Hello 6,

I am a new member and also a new owner of a 2011 S4. I was looking for advice on a tuner and a company(s) that supply accessories. I am leaning towards going with Stasis because they claim the warranty will stay intact. Does anyone have experience Stasis? Is there a more reputable tuner? Which company fabs the best exhaust note?

Any input is greatly appreciated.

 

Welcome to the board. Good to see another S owner in the district!

There are a few tuners on here that do some exceptional work but none in our area. Most of them are either in the NY/NJ or CA areas.

 

APR is the only company in this country that has software available for this engine.. They also have a pulley kit with a software update to go with it along with an awesome exhaust system as well. Stassis FYI is actually reselling APR's software as Stassis software because they were not able to crack the new Siemens ECU's found in the 3.0T S4 and A6's. We also have APR Carbonio intakes available for this car as well. So if you take your S4 into the dealership, they will ask you if its ok that you can be with out your car for a few days because they will remove it and overnight it to APR in Alabama.

 

Tune: APR and Stassis, Stassis is APR's 91 octane map so it actually makes less power assuming you would get the 93 oct map. APR has also said that when they release the map switching all the maps will be free to those who already have the software.

Intakes: Stratmosphere, APR made by Carbonio, and AWE. Strat. replaces the stock pipe and box with an open element and a heat sheild. AWE replaces the tube and I think the filter. APR replaces the tube and the airbox cover. The cover has 1 main restrcition in it.

Exhaust: APR, Miltek, AWE, Fast Intentions, Stassis Are the main guys. There is a thread on another forum where a user did audio comparisons between most of these. This is a personal choice as everyone has their own taste. I have the Miltek res. system.

Puley: APR and GMG make one. I have not heard anything about GMG's but regardless of who you go with the pulley will do nothing for you without the Pulley map on APRs tune. If you replace just the pulley without a tune the stock programming will just blead off the extra boost.

I think that covers all the performance orriented stuff. Then theres suspension, brakes, wheels, eurocode has a subframe reinforcement that I just installed and works great, swaybars and I think that covers almost everything. Have fun with the car

 

Nice post Apex....

 

Thanks

 

Apex covered it thouroughly

 

I believe there are some headers available too.

EDIT: Yep, Eurocode has some as well as GMG.

GMG also has a lower pulley as well. Don't know if people have combined a GMG lower with APR upper - might be too much for the stock blower.

 

All areas covered pretty well. YGPM

 

We have a complete tuning package for the S4..

It has been tuned and tested on my personal car.

Our World Challenge program consists of :

GMG WC Sport Lowering
GMG WC Sway bar kit front and rear
GMG WC wheels 20x9
GMG WC lower crank pulley- The proper solution
GMG WC headers with high flow cats No CEL lights
GMG WC sport exhaust system
GMG Grille screen kit


More info can be found at:

http://gmgracing.com/audi_b8s4.shtml








Our header system:





Fully developed dampened pulley







Happy to help with any questions you may have.

 

I believe without a tune that pulley is rendered useless as the valve would open and bleed off the added boost earlier. Apr has software for their pulley. Gmg when are you guys goin to crack the ECU so your pulley can be utilized?

 

Actually thats not true, heres why:

The GMG crank pulley is made of high strength light weight alloy's. The reason for this is to introduce a slightly lighter overall crank pulley. The Harmonics of the stock pulley have been tested and stored into our data base. The frequency spectrum of the blower at all speeds has also been acquired, then through dynamic modeling and testing on a Spintron machine. We were then able to determine the ideal material choice for construction, damping media, and harmonic spectrum, for the desired operating range and environmental conditions of its intended use.

Fully engineered damping frequency of the GMG crank pulley will reduce the harmonics produced by the increase in blower speed. This is the most overlooked scenario when looking to increase blower speed to produce more boost. A solid blower pulley will transmit any and all changes of the blower harmonics to the crankshaft. The factory crank pulley is engineered to work at stock blower speeds and boost.

