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

[IanH755]

I saw MRC have posted that they'd mapped the UK's first 1000hp+ RS6 (well 940ps on 98Ron and 1024ps on Race Fuel) and it sparked my enthusiasm again so, I've been buying bits for my Christmas present to the RS6 -

An 850hp conversion sometime in early December (maybe Spring at worst), which should be fun in winter

A full set of C6 RS6 Ceramic Brakes - 420mm fronts and 356mm rears.

and the cherry on the cake, hmmmmmmm!

***technically I get these in Dec when my engine comes out***

New TTE850 Turbos!

Edited by IanH755 on Thursday 8th July 16:51

[IanH755]

Ah, slight snag - The company doing the uprated gearbox says they can't guarantee that it'll take any less than 8 weeks to complete upgrade/shipping etc, which puts it past Xmas!

So, as I'm very busy Jan/Feb, I've decided to wait until March before starting. This'll give me a bit more saving time too but it's an annoyance to have 95% of the parts sitting here staring at me

As a bonus my Ceramics should arrive mid Nov so I can at least I can get them fitted.

[IanH755]

I think there's quite a few of us past 100hp at this point

To be honest 1000hp+ needs race fuel which, while it's good for bragging rights, isn't what I'm after. On V-Power/Momentum those cars are still 920-940hp which is the same as the rest of the TTE850+ cars. My aim is for less peak power but more mid-range instead so around 870-900hp.

Anyway, with everything put on hold for nearly 6 months there maybe new or updated TTE turbos out by then, so I've put a hold on upgrading the turbos until March (and a lot can happen in 6 months).

[IanH755]

So, good news bad news (i.e. all change) -

Good(ish) - The ceramics seller dropped out which gave me some money to spend on an uprated Gearbox.
Bad - My new work contract took a slight pay hit so I've had to compromise on my spec list.

So instead of 900hp in spring I've got my car booked in to MRC in Dec for 800hp and 900hp will have to wait until late summer. (EDIT - changed spec again, it's back to 900hp now with the uprated GB!).

Just to keep me happy though I've fitted the 3in cat-back exhaust now - WOW!!!!! A much deeper sound than the stock with back-box removed, much smoother (less harsh), quieter at idle (good for my neighbours), the gear change "farts" are now all snappy/crackly explosions although, being non-resonated, it's a little droney (my biggest fear) at part throttle (hills etc) so I maybe adding Resonators (EDIT - I didn't, it sounds fine TBH).

Now I've done it I wish it had been the very first thing I'd done now, it's that good. Fitting was a bit of a pain (needed to go back twice for very minor tweaks - still needs a final tweak) but it's a much better sound than messing around modifying the stock one.

To be fair the modded stock did sound better at idle-1500rpm (5-10mph) as the harsher sound was more noticeable buts as my new exhaust is modular, I can easily remove my back-boxes again by un-doing 1 clamp on each box but I can imagine that being stupidly loud.

Edited by IanH755 on Thursday 8th July 16:57

[IanH755]

After a bit of a false start my Turbos have now arrived from Germany so I've got the car booked in to MRC for a few weeks to get all those bits above fitted. Hopefully I should get it back just in time for a big RS forum meet too which should be nice.

I've chatted to Doug at MRC and we're aiming for 820-840hp but a low enough torque figure (sub 800ft/lbs) that the gearbox doesn't poop itself whilst I save up for an uprated one in the summer which'll allow me to run 920hp+ and 850ft/lbs. (EDIT - Got an uprated gearbox in the end).

As a small annoyance though my left exhaust pipe is blowing at some of the clamped joins (needs better clamps or welding ideally) and, after a "period" of full throttle, is expanding enough to contact the spare wheel-well until it cools down again so that's something I'll have to look into yet again. Depending on the volume after the de-cat is fitted I may end up replacing the cat-back exhaust with custom anyway just to remove the drone which has slowly got worse as the exhaust has bedded in.

Edited by IanH755 on Thursday 8th July 16:58

[IanH755]

Hi all, some rain has got into the tailgate and caused the powered tailgate to stop opening/closing. It'll open under the pressure of the two gas rams to about 3/4 but as the motor has stopped working it doesn't open fully and it doesn't close at all using the button.

The first time I opened it and realised there was an issue I heard a lot of running water inside the tailgate itself so my first guess was that the water has shorted something out in the switch and blown a fuse but upon checking all the fuses they were OK so I took the Tailgate Close Switch out and there's four pins with corrosion across the middle two (water ingress) so I'm hoping it's the switch which has shorted out. I'll stick a new one in and check..

