

[TwinTipSkier]

I applaud your patience. That grill had to take forever to change over. I'd be willing to bet the S4 guys would be willing to buy the black optics parts from you.

No doubt. Good lord. I would have broken one of those tabs right out of the gate.

Clean look and nice plans.
Hate you sarasota folks, modding your car barefoot.

[Emzy]

I applaud your patience. That grill had to take forever to change over. I'd be willing to bet the S4 guys would be willing to buy the black optics parts from you.

Traded with a guy from this forum

[Emzy]

the HR OE Sport gave exactly the drop and ride quality I was looking for

[Emzy]

No doubt. Good lord. I would have broken one of those tabs right out of the gate.

Clean look and nice plans.
Hate you sarasota folks, modding your car barefoot.

Was a lightly breezy 90* at the hottest point

[mecg]

I used to live in Sarasota. LOVED it.

[khj677turbo]

Looking fresh!

[Emzy]

I'm a liar.

ECS ran a sale on the Bilstein Coils (saved some $600, who could resist) so I bought them. Then APR decided to coax me into a k04 purchase by offering $600 off their kit. Fantastic guys, thanks a lot. Now I'm broke but real contented; installation to occur just after I receive the turbo in early December.

APR downpipe at the local shop already. Not replacing the catback section, I like quiet. Drove an Aventador not too long ago and was surprised by how quiet that car is unless you step on it; figure if that beast doesn't drone at city speeds then there's no reason for all the racket in my luxury-sedan lol.

Now to find someone who wants to buy stock struts with H&R OE Sport Springs already installed. It's a shame, those springs are the perfect solution for a minor adjustment in height and spring rate without becoming harsh in the stock struts.

Edit: Turbo on its way... installation imminent. Still debating putting the coils on myself or not; after doing a coil removal/re-installation on an mk6 gti I think I have every necessary tool, just don't like working under jack stands or ramps.

[Emzy]

Coils go on in a week, but the most important bit is that I'm having the turbo install looked at again. Car smells very strongly of gas at most points while driving and the turbo sounds like it is rattling. Or rather, there is a distinct rattle since the turbo installation.

At first I was impressed by the KO4 and now I think I regret it. The car is sluggish in my daily driving conditions, I don't feel confident passing or pulling out in front of traffic. The whole driving experience now feels cheap and unstable. Running E85 makes the car feel like garbage now so it's only 93 for me, which sucks cause running ethanol every once in a while was fun. Next time I'll just save the 10k in modifications and buy an S4, I got spanked the other day trying to keep up with just an ECU-flashed S4. Mer. Also, car feels like it misfires or knocks or something because while accelerating it will sometimes just stop accelerating and then bang back into accel. Sporadic and shitty. So far.

Hopefully my local APR installer can iron out whatever is causing my car to behave oddly. I like the extra power but waiting till 4xxx rpm just to get it to start pulling is a little ridiculous. The whole 3k band feels dead now.

[johnnySV]

specificslly which tune did you load into the car for the k04?


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[Emzy]

APR's to match their turbo kit. Not sure of the exact tune build number or revision number. Think that could be causing a problem?

[johnnySV]

APR tune for e85?

i ask because i know that @pierreB has a recent APR 93 tune with k04 running well. healthy coil packs and spark plugs to suit their recommendation are necessary.

FWIW i have k04 with HPA tuning and it runs basically perfectly, and HPA customer support is outstanding. my old 40,000mile coil packs couldn't handle the extra ignition of the new tune (i guess this is pretty common across all platforms) so it was time i replaced them.


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[Emzy]

It's my understanding that there is no e85 exclusive map, and that e85 capability comes from a sort of passive system detecting fuel concentration and adjusting itself accordingly. Was told that I can run e85 on any of the maps I have programmed in. It's definitely the b8.5 tune, we made sure of that. Coilpacks is definitely something to consider though

[pierreb]

Folks with k04 should really log their cars right after install to check for problems. Sounds like the car could be misfiring. Obviously the rattle is a concern as well.