The GMG crank pulley has the increased blower speed and frequency changes, factored in to the design.

With the current trend of manufactures looking to keep profits high, The days of well over engineered components are long gone, Every manufacture now only builds their cars to deliver reliable performance when used in the "as delivered configuration" (Stock). This makes it even more important to understand when engineering a performance product for today's performance cars.

As boost and blower speed increase, counter torque on the drive belt also increases (the force needed to drive blower) By increasing the diameter of the drive section of the crank, the force on the belt is decreased, there by reducing belt slippage, wear, and reducing the belt whip that is produced when sudden changes in engine speed occur :IE down shifting, wheel spin, exct... we know this because the force needed to drive the blower at any given boost pressure and speed, will be the same regardless of what method is used to produce that speed and boost. Knowing this as the surface area decreases ( smaller blower drive ) the pressure on the belt has to increase, the opposite is true for increasing the crank drive of the blower, the pressure will go down because the surface are has gone up.

PSI = force / area (pounds / square inch) example 100 lbs of Force / 5 square inches = 20 psi, but if the area were to be increased to 10 square inches, (100 / 10) now PSI = 10, so the pressure on the belt ribs would go down.

Only the supercharger drive ratio is altered to achieve the max safe boost of blower, all other drive ratios are unaffected and driven by the inner drive ring of the crank pulley.

Ease of installation, because the crank pulley is bolted on to the pressed hub of the crank shaft, there is no need for a special tool or a puller. Also there is no need to heat or specially align any parts of the drive. There is also no evidence of tampering or modification to the engine as the GMG Crank pulley replaces the stock one exactly.


What we wanted to accomplish prior to doing a software tune was the ability to showcase our hardware making power without the need for software.
Is it the maximum the engine can attain? No.. But we do have proven hardware that makes a difference on a completely stock car.

(I will post the dyno results of my s4- pictured above with no software tomorrow as it is now almost 11pm on the west coast)

The power delivery and area under the curve from idle to the 5500 rpm has all been improved as we have maximized the blowers efficiency.
Software will no doubt have an additional increase in performance and our pulley is useable with the APR tune with no problems.

We are working with GIAC to do the tune for the S4 as they are literally 2 miles away from us, but this has been put on hold until we finish our R8 V10 Twin Turbo and GT2RS projects.


Hope this sheds some light on the topic.. If anyone has questions please feel free to email me and I will be happy to answer them.


Thanks again for the continued support on the 6.

 

Fabryce

Can you swap the the headers with out removing the engine? Had one in here yesterday but didn't take the time to get a closer look.

 

I wish............... Cant event take the stock manifold off with the engine in the car..

 

It should be noted that once you Stasis tune your car, your Audi warranty on drivetrain/engine etc. will be VOID.

You do not retain your Audi warranty...your Audi warranty is replaced with a Stasis warranty. Very important difference. Stasis will never say/write this as they don't want people to know it, but it's true. Audi North America's leader Johan De Nyschen (hope I spelled that right) explained this in a recent interview. Do you really want to hunt Stasis down for a new engine if something goes wrong? Do you really think they'll happily pay up?

As for parts for the B8 S4, I'd get an APR 93 octane tune (which really just holds full boost right to redline rather than having it bled off in the low 5000 rpm range) and nothing else for now. NONE of the other modifications are proven yet. Just be very patient and wait for the market to develop and wait for some owners to step up and show the market what works.

For example the catbacks ... I've never heard anyone do an analysis of their performance and design as it relates to flow. Just a bunch of guys posting sound videos and deciding based on that. Same with the 034 test pipes (some guys think they make them SLOWER) and the intakes (which historically have HINDERED performance on Audi S4s.

Patience was rewarded in the B5 world. Same in the B6/7 S4 world...and again in the B7 RS4 world. It will be the same in the B8 world, but plenty of guiys will spend thousands of dollars because they were unable to wait to see these parts prove themselves first...and were instead too eager (understandable, but unfortunate).