Now I've put a new switch in and confirmed that the old one was water damaged I'm taking the tailgate trim apart to dry everything and check for any obvious signs of water ingress.

I've just give it a quick take apart (opened warning triangle panel, removed two bits of carpeted trim, v.easy) and found the following -

1. The left tailgate light housing for the LED tail/reverse lights (not the interior white bulb) is wet with a rusty bolt so thats been leaking a while.
2. The left carpet trim is wet where it meets the plastic "shelf" (the piece that holds the boot switch and the two interior lights) with about a teaspoon of water and the inner plastic had some water in it too.
3. The plastic "shelf" had about an egg-cup of water stored along it.
4. The right tailgate light housing has no rust but has 2 water runs which look like a single drop each.
5. The right carpet trim is dry but had 2-3 water drops caught on the inner plastic face in a few plastic grids.

I think if I reseal the lights I'll be fine after this but I really need to get the plastic "shelf" trim removed and dried out too as I'm fairly sure there's more water still in there considering the amount I can hear sloshing around (est 2-3 egg cups?)

Tomorrow I'll take apart the plastic trim (the "shelf" area) & refit the tailgate lights etc but it all depends on the weather really as I've not got anywhere in cover incase it rains.

[IanH755]

Trim all cleaned out, quite a bit of water (maybe 1/4 of a pint) and it looks like I'll have to replace both light unit seals (pence) as thats where the leaks are.

Also sorted out my blowing aftermarket exhaust by replacing the crappy clamps which came with it with some proper Mikalor clamps. Much better now!

Also sorted out a set of silicone intercooler pipes from KWE which have been newly introduced to match their intercoolers which I bought previously.

Finally, I got drunk and abused my wallet on German eBay with these two utterly ridiculous OEM carbon fibre engine trim pieces which are purely decorative, will very rarely be seen, look almost identical to the plastic ones already fitted and were a daft price!

Before



After (spot the difference)

Edited by IanH755 on Sunday 17th January 14:35

[IanH755]

HOW MUCH!!!! Mine were £250 which is still way too much for a rarely seen vanity item but I was drunk and I love CF

[IanH755]

Another weekend, another meet - This time it was a Hindhead Tunnel Run with an estimated 5000hp roaring through!





Everyone fixing various GoPros etc before the tunnel run with my fat head in the middle.

[IanH755]

Hi all, about a week ago I realised that I'd never done a proper "top Speed" challenge before so, before my car went away to MRC for a 900+hp conversion, I decided that a midnight run over to the unrestricted German Autobahn was in order.

I chose the A40 from Venlo to Moers and got there for around 2am but only managed one unimpeded run due to the occasional bit of traffic where my UK-based "70mph speed limit" reactions kicked in and I slowed down, even though technically that autobahn is unrestricted so I could have kept going.

It was a 12hr round trip and absolutely draining so I'm not 100% sure whether I'll do another once the 900+hp conversion is finished in mid-March but if I do then I'll post it up for comparison.

Points to note - At 206mph (speedo) I just changed into top gear (5th to 6th), the traction light said I was still wheel-spinning at 70mph (very doubtful!), it used 10 miles worth of fuel according to the trip computer and I did it in normal "D" mode, not Sport or Manual with the ASR Off but the ESP On!

I used http://www.autobahn-speedhunter.com/ to find the stretch of Autobahn I used and https://www.eurotunnel.com/ to book the £23 each way tickets

[IanH755]

With much less drivetrain losses (so more wheel HP) and a better gearbox a stage 2 F10 running around 750hp-700ft/lbs should easily be a few seconds quicker to 200mph I reckon.

• *EDIT***

Comparing this 745hp F10 M5 video ( https://youtu.be/ZiOSaHy5JFg?t=187) to mine they both hit 300kph in 24 seconds so maybe it would be much closer to 200mph than I though (<1 second?)

Edited by IanH755 on Saturday 30th January 12:37

[IanH755]

Mine was £26k but they've dropped to <£23k for "higher" mileage ones (80K+ miles). The two maps needed (engine and GB) plus the 2nd CAT delete was £2k at MRC in Banbury.

[IanH755]

Well after 3 long tortuous months with the car away with MRC Tuning I'm just back from picking her up with 920hp and 830ft/lbs!!!!

Initial impressions - HO.........LY...........PO..........OP she's fast!

