IanH's 955hp V10 Audi RS6 - Another Car Diary!

[IanH755]

Stephen-8c1fb said:

Is there an easy way to find out if she is remapped?

See below

Stephen-8c1fb said:

I dont even know if its been modified but at 180 (on the speedo) it was still pulling like it was just getting wound up.

OEM C6 was limited to 155mph (about 160mph on the speedo) so I'd say yours has some form of map. If you ring MRC Tuning with your Reg No they'll be able to tell you if it has one of theirs added as they're the most popular C6 mapping by far (approx 4 in every 5 mapped cars).

[IanH755]

Hi all, after a bit of "spirited driving" at the weekend I thought my brakes felt a little more 'fadey' than usual so after a quick check I realised I'd not checked my pads in a long time (being abroad for 4 years is an issue) and all my pads were down to a few mm of material left which was a surprising slip-up in my usual maintenance routine.

I'd previously bought some more AP Racing DS25 pads for when they needed changing it was a simple matter to whip the old pads out (2x pins and 2x Allen bolts per caliper), clean up everything and fit the new ones.

Now I just need to bed them in before going silly and, if I remember the first set correctly, these "gas off" quite a surprising amount with lovely clouds of white smoke for the first 5-10 heat cycles.

I also took the time to fix a small water leak into the boot-lid from a seal around a wiring harness and around the inner rear lights, just in time for all this lovely weather.

PS - the old "0-206mph in 36 secs" video when the car was 735hp is now very, very outdated - my guess would be 70-208mph (indicated) in around 18-20 seconds, which was surprising!

[IanH755]

Davie_GLA said:

I love this thread. Guy stays abroad for ages, comes home and beats the devil out of it with "fadey brakes" not even considering it's mental.

Top work fella, are you aiming for a thousand?

Probably not. I've pretty much max'd out the TTE850+ turbos which were the best available 7 years ago when I first did the 900+ conversion, but there's now the TTE1000+ available and, for the truly mental, an extremely limited set of TTE1200+'s (only 1 so far).

However it'd be £8k+ to drop the engine, get my TTE850 turbos uprated to TTE1000, refit the engine, new mapping etc which is a lot of cash for "bragging rights" of 1000hp when the car is already utterly ludicrous, but on the other hand, should the engine need dropping out for any other work in the future, it'd something I might consider, if I haven't sold the car by then TBF.

[IanH755]

KungFuPanda said:

What tyres do you run on such a monster?

I’ve recently bought a D4 Audi S8 which is Stage 2 tuned. It’s clearly running less power than yours but I’m still having problems with torque steer and wet grip. I’m on Dunlop SportMaxx.

Originally I used Michelin Pilot Super Sports and have just swapped to the newer Michelin Pilot Sport 4S and, other than some tram-lining on Norfolk's heavy HGV rutted roads, I don't get any torque steer even at full throttle.

In the wet and/or cold (<5'c) however I don't use full throttle at any time, but even just 1/4-1/3 throttle is still "adequate" for most overtakes without grip issues etc

I haven't used the Dunlop's but from what I've read so far they aren't considered to be as good as the MPS4S, Continental CSC6 or even the Goodyear Eagle F1AS2's for example so, if you're having issues with them, I'd consider a change rather than struggling and, best case, you can still sell on the Dunlop's as part worns.

[IanH755]

Hi All,

Now I'm back in the UK my commute to work is a huge 5 miles a day which, especially over the winter, was taking a toll on the RS6 as it was barely getting up to temp so I've decided for the first time in my life to be semi-sensible-ish and not wreck my lovely, fast, expensive-ish car but instead to wreck a battered, slow, cheap shed instead so I've added another 1 whole Litre and 3 whole Cylinders to my car stable with this immaculate beast!!!!





It's a Citroen C1 with 90k miles, 4 badly mis-matched tyres (1x Snow, 1x All Year, 2x Summer - all from different makes), a "brand new MOT" despite having two bulbs blown (definitely not dodgy at all) and with it being covered in pigeon poop minutes after parking up back at home and yet I absolutely love it it already!!!!

You see I have a "history" with buying a nice expensive, fast car and then, when they keep blowing up, buying a "£500 from eBay" car to run and of the 5 I've had, all have been French and they've mostly been Citroen's and all have been given Top Gear style nicknames based off their reg plate or a silly story about them (C1 "Yappy", C5 "The Death Trap", ZX "Leaky" & BX "The Fridge") and I've had some just immense fun with them, truly "care-free" motoring for me.

