I've had my RS4 for about a year and a half now and have loved every second of ownership.

Originally, I bought the car with the intention of selling on after a year but a combination of falling prices and it still being the best all-rounder in its class imho have made me change my mind and view it as a 'keeper'.

Although the car can never been described as slow (it’s not!), I’ve yet to hear of one make it's claimed 414bhp on a dyno. There are a number of theories floating round as to why (3 diffs etc) but the long and the short of it is they don't with most coming in between 380-390bhp.

Being a 'modder' I have fought the temptation to play around with the car for a while now, being all too aware how hard it is to extract decent increases from a normally aspirated car, but recently it all became too much!!!

Since I’ve been around the Audi scene, I’ve heard nothing but good things about MRC Tuning so got involved in a conversation with them around what could be done. These conversations culminated in me dropping my car off at MRC last Saturday for a week of work, focusing on:

• Testing a ported and polished inlet manifold
• Improving exhaust flow
• Custom mapping all of the above into one neat package.


MRC wanted to approach the work as a development programme, so it was important to have an independent assessment of results as the week progressed. Surrey Rolling Road was chosen for this so I took my car there for a benchmark dyno before any work commenced where she came in at 390.4bhp.


With the maker set, MRC took the car to their workshop and proceeded to fit a ported and polished inlet manifold they had prepared in readiness and headed off to Surrey Rolling road to measure the difference, firstly with just the stock map and then by applying their own custom map.


The results were:



Blue line – Car in stock form
Red line – Clean inlet, modded manifold, stock map
Turquoise line - Clean inlet, modded manifold, MRC map

So there it was the magic 414bhp with torque improvements to boot!

Buoyed by the good results the guys took the car back to their workshop and focused their attention on the exhaust. A day and a pair of free flowing downpipes later the car was finished and ready to go back to SRR to measure the final results – here they are... 431.1bhp!




Red line – stock car
Pink line – Clean inlet, modded manifold, stock map
Blue line - Clean inlet, modded manifold, MRC map
Green line - Clean inlet, modded manifold, free flow downpipes & MRC map


At this point it’s probably worth reminding everyone SRR is completely independent to MRC and has no interest or benefit in artificially inflating these results.

The final graph shows where the car was a week ago to where it is now:


I have gained up to 50bhp and more surprisingly 40ftpd of torque in places over the rev range - not bad for an N/A engine!

To say I am pleased is an understatement. The car is noticeably stronger all over the rev range and much more responsive than before with increased torque that almost feels like a mini turbo has been bolted on without the lag.

But the best thing of all though is the sound; I challenge any red-blooded man not to get a semi from the sound of a V8 with straight through pipes! It is unbelievable with lots of snap, crackle & pop on the overrun!!!

I set out seeing if a great car could be made better – did i succeed? Oh yes

 

Thats a good improvement on what was already a cracking car Be interesting to hear it on wednesday evening

 

****

You know's I luv's it Rob

 

Great results Rob, i know you've been thinking about this for while, was definately worth it!

 

Awesome !!!

 

Wow, good write-up. I'm planning to change my 350z for a B7 RS4 later this year.

What's the spec of yours Pippyrips and have you any piccys?
Are you on RS246.com?

Nick

 

Awesome cars - One of my favourite drives ever and I'm fortunate to get the use of some tasty motors to compare ..

 

Excellent write up, It's amazing what power gains can be achieved over a fabulous factory tuned engine to start with. What sort of power can these cars make running modified cams?.

 

Got to love that torque curve

 

thats very impresive rob, is it my turn to have a drive in it yet.

 

That's one hell of a jump Rob bet it's sounding awesome mate

 

Nice one Rob. Should be a big difference

 

i bet you feel as tho you've had a ***** enlargement now Rob

i'm still waitng for my go btw 2
i bet you would love to see the **** end out on it to
just let me know when you want to see it

 

Well done Rob, spot on results!!

 

We're going to need some sort of video/sound file of the new improved V8 rumble...

I like the sound of these as standard, with a non-resonated Milltek they're very special and I'm keen to see what its like with your current specification.


