I have been ORDERED to come here for advice...

[TurboTransAm]

Hi everyone.

My close friend Dave (an Audi diehard of audicoupeparts infamy) has ordered me to sign up here for some guidance. He seems to think my idea of buying a Legnum VR4 is unwise when I could invest in an Audi instead.

Money is pretty tight at the moment but I'm quite handy and can do basic spannering myself. So the plan is to buy a tunable car and modify as funds permit. I also have two very large German Sheperds - so an estate would be best. Having driven a Tickford Turbo Vitesse for a few years I've decided I never want another front wheel drive car ever again - so it looks like we'll be going four wheel drive. I dont have any issue with auto's provided they don't restrict tuning by being the weak link. Some specific advice on the strength of auto boxes would be appreciated.

My friend Dave has a 2.2 20v turbo transplant in his Quattro (its the old 80's square shape coupe) with bags of boost. He rates the engines as being very tunable with minimal expenditure. So I'm looking for some ideas on what to buy, how much it'll cost and what sort of power to expect through tuning. I know its a bit of a vague question but I know virtually nothing about Audi's. My purchase budget is £1500 - £1800 with more funds to follow.

Oh and if you're wondering about my screen name - yes I did build it myself. Its probably around 600bhp and something like 750lb/ft. LOL. Hopefully an Audi wont try to kill me every time I drive it

[Acidburn]

Get a urs4, chipped gives nearly 300ish bhp straight out the box, can be picked up for about a grand and if you lighten it a bit then that will improve the power to weight, same engine as in dave's car but with better inlet manifold (providing his ain't got a front facing one)

urs4 - 1k ish
chip - 200 for a homefries
uprated front brakes - 500 ish (less if you go hp2's)

etc etc

btw welcome.

[TurboTransAm]

Thanks for the reply. I've had a look for urs4's and they seem pretty hard to come by. Are there any other models with the 2.2 20v turbo within my price range?

[Acidburn]

there's quite a few on ebay/pistonheads atm. There was a couple selling thru the forum, I paid 1k for mine.

if you got lucky and picked up a 3b/aby that needed work maybe but tbh think that would be a bit of a struggle to find a good useable one cheap.

[TurboTransAm]

Have just done a search on ebaymotors for 'urs4' and 'ur s4' with zero results. What sort of keywords are they likely to be listed under? Like I said originally - I know nothing about Audi's. Thanks.

[Acidburn]

The one's on ebay have finished recently

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1994-AUDI-100-...3A1%7C294%3A50

not sold

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AUDI-100-A6-S4...3A1%7C294%3A50

not sold

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1992-AUDI-100-...3A1%7C294%3A50

not sold

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1994-AUDI-100-...3A1%7C294%3A50

bit high but yet again not sold

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1993-AUDI-100-...3A1%7C294%3A50

sold out of ebay to someone in scotland.

Worth contacting some of the sellers and asking if they still have the cars and want to sell up.

[Acidburn]

Its amazing the amount of car you can get for the money, 230ish bhp out the box, chipped to close to 300bhp. around the 400bhp mark before the engine needs opening

[S2central.net]

Only the anoraks like us will know them as 'UrS4' - mere mortals will call them Audi 100 S4 or Audi S6 - filtering by age will weed out the more modern cars with same designation... Some may well be listed as Audi 100 or Audi A6 - keep an eye for AAN engine code. Try Autotrader and Pistonheads - ebaymotors is a bit shyte sometimes

[TurboTransAm]

Anoraks LOL - well at least you drive fast cars too. Thanks for the updates - I'll widen my search with the new terms.

I take it that the 2.2 20v turbo is the engine to go for in terms of low cost bhp.

[S2central.net]

Yes 2.2 20V Turbo is coded 'AAN' on the logbook - search here and other sites for engine pics... The motor is incredibly tuneable... Nothing internal required in terms of upgrades for 400bhp - just bolt on bigger manifold, turbo, injectors, intercooler (trickier on the S4/S6 than S2/RS2) and apply software tweaks in ECU.

[TurboTransAm]

So would the general (unbiased) opinion be that a 20v turbo Quattro would be a better (and potentially more tunable) investment than a Legnum or a Stagea?

The only lingering doubt I have is that a 1996 Legnum coming in at £1700 would have 70,000 miles on it - whereas most Audi's in my price range have 170,000 plus. I know a turbo can fail at pretty much any time so my concern is more to do with engine internals which are beyond my scope of fixing. Does anyone have any reassuring words on 'high milage' Audi's?

[Acidburn]

Does anyone have any reassuring words on 'high milage' Audi's?

don't worry about it - that reasurring enough?

as long as the cars been maintained i.e. serviced etc it will be fine, my urs4 has 170k i think on it, my 3b s2 had 190k on it, loads of people have high milage cars on here.

[S2central.net]

i'm going to ask the really dumb question now - WTF is a 'Legnum' or 'Stagea' - they sound like contagious skin diseases... thought they were acronyms for something I'd recognise... Is this all a big joke now or are they some imported oddball rice racer rubbish ?

[S2central.net]

JUst googled those terms - I was right then - LOL....... No comparison IMHO

[TurboTransAm]

Yeah the Stagea is a Skyline Estate with the RB25DET and 4x4. Obviously a very tunable engine but restricted to 350bhp because the auto's they come with are quite weak apparently. Very ugly car.

The Legnum (a Galant estate) is better looking, lighter and uses a 2.5 V6 twin turbo. Running gear is Evo4 with active yaw control (AYC). They are 280bhp in manual and 260bhp in auto. 0-60 is 6.1 stock. Autos are common and 'cheap' whereas manuals are rare and fetch around double the money. Personally I wouldn't like to work on that V6 LOL.

Oh and I feel much better about the milage - thanks.