[Emzy]

Folks with k04 should really log their cars right after install to check for problems. Sounds like the car could be misfiring. Obviously the rattle is a concern as well.

The APR logging app on my phone didn't show any misfires when I managed to replicate the problem. I tried viewing some of the other parameters too but I haven't taken the time to learn and comprehend them.

On another note, today the car is running just fine. The only thing I did recently was reset the throttle body via the gas pedal. Did that and the car ran fine, so I put e85 in to see if that would cause the problem again and, to my relief, it did not. I wonder if car parts take some time to get settled, which is a bit anecdotal and disturbing for machine behavior, but hell im glad it's running fine.

I still smell gas and I still hear some type of scraping sound at certain throttle position though.

Going to the shop Monday, coilovers go on and we iron out whatever is causing the sounds and smells.

[Emzy]

Put another tank of e85 in and am getting repeat misfires on cylinders 2 & 3. At least identified one of symptoms directly

[Emzy]

At the shop for 6 workdays now, still cant identify the cause of the misfires. I've tried suggesting fixes I've read about on here to no avail. The search continues. Although the funny mechanic did try to say that the transmission was causing the misfires, at first.

Coilpacks replaced, and coilovers should be on by now. Wondering if I shouldn't just go all out and buy the GFB diverter valve, a new PCV, injectors and all. Those parts come up, with varying frequency, in almost every misfire thread I have encountered.

It very well may be the grade of e85 I can acquire is junk, or watered down etc etc. Only thing that gives me pause here is that I ran e85 on the stg 1 tune with no problems whatsoever. I rarely ever filled up with gas on stg1.

May try changing the white teflon injector seals to the black viton ones that GM uses.

Updates coming in hot at the start of next week.

[Emzy]

Waiting on APR to read log files and point out a problem, the shop couldn't find anything blatantly out of place

[Emzy]

The APR rep told my service manager something to the effect that there is a known problem around 4K rpm at WOT and that the only problem with my car is the tune. So I'll run some logs once my service manager is back from vacation and they'll be sent to APR and then APR will kick back a new tune and bada bing bada boom.

Hope that works. If it doesn't, well, time to play the replace as much as I can afford game. Still curious about the fuel injector seal swap, mentioned in some other threads. Replacing the teflon seals with viton seals.

I still worry about the PCV and DV, but that's probably a function of ignorance; I've read about so many problems and failures that I'm suspecting my car of the same when it never acted up before the ko4 tune.

It's running perfect on half/half 93/e85 at the moment.

Coilovers are on and I'm putting some miles on them to get whatever settlement I can out of them before the alignment. It's too low at the moment, at least for my aesthetic inclination.

Oh and I ordered some 15mm wheel spacers and the IRC module for my coilovers as well.

Pics to follow

[johnnySV]

what is the 'IRC for coil overs?'


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[Emzy]

The bilstein b16 irc module is an accelerometer that installs into the car and then changes damper aperture setting based on driving feedback. Corner hard left, right side goes stiffer and inside softens, launch hard and the rears stiff up.

Also can be used to create user defined damper settings/modes. I'll have a full open mode for driving my lady around and a full closed for when I need a posterior massage


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[Emzy]

https://i.imgur.com/cA5OhHS.jpg


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[Emzy]

https://i.imgur.com/FUwYHq5.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/9133s8R.jpg




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[Emzy]

https://i.imgur.com/RDmezdO.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/jD4ljrS.jpg

[pierreb]

Nice and clean. I like it!

[hyperunion]

The APR logging app on my phone didn't show any misfires when I managed to replicate the problem. I tried viewing some of the other parameters too but I haven't taken the time to learn and comprehend them.

On another note, today the car is running just fine. The only thing I did recently was reset the throttle body via the gas pedal. Did that and the car ran fine, so I put e85 in to see if that would cause the problem again and, to my relief, it did not. I wonder if car parts take some time to get settled, which is a bit anecdotal and disturbing for machine behavior, but hell im glad it's running fine.