So after a quick "lets make sure it's 'safe' at least" test drive (it's fine) I did my usual "I've just bought a crap car on eBay" thing and give it new oil, wipers and replaced the bulbs followed by giving the coolant/PS/brake fluid a check over.

Now I'm not exactly the smallest of guys so it's surprising just how roomy the "4" seater is when there's just me filling up the whole car like this...........

Edited by IanH755 on Sunday 27th March 12:07

[IanH755]

So......................an update

My plan, now I'm back in the UK permanently, was to sell the car this summer just gone (2022) to add to my house deposit so, before in preparation for getting it sold I wanted a few niggles sorted, mainly a smokey engine on start and at full throttle and an odd fuel issue which came and went at random, so I dropped of the car at MRC in April for some pre-sales TLC ..........................6 months later it's fixed and slightly faster than before

So what happened, well lets break it down -

Fuel - Occasionally at full throttle it would feel like car had hit a fuel cut (or starvation) but this only started after the new "in-tank" Low Pressure Fuel Pump was replaced with an uprated one so I wondered if I had a sticky injector dumping fuel (and pressure) causing the issue so I had MRC clean and test every injector with no issues found, so they checked further and managed to replicate the fault and it was the one of the engine bay High Pressure Fuel Pumps effectively collapsing (they word they used) under load so we fitted two new HPFP's which solved that. However during mapping the readings from the lambdas were "erratic" so we replaced all 4 lambda's.

Smokey engine - Juuuuuust a simple one way breather is probably failed, or so I thought. After replacing all 5 in the system (at my request) without solving it, MRC then suggested that the Oil separator could do with being replaced as well which didn't cure it sadly. Then they found that the right hand Intercooler was filling with lots of oil, causing the original smokey engine issue. They then traced the leak back to the RH Turbo which by now was 7 years old so understandable. Sadly that meant that the engine and gearbox were dropped and both turbos were sent back to TTE in Germany for a rebuild which seems to have solved that part of the smokey engine issue.

Smokey engine Pt2 - For the 1st 2-3 seconds after start the left bank burnt a tiny amount of oil, showing up as a blue puff of smoke. MRC found that some of the valve stems were leaking so we replaced all 40 of them, 4 per cylinder.

Rear Wiper - These are notorious for corroding and failing as the washer fluid runs through the centre of the spindle and mine had failed whilst at MRC so we replaced that.

Alarm Module - The physical siren unit has a battery inside and mine had corroded causing a fault to be detected in VCDS so we replaced the whole siren unit.

Servicing- As this was "pre-sale" I had a major service done, all fluids and filters (Engine, Gearbox and Diffs), 10 spark plugs, various other filters, seals, gaskets etc replaced.

Re-Map - As part of the rebuild MRC re-mapped the car again now they had a whole new fuel system and new turbos to play with and the car made 955hp (970ps) and 885lbs/ft (1200nm).



So whats next - To be blunt it's time to sell the car!

I've honestly really enjoyed my time with the RS6 but buying a house has now become my absolute priority and the car is just a huge chunk of a deposit sat there being unused for 5 days a week. Plus I now have space for two cars (one for Mon-Fri commuting and one for weekend fun) so I don't have to stick to owning just one car to do both (which the RS6 was great for) so the plan is sell up, buy a house and at some point afterwards consider getting something light and fun for the weekends (say <1000kg and 200-250hp) depending on how screwed I get buying a house with the current interest rate faff!

[IanH755]

Joe M said:

Jeez, that must have been some bill for some pre sale tlc! How much was it out of curiosity, and how much would you sell the car for?

Sadly you can't talk about prices on PH.

For the repair bill it was just over £8k with 60% of that due to the turbo seal (engine out, turbo refurb, engine in), and the 2x HPFP's cost over £1k between them then the labour was a big old chunk of the rest.

[IanH755]

Ah Balls!

RS6 1 - Fox 0 but its a very pyrrhic victory to the RS6 as the fox, whilst now chasing chickens in the big farm in the sky, broke my bumper in the process! I've never had to do any body repair type stuff (I'm amazed considering how I drive at times TBH) so I've no idea yet if this damage is considered "repairable" on a 200mph+ car (probably not, I've only just noticed the rear bit by the arch has a big bit snapped off too) or whether it'll be have to be a new £1300+ bumper required, alongside the broken black "air guide" which I've already sourced a replacement for and oddly Audi were the cheapest suppliers.





