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-   -   280 BHP and 440 Nm Torque from a 2.0L engine - My '09 Audi A3 Turbo (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/modifications-accessories/155292-280-bhp-440-nm-torque-2-0l-engine-my-09-audi-a3-turbo.html)

Some of the ECU tunes can do wonders, I just experienced it and I thought its worth sharing.

I picked up a 2009 Audi A3, 2L Turbo few months ago and I was aiming to tune it a little bit to give few extra ponies under the hood. There were many ECU tunes available in the market for this engine. APR, Unitronics, GIAC and Remo are some of them. After doing the research online, I decided to go with Unitronics stage-2 tune.

http://www.unitronic-chipped.com/

Stage-1 could have been done without any hardware modifications to the car, however, less power compared to stage 2.

Stock:

200Bhp, 280Nm Torque. 0-100 in 7 seconds.

Preparations for stage-2:

Added a Turboback Exhaust ( this is a must as the stage 2 significantly increased the boost) - Cost $1500
Iridium Spark Plugs - $200 Including labor
New Ignition coils - $220 including labor
K&N drop in air filter - $45 ( A lot of people go for a cold air intake, I talked to the tuners personnally and learned, the cold air intake actually make little difference, also I didn't want to ruin the engine cover, so I just replaced the stock filters with drop in K&N filters).
Finally - the Tune (or software upgrade - thats actually the right term).

Stats after upgrade:
280 Bhp
440Nm @1800 rpm
0-100 - to be tested - expecting low 5 seconds

Driving experience - I can tell the long story short - Took the car out for a test drive, drove up north of Phoenix and ended up driving 365 Miles yesterday (580 Kms). The car has so much power that I have to constantly watch the speedo for not over speeding, it feels like the 0-100km is achieved in no time, what a difference from the stock motor. If you switch off the ESP then its a festival of wheel spins, almost in any gear the wheels spins if you floor the pedal. The sweet sound of turbo back exhaust and turbo spooling is music to ears. The tune is just not about power, it also improved the overall power delivery to the wheels, after the tune, the turbo lag is completely gone, the wheels are not instant but gradual which you can control and enjoy doing it. Before the tune, the car was more of a wild animal without a master, you floor the pedal there was sudden flow of power to the wheels which almost felt like uncontrolled and wasted, anyways, all of that is is history with the tune.

Here is a video of the exhaust ( at the time of this video there was no tune done, it was just the turbo back exhaust). I will make a new video and upload it later. The unitronic tune has added a nice 'fart' while shifting the gears - which is absent in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6Vi6pAirUY

Some photos:

Congratulations, that's a good bump in power & excellent in Torque.

Do the tuners provide any kind of warranty?

How many miles on the car, 100k + or is it 10K +?

They will take care of any tune (software) related issues (Like feel under powered or abnormal behavior of the car). If by any chance, my ECU gets reset, they will re-install the program at no cost. I have a 1 year warranty on the Turbo back exhaust ( its manufactured by Billy Boat, its one of the best in the industry).

My car has clocked 106,000 Miles, its already out of all Audi warranty. I intentionally picked up the high mileage car as the tune will void all manufacture warranty.

Wow! 80 bhp from just calibration and exhaust. Almost too good to believe. Did you dyno it?

I think now the new Golf Gtis are making that much from 2 liters

I didn't dyno it yet, but I have seen the dyno's done by other folks who are on this tune (Unitronis stage-2) and some have clocked more than 300 BHP.

Another interesting fact is Audi's official power figures are highly conservative, ie - the stock power is somewhere near 230 BHP (Audi's spec sheet says 200 BHP) and the tune would add about 80+BHP making it to cross 300BHP. (Source - Audi forums with dyno sheets of stock and tuned cars).

I really dont know how much I have on my wheels, will do a dyno and share the details. It feels like a lot of horsepower and torque and I have to constatly make an effort not to exceed the city speed limit (45 Miles/Hr), because it gets to 50 Mph in no time - by the time I am in 3rd gear I have to apply brakes to bring it under 50Mph - speeding tickets are expensive here.