Sadly the weather this afternoon (and the multiple crashes people love having on the M25) made for a pretty sedate run back to Kent but for about 30mins after I collected her and it was still dry, she was stupidly fast, even breaking traction in 3rd which is a first for me

Originally the car was mapped to run 7000rpm but the mappers realised that the extra 500rpm made no difference as the "trial fit" Intercoolers I'm using don't flow well at high RPM and were having no effect on the power in that last 500rpm so we've gone back to the OEM limit of 6500rpm, smoothed the curves out and left it with a little extra available if I decide to get better IC's (10-20hp and another 80-100nm we guess).

Edited by IanH755 on Monday 9th May 01:23

[IanH755]

The Spec is -

Stock Engine Internals (rated for 1200hp, thanks Audi!)
TTE850+ Turbos
Uprated Gearbox
Uprated Injectors
KWE Intercoolers and Silicone Pipes
Aquamist HFS-4 Water Injection
Ceramic Coated Intake pipes
Race air filters
3in De-Cat Downpipes
3in KWE Exhaust

I think thats it, I really should make a proper list!

[IanH755]

legless Alex - The turbos run out of steam around 950-ish on UK fuel (another car has hit 1024hp with them on 109RON) and there's no space left to fit bigger ones unless you do an unbelievable amount of chopping in bit's you really shouldn't chop into (chassis legs etc!)

The GB is rated to over 1200nm (already 2-3 cars running that happily) so my only "issue", for want of a better term, is the IC's. Do I spend £1000's again just to make 30-40hp when what I've currently got is good enough? I'd have to see price vs performance before I decided.

[IanH755]

Mezzanine - I'd say a stage 2 map is the best "Performance vs Cost" mod I've ever done to a car - 735hp and 740lbs/ft for under £2000 - you have to be pretty dedicated (or mental) to go much further as the costs ramp up hugely (minimum of £2500 for the next 50hp).

[IanH755]

My only measured mile time was 29.something seconds at 187mph when the car was 735hp (measured on a 20hz GPS VBox type thing). I'd be nice to crack 200mph in a mile but VMax is now extremely expensive (£700+) just for a top speed test and I don't think it'd be healthy for my lovely new gearbox to be torture tested with a 900hp+ launch

[IanH755]

Whilst it was MRC being tuned I also took the opportunity to have a bunch of other small jobs sorted.

Replace water pipes behind the arches - These are now a known point of failure for corrosion so I replaced them.

Remove secondary air injection and blank the combi valves - I've had the cold air start mapped out which removes the need for this and it's valves.

Replace all 4 Wheel Bearings - Nothing "wrong" with the originals but at 95K miles I felt they should be replaced.

Replace rear track rods - Nothing "wrong" with the originals but I felt they should be replaced anyway.

Replace front upper arms - Nothing "wrong" with the originals but I felt they should be replaced anyway.

Replace front lower arms - Nothing "wrong" with the originals but I felt they should be replaced anyway.

Replace front track rod ends - Nothing "wrong" with the originals but I felt they should be replaced anyway.

Engine oil change - Went from OEM Audi oil to Fuchs Titan Race Pro S 5w-40 which is a fully ester based oil.

Brake Fluid Change - Went from ATE SuperBlue to Castrol SRF. The ATE was fine but I felt the new power levels needed a better fluid.

Update the MMi to 5570 - Something I was going to do myself but never got around to. Can't tell the difference to be fair

Fix the "Brake Pad Low" warning - Traced the fault back to a dodgy loom but, as my pads don't have a wear sensor, we removed the loom rather than replacing it as it isn't being used and a Pad check is part of my monthly maint check list.

Engine Carbon Clean- whilst I know that the TFSI engine suffers much less from carbon fouling than our poor B7 brethren, as mine had done 96k miles and never been touched I thought it'd be interesting to see how bad it was and get it cleaned. Turns out that there was some carbon there but nowhere near the levels that the B7 boys get so even if you're approaching 100k miles it's not a necessity to get it cleaned, however I still got it cleaned off anyway - Hmmmmm Shiney!!!!

Edited by IanH755 on Tuesday 26th April 21:47

[IanH755]

No problem fella!

I'll be putting up a much more detailed post about the car at the end of the week once I've had more time with it (1500+ words so far so a bit of an essay!)

[IanH755]

Now I've had some time in the car I though I'd post my my impressions and explain why I spec'd the parts I used when there are a few options available in each area and why I’ve missed some things out.

Turbos - I like the work that TTE do, they hit the power I wanted as proven by dyno results and Doug at MRC said they are now getting better results from them than before which why I went with TTE in the end.