Cheers,
Grant

 

Great write up Rob and great results.
The sound it makes is always a head turner

Miles of smiles

 

thanks for the comments guys, I will try and get a video of the sound if I can.

Btw - did I mention she's been delimited

 

Rob, i loved your scoob mate, but the RS4 is a work of art!! With the extra power and noise it will be enough to make my heart stop!

Can i just sit in it, i wont get your seats too sticky!!

 

MRC, is that the company in Banbury ? A buddy of mine has a RS4 twin turbo model and has had a ton of work done by some guys up in Banbury. Jesus its a fast car now.

How much did the extra 50bhp cost to get though ?

SBK

 

Yes, it's the same crew, I've been in a twin turbo RS4 that was remapped by them and a cat back exhaust (435bhp I think). That was extremely quick and very very torquey!

That's some serious gains on the B7 RS4 though. I would never have thought 50bhp possible with an already heavily tuned n/a V8. Must be the B7 RS4 mods to have now!!! Admire your persistence, your a true petrolhead for sure.

That should upset a M3 V8 or 2 now lol!!! (followed by lots of head scratching by the M3 driver)

 

Yeah, my friend Guy has really spent some big ££££ on his twin turbo RS4. He's got a new exhuast, a remap, new belts ( front of the engine / bumpers removed ), porsche brakes front and rear. He must of blown a good £10K now on it.

The MRC are now remapping his VW R32 ecu, as he's put a turbo on that and tunning it up to 400bhp, with a complete engine rebuild.

Some peeps certainly spend some cash. For me, my bpu ££££ just cover a new air fresher in my car :-)

SBK

 

Yep - MRC are in Oxford.

They are legends in the B5 community - they were finishing of an 800bhp monster when I went to pick the car up :shock:

As for cost, that would be telling. Let's just say I got much it cheaper than the next man will. I'm the first one to try this so got a good deal

As for the new M3, having driven two Im very confident following these mods the RS will win comfortably

 

Its run by a scottish guy isnt it ? I went up there a few months ago, was amazed at the number of engines on the back shelves. They seem to rip them out like these things are toys :-)

He was working on a green b5 rs4 that he brought with a blown engine. One thing though, whilst your waiting for your car, that trading estate is so dull and miles from anywhere ! Just some old burger carvan down the end, if your hungry !

I popped up when my friend who was having a ton of upgrades put on his car, and MRC needed the car for 2 days. We stayed in Banbury and went on the pi55, god what a dull town ! In the end, my friend and I were in weatherspoons, 12:15am on a Monday getting drunk with a load of local achololics / dhs dole cheats !

SBK

 

I saw your post on RS246 - very interesting and a cracking write up.

I'm currently looking into the 70% restriction on throttle in the first 3 gears story at the moment. Not sure if you've come across that one?

 

Any idea what the retail will be? My mate might be interested.

 

Throttle only opens up to 51% until 5100rpm from memory in gears 1, & 3. This was sorted while there so i get 100% whenever i want it, in whatever gear I want

As for price, if people are interested give Lucas a ring at MRC and tell him i said hello

 

Nice bhp, but id feel short changed by audi to start off with, i mean 30 or so bhp under their factory quoted figure, and having to spend lots of £££ to get it just above where it should have been anyway, i for one thoght the rs4 was iro 420bhp so if id heard one was tuned to 431bhp, what was the torque figure? i thoght a ttv8 would run more torque than bhp, anyway top car and a good result

 

But you would be wong ( i know where you are coming from though )

 

The engine in the RS4 here is a N/A V8... the T/Turbo V8 was used in the previous generation RS6 model.

Although I do tend to agree the amount a standard car is down on the quoted 414bhp is quite surprising.. and must be a little frustrating for the owner after spending such a large lump of wedge on one.


Cheers,
Grant

 

There's as much chance that the rolling road operators are struggling to accurately calculate transmission losses to get their derived BHP figure, as there is of the engines not showing quoted power on an engine dyno, to be honest.

More relevant is the improvements gained here, which look good.