I was coming back from a gig at about 2am and doing a genuine 50-ish mph on some (new to me) twisty B-roads as I came around a long left hander and saw movement of something "brown" on the grass verge on the left. The most annoying thing was the fox (seen as the lower orange blob in the masterpiece below) would have been perfectly safe just staying still or following the other smaller fox away from the verge but instead, despite braking from 50-ish and already moving over into the opposite lane to give them space, the lunatic decided to run right infront of me. I stopped to check my car over and on the fox and that thing was D.E.A.D, I think it's head may have gone under the rear tyre as it was very obviously flattened so at least it was instant for the fox, the little git!

Edited by IanH755 on Friday 16th June 08:40

[IanH755]

Update - Soooooo, new bumper and air guide have arrived ready for painting, parts swap over (grills, parking sensors etc) and then fitment. However the car is popping into MRC on Monday for a few days to sort out the following -

1. Non-working Aircon (oh boy do I need it now) which hasn't worked since the engine was refitted so suspect a forgotten plug etc (been checked for gas and its full).

2. Rear diff being replaced to hopefully cure the sticking needle bearing noise.

3. Leaky washer bottle which may/may not be cracked or have a loose pipe as it leaks onto the floor at random.

4. Missing anti-rattle clips from my AP calipers (originals "lost" during a Kwik-fit pad change - lesson learned).

5. OEM Brake Pad warning light, and as I don't have those I've cut, joined and tried up the loom for this which looks to have come loose post Fox impact.

When I have the bumper painted I'm thinking about having both rear arches also sorted as they're starting to rust.

I also checked by front AP discs for wear as I was concerned that after 20k miles they may be worn - LOL, not even close! Got my micrometer on the and both measured at various points at 35.2mm (34mm limit) but my pads are down to about 3mm of material (7mm when new) So I'll probably need more pads at some point and, despite being a huge fan of Ferodo's DS2500 compound which I've used for years, I've now found that they also do their new DS3.12 compound in my pad shape now, so something I might look into based on the reviews I've seen, even for a "street" car.

STRAYMANQ said:

hi
you know boost pressure in this configuration

Not without doing a logged run and, with a broke bumper, I won't be doing one soon. However, I'll ask MRC and they might be able to tell me.

[IanH755]

Back from MRC and almost everything has been sorted -

1. Aircon now works - plug reconnected on sensor.

2. Rear diff replaced however it's turned out to NOT be the source of the diff whine, which was still there afterwards. MRC now suspect its the transfer box/centre diff making the noise which is apparently being quite hard to pin down.

3. The Washer pump and seal replaced and no more leaks.

4. Anti-rattle clips fitted to front calipers.

5. Shorting plug/loom remade which gets rid of the false low brake pad error.

6. New front bumper painted and fitted, it also broke a mounting bracket which needed replacing too.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with this diff whine. I'll chat to a few ZF gearbox repair places and see if it can be looked at with the gearbox in the car or not. From the exploded diagram of the box it looks doable whilst still fitted if (and its a big if) its the bearing I think it might be based on the current guess of noise location (last one on the output shaft just before it connects to the propshaft).

[IanH755]

Nothing terribly exciting to report on the RS6 recently, just an MOT pass for another year of road legal silliness alongside a new set of DS2500 front pads with some new Castrol SRF React fluid.

The Citroen C1 however got some heavily TLC -

New Cat-Back exhaust
Engine Oil Cx
Gearbox Oil Cx
3x Plugs & Coils
2x Lambda
2x Engine Mounts
1x "VVT" actuator
1x PCV valve
Front Brake Discs and Pads
Wind Deflectors for the windows
New Door, Boot, High-level Brake light and Tail light water seals
New front Hi/Low beam bulbs

Still got the rear brakes to do and I think the nearside is sticking so probably a brake cylinder on that side, but might as well do both.

[IanH755]

So........................New Year, New Issue

This one looks to be a fairly simple fix to be fair (touch wood etc). I was driving back home at night like a sensible A6 driver (which is how I drive all the time Officer!) when I got a ESP fail message on the dash with the car throttle having virtually no response. I pulled over and the car barely held idle at all with some serious vibration felt so I switched the engine off straight away, gave it a few seconds and restarted the car just in case it was a weird transient electrical issue (the throttle is Fly-By-Wire or FBW on these, not cable) and the fault remained.

I always carry my 15-ish year old "maintenance" laptop with me (with VCDS, ETKA & ELSAWIN software etc to look after my car) so I could quickly diagnose the issue at the road side and reset any fault codes if required and get myself the 6-ish miles back to my house. I got the following message -



I had a quick google and that specific P3035 message for "Mechanical Malfunction" is almost never seen, there's plenty of other "throttle" codes but I couldn't find "Mechanical Malfunction" so the internet wasn't a great help, other than to confirm "something" was not right with my passenger side throttle body/valve. I reset the codes a few times and they did disappear but after a short distance they'd re-appear but the car was just able to drive in Limp mode so I could get it home with the fault still obviously there.

