APR 3" cast HFC and downpipe without stage 2

[Bellringer]

I have a 2012 Avant with 2.0T and just installed the APR 3" cast hfc with the downpipe but at this time do not have any stage 1 or 2 ECU upgrade. Yes I'm getting a cel because I don't have the stage upgrade. The car is not my daily driver I have a company car for that. My question is will driving the car without the stage upgrade damage the engine? I plan on getting the APR stage 2 upgrade soon but was wondering if I will do any harm in the meantime.

Thanks for you advice

[Brandon K.]

I have a 2012 Avant with 2.0T and just installed the APR 3" cast hfc with the downpipe but at this time do not have any stage 1 or 2 ECU upgrade. Yes I'm getting a cel because I don't have the stage upgrade. The car is not my daily driver I have a company car for that. My question is will driving the car without the stage upgrade damage the engine? I plan on getting the APR stage 2 upgrade soon but was wondering if I will do any harm in the meantime.

Thanks for you advice

No, it should be fine. The stock tune should not push anything harder than stock and therefore should not cause any problems. Were people run into trouble is when they use a tune that pushes the motor with the wrong parts.

Even a K04 car is fine running the stock tune from both experience and what I have been told.

[Bellringer]

Thanks for the info Brandon I was hoping for an answer like this.

[tominabox1]

on B8 cars you should be able to use an o2 sensor spacer to get the CEL to stay away.

[wkhanna]

on B8 cars you should be able to use an o2 sensor spacer to get the CEL to stay away.

...this worked for me when i had just hfc & dp.....

[Brandon K.]

on B8 cars you should be able to use an o2 sensor spacer to get the CEL to stay away.

The spacer did not work for me. My APR stage 2 with their high flow cat in “stock” mode worked fine with no CEL for months. Eventually it would trigger a CEL (cat efficiency below acceptable threshold) in stock mode after the cat had some miles on it. I tried the spacer trick and it made no difference. I even had one of the spacers with the variable office size adapter.

The tune I am using now does not have a switching feature, they just code out the 2nd O2 sensor. In my area, they stopped doing emissions tests if your car was made after 2008, so it is not a problem for me.