I still smell gas and I still hear some type of scraping sound at certain throttle position though.

Going to the shop Monday, coilovers go on and we iron out whatever is causing the sounds and smells.

I know the gas smell could be a slight leak from the apr cat section going towards the midpipe.. check for black around the clamp joint.. I had to re tighten mine after I smelled fumes from hard acceleration.. it was that clamp that was loose.. the metal sound from hard acceleration is most likely the OEM spring dampener that is attached to the beginning of the downpipe... It's quite a large amount of torque then FACTORY so it'll definitely cause some more movement...

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[poweredbyaudi7]

https://i.imgur.com/RDmezdO.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/jD4ljrS.jpg

Let me help you...Looks great! How do you like the ride quality in either mode?

[Emzy]

Let me help you...Looks great! How do you like the ride quality in either mode?

Thank you! I did everything through mobile apps; showed up on my tapatalk but not on the computer.

Ride quality in Comfort+ is better than my HR OE+ springs inside stock struts, much more solid feeling though; I imagine it's because the dampers are properly tuned to the spring vs the mismatch I had before. "Normal" auto-adjusting mode is great for around town on fun roads, still a little soft until you turn then it locks up into the sport+ settings. Pure sport+ mode is will make you pucker up over anything larger than a lane-stripe.

I would absolutely buy this b16 & IRC combination again. I am in the process of learning how to manipulate the customization parameters with intent; I tried messing with it not really knowing what I was doing and the car ended up feeling like a caddy with blown struts (i went full open on all the settings for maximum comfort.... lol what a bad idea).

I know the gas smell could be a slight leak from the apr cat section going towards the midpipe.. check for black around the clamp joint.. I had to re tighten mine after I smelled fumes from hard acceleration.. it was that clamp that was loose.. the metal sound from hard acceleration is most likely the OEM spring dampener that is attached to the beginning of the downpipe... It's quite a large amount of torque then FACTORY so it'll definitely cause some more movement...

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Thank you! Yeah the midpipe gasket wasn't properly mated. So much for paying a shop to do this stuff.

The rattle actually doesn't occur under WOT or very little throttle, it's sort of on the mid-low side, maybe 15-25% of throttle. Shop swears up and down it's not the turbo making the noise. I feel comfortable knowing that it's not the compressor wheel (checked it, thank god), but it's definitely something off.

The best way I can describe it is the sound of rushing air going over loose tin foil; it's like a light, windy scraping noise. Also, no it's not the additional turbo noise from having the KO4 in and the turbo muffler removed, I've been in another KO4 car now and it didn't make this sound at all (which is even more disconcerting).

Thanks again for the midpipe pointer though, I was really getting nervous about the gas/fume smell.

[fenlasonb]

Is there a link for this suspension set up. This is Exactly what im looking for.

Thanks

-Bryan

[Emzy]

Is there a link for this suspension set up. This is Exactly what im looking for.

Thanks

-Bryan

Buy:

Bilstein B16 ridecontrol coilovers
Bilstein IRC for ridecontrol coilovers
ECS 15mm wheel spacers

fwiw, the height adjustment is available on almost any coilover, so if you're just a fan of the height and wheel fitment then you can buy any coilovers.

Also, ECS advertised the 17.5mm wheel spacers as flush but I did not want full flush (I never stretch my tires so the sidewall is always quite vertical, never slanted inward; worried about fitment when car is low in the summer)

[Emzy]

Supposedly my service manager emailed APR almost two weeks ago to correct my tune and still hasn't heard back from them. So I'm just limping my car around. I guess this is the legendary APR customer service that gets such great forum support.

I think if I were to do it again I would just build up the KO4 from another company and have it dyno'd and tuned that way. What's the point in an off-the-shelf stage kit if the tune doesn't work? And i think misfires count as a bad tune. Have all of the recommended supporting mods (all APR parts as well).

[pierreb]

My apr k04 works perfectly but it's a B8.