Projekt Alpinweiss IV Part II - 350 bhp

[Dingo]

Well done, I've allways liked your sensible and methodical approach to yours car and as allways, well documented.

[Rusty]

This is possibly the most common turbo upgrade done on these cars and so you can get lucky with a kit (like I did) or spend an age piecing together all the parts and making sure you have the right bits... just check out posts by Sonic from a few years ago! The upgrade cost me in the region of £2k but you could achieve it for £1500 if you pass on the EVO manifold and a few other things. That figure was on top of all the work done and £££ spent before to get the stock car solid and ready for a bigger turbo (original goal was 3071 but life dictated that there weren't the funds to do this properly).

Before the conversion, it was running ITR 290bhp / 320ftlbs on a stock turbo and EM and so this has added at least 60bhp and 30ftlbs of torque but at the price of higher boost threshold. To finish off the engine & clutch and get it all mapped, I'd be looking at a further £3-4k and something in the low 400s with a turbo like Sonic or Ross have or 390-400 with an RS2 hybrid.

Spec of the car before conversion (approx.) -

• Stock ABY bottom end, head and cams with stock timing.
• 5k old metal HG (Audi) with ARP head studs and all gaskets replaced.
• RS2 Water Pump & Timing Belt
• Modified Airbox with K&N filter
• Forge 007 DV
• RS2 IC
• Samco hoses from s2central
• Prospeed 2.5"-3" DP
• Prospeed sports cat, 3" - 2.5" exhaust
• K24R oil swirl pot and catch tank system
• Aux rad removed
• 3B flywheel and Audi clutch 7k ago

Upgrades -

• S2 ECU upgraded to RS2 spec with TS tuning chip
• RS2 Turbo
• RS2 Injectors
• Wagner RS2 Evo EM

[Christophski]

Sounds like you have a good compromise for the road v track thing though. Good effort.

Whats the rough ball park of costing for getting the power increase though??? Im sure lots of people out there would want to know with the route you have taken as there are so many options out there and none of them are overly similar in terms of what has been done or cost.

[Rusty]

Yes, I'd guess it's mapped quite safely based on the peak torque RPM from that plot - it is a generic map designed for a stock bottom end. Those runs were in 4th gear and it runs 1.8+bar in the mid range under heavy load, so should be a little more torque than that. I'd say that on the road, you get full boost by 4k rpm in the 2nd / 3rd and about 3750 in the higher gears, so it's a bit better than shown.

It's very linear and that makes driving very easy, especially as part throttle is more aggressive than my previous setup, I just with a gear lower where appropriate. TBH, I'd started revving the car harder with the stock turbo, so there's now more power / torque where I want it Plenty more left in it but on a stock bottom end with 169k miles, I'm going to have to wait a little longer...

On the road, I'm very pleased with it, although it'll more than likely feel slow on track when trying to keep up with supercharged Lotus Exiges and R300/400 Caterhams

[Billman]

looks nice and flat....but also a bit laggy for that hp level.

[Rusty]

...

[Rusty]

Following on from my original Projekt Alpinweiss 350 thread here.

As some of you know, I've been doing some upgrades to the Alpinweiss and I'm pleased to say that they're all complete and tested, although there's always more to do

Anyway, I had been going down the route of a small hybrid and 330-340 bhp but after doing some sums, I had reached a point where it was looking like a fairly low bhp : £ ratio and so, when a full RS2 setup popped up from Hoffer76, an hour on the phone later, I took the plunge!

The kit consisted of RS2 EM, turbo, injectors and upgrading of my ECU to RS2 spec with a chip of my choice, although I decided to buy an ECU off Richard and have that upgraded, so that I could revert to stock in the future, and on Richard's suggestion, it was fitted with a TS tuning 360PS map. All the parts were like new, so I was chuffed

I decided to sell on the RS2 EM and upgrade to a Wagner EVO (which caused its own problems ) and sold off the small hybrid to cover some of the cost.

Anyway, I managed to get it all fitted with a couple of days' hard work but was fairly straight forward, as it's all bolt on kit. The EM took an age and caused the documented problems with the DP and wastegate pipe location, which cost £200 to resolve but it's a great piece of kit, so I'm sure it'll e worth it in the longer term.