I had a quick look on Youtube and this video was quite helpful for showing me the internals of my specific type of throttle body and how it can cause failures due to age/wear etc - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-2Ui1PXQPc

I had a quick look at how the throttle body came away (looked simple) except for the bolts holding the throttle body in where Audi had used a type of bolt I'd never seen before on a car, a Spline drive or XZN bit, so I had to get a set from town before I could continue (got a second "commute" car so no issues).

Once I had the right type of Bit drive I following ELSAWIN and started to take apart the left intake setup which was fairly easy except for a few pipe/hose connections on the underside of the intake pipe and the extra Water/Meth injection pipework I've had fitted -



Once that was out of the way it gave me access to the throttle body which came out in seconds -



Once out, I took in the house to take it apart which only needed the simple removal of 6 metal push-on type tabs using a thin jewellers type flatblade. Once the clips were off the plastic backing comes away and you can see inside. The motor is on the left and that turns the centre cog which is a dual layer with the upper large diameter for the motor and a smaller diameter cog underneath which connects to the large arc'd cog on the right which physically moves the valve, only in my case it doesn't -



With the centre cog removed the motor spins freely but the valve, now isolated from the rest, only moves a few degrees then stops and won't move any further using normal "a few white knuckles" pressure to push it, whereas in the YT video it can be seen that the valve should easily move fully open.

So that would seem to explain the error code of "Mechanical Malfunction" as the valve doesn't move fully open, which the ECU can sense as the valve does move a few degrees to start but then stops. Now I haven't yet tried beating the valve open to see if this is just a temporary issue which might be fixed with some brute force, but seen as its already off and seen as something is clearly wrong with it, I decided it's just best to buy another just for peace of mind as I don't want this re-occuring at full throttle and this time it might stick open etc.

The new one should be here in a few days and I'll stick another post up once its fitted. If it does fix the issue I'll try beating (carefully disassembling Officer!) the old one apart and seeing whats gone wrong with it. Once a new one is fitted, again due to this being a "FBW" throttle there is an "adaption" which needs to be carried out which is very simple using VCDS, where the cars ECU drives the throttle body through a range of motion to make sure it has full control of the valve and it recalibrates the settings in the ECU for that valve i.e. 3 degrees requested actually moves the valve 3 degrees and not 2 or 4 or 90 etc.

[IanH755]

v8notbrave said:

Very impressive diagnosis, good luck on the cheap fix. Is this age related or due to your mods?

Just age & heat cycles I guess. I ended up distractedly playing with the valve for a about an hour, just moving it back/forward whilst I was watching a movie and it's definitely opening more and more so I'd guess "something" (dried oil residue, red dye from the water/meth dried into powder?) has become compacted over time within the base of the rod the valve rotates around as the "stop" doesn't feel hard like its hitting metal, it feels like its a soft impact, like compressed soil/dirt with a dull thud rather than a metallic bang etc.

I've left the valve in some cleaning solution/degreaser overnight and I'll check it in the morning. If its all freed up, I'll put it back in the car just to check it's fixed the fault but I'll still swap it our for the new one once it arrives, it's only a 15min swap.

[IanH755]

Well I had to have a little play didn't I! Like someone using a fidget spinner, as mentioned above, whilst I watched a film last night I was absent mindedly working the valve back and forth and after about an hour I noticed that the valve was opening just a tiny more and more as time went on (like another 1-2 degrees after an hour). As the hard stop didn't feel like it was something hitting metal, but more of a soft feeling thud like hitting compressed soil etc, I decided to leave the top part of the valve in some cleaning solution overnight (the top part in the below image has no electronics in it) and this morning after just a few minutes of working it back & forth again -



TADA!!!!!!

With a very rough feeling it finally was able to be fully opened (yay!), and then stayed open (bugger!) as the return spring couldn't over-power whatever was causing the jam. However, now I knew the jam wasn't permanent I squirted some electrolube where the rod entered the body and started working the valve again and after about 10-15 minutes the valve was able to open and, more importantly, the springs were able to close it.

It was still rough with one place about 1/2 way being a very obvious sticking point but after more electrolube and another 30mins the valve is now back to fully opening and closing correctly!

As fitting/removing the valve from the car is only a 15min job I refitted the valve to see if that clears up the fault and [Borat]Great Success![/Borat]. The idle hunts about 150rpm so the valve isn't perfect but at least when the new valve arrives I know it'll cure the fault and, as mentioned, its only a 15min swap over plus 30 second "Adaption".