Gearbox – I’ve put a separate thread up about this but long story short, finding out I could get one for under £4k was the single reason I decided on 900+hp. As mentioned above originally I was going to go 830hp-ish with DP’s and TTE turbos only while I tried to find a gearbox and at exactly the right time Ricky Elder pops up and within 24hrs of hearing that he could supply the same GB that is fitted to Classba/Trups and Brett’s car, both of which made 1200nm, I was sold!

Just before the mapping started on mine (it may have been the day before) I found out from Trups that his GB had sheared a shaft and I wasn’t sure what caused it (torque/design/other) so I asked MRC to map the torque low while the failure was investigated just in case it turned out to be a weakness in the uprated box. Subsequently we’ve found out that the issue wasn’t with the gearbox but by then MRC had finished the map (I only found out the actual issue the day I picked it up). Chatting to Doug he thinks there’s another 50nm-ish in there so I could ask for it to be re-mapped higher now but it come down to cost vs benefit (unless Doug does the map for free ).

Bigger Injectors Vs HPFPs – Originally I didn’t know that bigger injectors were available so I bought a set of Loba HPFP’s to use with the OEM injectors (injectors open for the same amount of time but higher rail pressure means more fuel in the cylinder). On the day I dropped my car off MRC mentioned that, if I wanted, they now sell a bigger set of injectors (same rail pressure and same open time but wider bore means more fuel) so I bought them and expected MRC to use a combination of both. However, I didn’t realise that you only need to use one or the other, not both so when I picked my car up the Lobas were sat in the boot unused and they’ll be for sale soon.

KWE Intercoolers – Again, I’ve done a big thread about these so long story short – Cost & no-one else had done it to prove one way or another that these are good/bad.

Exhaust – The non-res KWE was cheap (£700) but it was well made if a little thin and makes a great noise, it really does, but it’s been a pain to fit and it was a little droney at 2k rpm. With the De-Cat the volume has now gone up to a potentially “unacceptable to my neighbour” level so I’ll look at swapping to a custom resonated exhaust in the future. I’ve also got a couple of spare cats for the MOT which I need to look at making removable/re-fitable.

Zircotek – I knew I was going to be fighting heat issues from day one and keeping the intake temps down was a priority so when I found that Ziroctek has released a “new” coating specifically to prevent radiated heat soaking into intake pipes I thought I had to give it a try. TBH it’s been a pain dealing with them as a company (10 days took 20!) and I really don’t know if there is any measurable benefit as the outside of the intake pipe still gets hot to the touch once the engine has been off for 5 mins (maybe the inside is still cool?) although they are very cold straight after engine shutdown.

So then, what’s it like to drive? -

After being so used to a stage 2 car there’s a few “me learning the car” things which are interesting, like the car now loves to follow the camber of the road at full throttle leading to some interesting “where’s the car going now at Mach 10” moments. It’ll now break traction in 2nd and 3rd if you’re not aware of the road surface when accelerating and the poor traction control is having a nightmare keeping up, so much so I’ve now found it safer to switch the whole ASR and ESP off and just allowing the Quattro system to find the best grip which is a much better idea (traction was killing power just as you pulled out for an overtake!) which is something I never had to do while the car was at stage 2.

Maybe it’s because I was in MRCs loan S4 for 3 months and had forgotten how fast the RS6 is but I swear it doesn’t “feel” like there’s 200hp extra, it feels like there’s much more. I’m now aware of the G-force pulling at my face and arms as I bury the throttle, which is fun every…..single….time!

One thing I haven’t mentioned is the brakes! I’m running AP racing 390mm discs, Ferodo DS2500’s and Castrol SRF fluid and, so far on the road, they’ve coped better than I’d expected. They’d be limited on a track though (and I do a few track days a year) so for my own safety I’m still upgrading the AP 410mm setup but I’m very surprised how well the OEM sized AP’s have coped.

So what’s next? Well even though I’ve only got a week in the car there’s a few “niggles” I want to get sorted – A knocking from the RH downpipe (I think), less droney exhaust and the bigger 410mm AP racing brakes, all of which costs even more money so for the time, as the car doesn’t suffer any issues on the road I’ll be sorting the exhaust/DPs first (noisy neighbours) and then moving onto the brakes at a later date while I find out more about the Sportmile IC’s from Doug and look at a the cost vs benefit of another re-map for full torque.

Anyway, thats the story on mine so far, if you made it through my wall of text so far then congrats!!!!

Edited by IanH755 on Saturday 30th April 23:16