The car started first time

During initial testing, I had encountered a missfire at WOT in higher gears, so I decided to look at the coilpack wiring - I'd seen it was a bit tired but boy, WHAT A MESS that was! 4 hours of nail biting loom rebuild later and it was all sorted. That was the most intese job I've done for a while Some new sparks from a mate and coil pack boots, courtesy of Fatty's group buy completed the job

I then gave it some running in miles to make sure all was well and sourced an RS2 fuel pump and fittings from Lloyd and spink and got that in place, to take care of the fuel flow and give a little headroom over a direct wired S2 item, which didn't strike me as the best plan.

After a few hundred miles, it became clear that there was a slight oil and water leak and on checking, the water line to the turbo and the oil feed and drain gaskets were weepeing so these were tightened / replaced respectively. All seems OK now

I also got the new pseudo swirl pot on there and fitted a redesigned catch tank, complete with return pipe work and also fitted a Fumoto to work with my full swirl pot kit, which is yet to be fitted. No oil has made it to the catch tank yet, so it's all working as expected

Phew!

Some 30-60 testing indicated that some 0.5s had been shaved off my original time (2.45s vs. 2.95s average) and most of that was lag as full boost ovccurs by about 40mph in 2nd

Once all the little problems were sorted, it was time to get to the rolling road and see what the AFRs were like and what sort of power it was producing. The goal, as per the thread title, was 350 bhp, as that seemed safe to me on a stock bottom end that's covered 169k miles and also, it's runinng a stock 3B clutch since the SM FW conversion! So, I got it to the place next to Castle Combe circuit today, as I trust the bloke that runs it (Paul) and knew he would be very helpful.

Anyway, we did 4 runs, the first 2 were proper heat soak runs, as the car had been sat for 30 mins and both yielded in the region of 350bhp @ 5500 to 7000 RPM and 348 ftlbs @ 4250 - 5000 RPM. Pretty pleased with that for a starting point but the AFRs were low, initially 11.5 and then dropping to high 10s / low 11s above 5k RPM - this could be due to a leak, the map, heat soak etc...

For runs 3 and 4 we cooled it all down with some water on the IC (cheating I know) and ran a faster ramp rate (inertia run) to reduce heat soak, as ventilation in the cell wasn't ideal. Run 3 was 371bhp @ 6200 and run 3 was 376 @ 6200, torque was 345 or so and AFRs were about 11.5 for these runs, indicating that the heat might be the cause of the earlier runs. Unfortunately, my VAG Lite lead is rubbish, so I didn't manage to log AITs for the runs Need to get a proper one really.

So, the kit was sold to me as a mid 300s and so it's pretty much spot on.

I went with the aim to get 350 or above with safe AFRs and got a little more, although the AFRs are a little on the rich side but not dangerously so. Once I've done some more investigation into boost leaks (it held 1+ bar no problem in a pre-run leak test) and checked a few things, I'll hope to get it sorted but hey, when are these cars ever sorted 100%

Next thing to look into was the fact that I couldn't get the emissions down to MOT levels and suspect that the cat wasn't happy - could have been due to the oil pushed into the exhaust following the pressure test. I noticed yesterday that the MAF plug was loose, so that won't have helped and there was code 00561 - mixture adaptation.

On the road it's pretty fast and was certainly worth the effort. The extra lag is totally workable and I like the power at higher RPMs But then most of you knew that, right Insurance increase wasn't too bad but you never know until they come back with a price

The clutch is holding well (Audi branded LUK 3B item!) and even took a launch or two yesterday! Also, the coil packs can cope with 1.9 bar in 6th on the motorway without the spark breaking down, so I'm pleased with that fix.

Next job is to fit the grooved brake discs that I posted about and get the idle emissions sorted out, now that it's had some miles since the last test. Once it's all sorted, I'll get saving to strengthen the bottom end, flow the top and fit a new clutch before wringing the neck of the RS2 turbo, maybe in hybrid form... or maybe a kkk or 3071 or... or... or...