As to what's caused this, I've no idea as nothing has come out (dirt/dust etc) during all this and the cleaning solution was the same colour before/after. If I had to guess based only on what the jam "felt" like, I'd say something organic rather than something metallic, but without taking the valve apart (potentially destructive) then I've no idea, especially as it happen whilst driving (which is 2-3 times a week) rather than say after being left unused for months etc.

[IanH755]

Throttle Body - New one arrived, I'll fit it tomorrow

• ***************************************************************************************************

Over winter I've been having a few issues with the cars battery getting very low if I didn't drive it every 2-3 days which was unusual. This low voltage causes the car to throw up some "quiescent current" faults, where the cars ECU's will gradually shut down sections of the car to keep the battery alive as long as possible (through 6 different stages of shutdown) and this can cause weird sensor errors, especially ones which are sensitive to voltage fluctuations (I was getting a few for powered seat modules etc). So today I checked the old Yuasa battery I'd fitted about 6 years ago I think (its outside warranty by now) and a few cells were degraded so it was struggling to hold charge and needed replacing.

I popped into Halfords for another identical one (Yuasa battery HSB020 - 5 year guarantee) and got a nice 20% discount from my old Trade Card, otherwise it'd have been £190 which is scandalous if you ask me!!!! Afterwards, as the cars ECU's had been been monitoring the slow degrade of the battery and they remember how poorly performing that battery was (and will pre-emptively adjust power levels for the bad battery), it now needs to be told that a new fresh battery is installed otherwise, yet again, it'll throw various error codes. However that was just a simple 5 minutes on my VCDS laptop where you change the serial number of the current battery to the new one (it needs to know the make, model and S/No of a bloody battery!), which tells the cars ECU's "hey this is a new battery, reset your power limits memory".

[IanH755]

A few smaller things - Fitted the new throttle body a while back and all is good there, popped into MRC Tuning in Banbury during a weekend trip back to Stoke for an oil change (Fuchs Titan Race Pro-S 5w30). When we filled in my service book we realised it'd been over a year since the last service so got to get it booked in for a "minor" service in a few weeks time inc gearbox service/oil cx on top.

[IanH755]

I ran Fuchs Pro-S 5W-40 for years based on an OpieOils discussion and the last time I was at MRC they gave me a lengthy chat as to why I should go back to 5W-30 but it was about 18 months ago so the specifics of the chat are hazy at best but I "think" it was something about the oil pump flow rates and/or seals - I'm really struggling to remember the chat TBH, my take-away was "go back to 5W30" is all I remember clearly.

Worst case I can swap back to 5W-40 if needs be.

[IanH755]

A free fix of something on the RS6 - NEVER!!!!

My car speakers started distorting, dropping out, crackling etc but only during full throttle and the sound returned to normal after braking. This was happening to both right side Front and Rear door speakers (6 in total, 3x per door) only so it wasn't a specific door issue and my initial "Oh god, now what!" thought was "if its everything on the right side of the car, its not the individual speakers or the wires to them" so it made sense to me that it was possibly the Bose Amp instead which runs everything.

However, after jumping on eBay and seeing the £300+ price of a 2nd hand amp I thought to myself "You're an aircraft tech dude, if this was a plane how would you fault diagnose this issue first rather than just replacing expensive bits on a hunch?" so before I went any further I did the following and found the free, simple fix to my specific problem -

• I unplugged the Bose amp and checked the connectors (two plugs - 1 massive "zero insertion force - ZIF" connector and one '2 wires' Fibre Optic connector) then plugged them back in.

• I use the iPod 100% of the the time and have done for 9 years, so does the sound also cut-out under other music sources like the Radio - No, it only cuts out using the iPod so that means that the Amp is OK (whew!).

• Unplug the iPod in the glovebox, check it with some headphones (both sides play music so iPod is OK), then plug it back in and test - HaHaHaHaHa - Fixed

Looks like after about 3+ years of not moving the iPod whilst it was in the glovebox tray, 'something' had tweaked/nudged/bumped the iPod connector so unplugging it & plugging it back in fixed the issue. As part of all the investigation, I also rediscovered - i.e. remember I ONLY use the iPod, nothing else for the past 9 years of ownership - that not only do I have a DAB radio (makes sense TBF) but I also have a TV Tuner as well which I genuinely had no idea I had, so I spent a few minutes watching the BBC news whilst I was parked up.

Then I took it out for some WOT testing and, after almost 2L of Water/Meth had been used (40+ WOT's - maybe a little overkill ), I'd say it's fixed and now I know what to look for in the future should this happen again.