Audi has just launched an S3 with the same 2 L engine, it makes 296BHP stock and about 400Nm torque. It is very capable engine and I think it can go upto 400BHP if you add a larger turbo like K04, but I wouldn't wish anything more than 300 HP from A3 just because of the other limitations that would come in play (weight, brakes, gear box etc).

Note: Mercedes CLA 250 AMG with a 2 Liter turbo engine makes 355 BHP stock, I hope someone is not going to extract 500BHP out of this car ...lol.

Raneesh

Congratulations on the power figures achieved :thumbs up

I am guessing yours is a "Non Quattro" hence a FWD.

Thats a good amount of power (Specially the TORQUE number) going down to the roads for a FWD car to tackle :)

Also FWD would make it it equally difficult to launch and get a perfect 0-100 timing 'everytime'.

Also is the "Downpipe" stock ? Or the Turboback exhaust includes that as well ?

Karan, yes its FWD.

The stock downpipe was of 2 inch diameter, it was replaced with a 3 inch downpipe with the exhaust.

Attached a picture of the 3 inch downpipe and the complete assembly.

All these parts specifically the DP & the exhaust, is a custom fabrication work or a proper aftermarket brand ?

Congrats on this and it looks great. Could we have more shots of the car please?

How do you manage the maintainence and any issue when you have this high mileage audi? Any particular resource you use?

Maddy

The DP and exhaust are made by a very well known brand - Billy Boat, they make aftermarket exhaust for almost all high end cars. Here is their website. I got it installed at their factory - they are located here in Arizona.

http://www.bbexhaust.com/

Will upload more photos in the weekend.

There are several things I do when I buy a high mileage car (I never buy new cars, this Audi is my 7th used car I bought - 3 in India and 4 in the US).

1. Negotiate the price while buying - If the miles are high that means you are going to spend some, so, I stick to this point and try to spend less while buying. Also, buy a car that was well maintained, below are the things that will make me walk away while buying a car,

- Ugly and smelly seats
- Dirty trunk and engine bay - look for dirt that is accumulated over time.
- Oil leaks
- Transmission slip
- CEL ON
- dents and scratches
- Poor vehicle history
- abnormal acceleration and vibration at high speeds...

2. Do a through check up by a good mechanic ( Yelp helps me to find a good mechnic), I dont go to the Audi dealership as their labor charges are high.

- Change all the fluids - Oil, brake, power steering, transmission.
- Change air filter (I always use the stock fit K&N filters)
- Change the tires if they are old - Remember, tyres are the most important safety gear in your car. (ESP, ABS et all comes second).
- Change spark plugs (if they haven't changed in the recent past).

3. Drive the car for next few weeks and watch for any abnormal behavior (Engine light ON, oil leaks, etc) and fix them before it gets worse.

4. Check the fluid levels regularly (every 2 weeks) - Audi Turbo engines (Petrol) have a tendency to drink oil. Its a known issue, I top up the oil level as it drinks. Usually, a one liter bottle is enough to feed Audi for a year.

5. Be prepared for an unexpected expense ( keep aside the money you saved at step-1), end of the day, its a machine, few things will fail when it reaches its life, you just have to be prepared to fix it.

Cheers
Raneesh

@Maddy - Here are more photos. I am not good at taking photos, nor I have a fancy camera. All the photos are taken using my iPhone-4, please bear with the poor photo quality and shots. Also, I haven't cleaned the car for few weeks now :-)

More photos attached................

And more..................

You my friend need to post this writeup in the buying section for the americas thread. That was exhaustive and i totally agree with what you went with. Enjoy your ride and let me know if i can check it out sometime.

I was helping one friend look for a car couple of months back. Got one for the kbb price but had to spend some more to get it fixed. Now its driving like a piece of cake. The search is the most important and the rest is upto us and a little bit of luck. But frankly with owners who dont care its better to walk away.
We saw a car with a bullet hole in it! RAN AWAY.

Maddy