What to buy? GTI or R20

[Corey_R]

Yeah - I'm personally not sure who the tolls were attributed to, but the rise in toll after the introduction of speed limit is due to drivers falling asleep/microsleeps/boredom etc - the speed limit is now basically too low for roads so long and featureless.

[elisiX]

So today I went to the dyno day arranged by Derek and Guy @ Mainline, and what a day it was. It was bloody hot but they managed to pull some impressive figures from the 12+ cars available from the VAG stable. Everything from Pirelli's, S3's, TT-S' and GTI's. To say that the experience has thrown a massive spanner in the works for me is a severe underestimate.

Both observing the numbers and driving various Stage 1 through to Stage 3 Audi S3 and TT-S' today has given me a desire for more. I think that means switching from the GTI to the R20. 200KW and AWD will give an incredible base to work from and i've seen that first hand today in the TT-S.

I've said it before, but I am quite sure that if the pricing is in fact about the $62-65k mark for an R on the road (DSG 5DR w/ Leather/Xenon standard), ill make the jump from the $57k highly specced GTI to the R. It might not have a sunroof or Nav but I can always retro fit the Nav through Derek.

Anyway, while I didn't get to drive an actual R today, I did get the chance to experience both its competition and what I assume will be similar performance. And I think it would be a worthy change if the pricing turns out to be what we are assuming at this point in time. Lets see how it turns out.

[Nath]

Yeah the write up by Robby was good reading, interesting to note the differences in the tunes and the big surprise with GIAC.... not good....

Link is here for those interested and not already read up.

http://www.golfmkv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112223

So today I went to the dyno day arranged by Derek and Guy @ Mainline, and what a day it was. It was bloody hot but they managed to pull some impressive figures from the 12+ cars available from the VAG stable. Everything from Pirelli's, S3's, TT-S' and GTI's. To say that the experience has thrown a massive spanner in the works for me is a severe underestimate.

Both observing the numbers and driving various Stage 1 through to Stage 3 Audi S3 and TT-S' today has given me a desire for more. I think that means switching from the GTI to the R20. 200KW and AWD will give an incredible base to work from and i've seen that first hand today in the TT-S.

I've said it before, but I am quite sure that if the pricing is in fact about the $62-65k mark for an R on the road (DSG 5DR w/ Leather/Xenon standard), ill make the jump from the $57k highly specced GTI to the R. It might not have a sunroof or Nav but I can always retro fit the Nav through Derek.

Anyway, while I didn't get to drive an actual R today, I did get the chance to experience both its competition and what I assume will be similar performance. And I think it would be a worthy change if the pricing turns out to be what we are assuming at this point in time. Lets see how it turns out.

[Timbo]

Yeah the write up by Robby was good reading, interesting to note the differences in the tunes and the big surprise with GIAC.... not good....

Nath, I'm not sure what you mean about "GIAC ... not good...". There are two GIAC flashed cars in that chart -- the pink one is Sloth's. He has a HPFP plus a few other bits, and looks pretty decent to my eye. Mine is the other, in black, stock other than standard St1 GIAC. Looking at the curves, I reckon the addition of a HPFP plus GIAC tune to suit would make it comparable with the APR cars running HPFP (eg, MACCAA's)

The Revo tune is another thing again. Big torque low down, suggesting high, early boost. That's pretty familiar to me, as I had a Polo GTI with Revo, and it had a very similar power curve (just couldn't put it to ground as well as an S3 )

Not intending to start a pointless chip war. In fact, my point is that in the same conditions with the same mods, the off-the-shelf flashes are actually quite similar these days, so one's decision might best be served by looking at other issues such as service, support and price!

[Nath]

Not trying to say that the GIAC is bad, just referring to the comment Rob that

GIAC - This one is Weird. It was making less torque than the stock S3 until about 4850rpm mark.. where it picks up... but still makes much less than the REVO and APR. Power weirdly also seems to make less than the STOCK S3 until the upper reaches of the rev range around 5600 rpm.

By not good I didnt mean bad I meant wierd in that it doesnt appear to make more than stock until high revs, that being said I have no idea what a stock or chipped S3 drives like as I've never driven one.

Sounds like the heat wasnt good for any of the cars, and this may have impacted more on the GIAC, but if it takes 5600rpm to produce more than what you got it from the show room with a mod then isnt this something that you'd want to look at to see if thats normal or there are problems.

Anyway dont own one, prob never will and I'd be more than happy to have one with a GIAC chip if someone was willing to hand one over.

From the graph it seems the GIAC maintains the power longer than any of the other tunes, just takes some time to get there.

[Timbo]

Ah yes, the issue here is the power characteristics of the facelift S3, rather than any flash tune. Audi seem to have added some nice low down torque in MY10 cars.

The one gap we had today was a stock pre-facelift S3.

Pre flash, my car ran 160KwATW on a different Mainline dyno, but the car had a ****y DV at the time

[Nath]

O so theres that much difference between the MY09 and MY10, wow, they mustve been beaving away to get that extra torque.

The only reason I didnt see this as an issue is that from the write up the APR was the only MY09.

Peter - Stock MY10 S3 with no mods
Me - MY10 S3 with, CAI, Revo Tune only
Lenny-MACCA - MY09 S3, High Pressure Fuel Pump, APR Tune
Timbo - MY10 S3, GIAC Tune

But anyway, jeaslous, but satisfied with my GTI and cant wait to get a tune in 6 months or so....

[gareth_oau]

Timbo, how do you think Audi may have got that extra torque from the MY10 models, merely a tweaked tune or something else as well?

[Timbo]

I guess one advantage Audi has is a whole room full of tuning geeks, who can probably get access to data on their cars from dealerships worldwide (it's probably not like that, but work with me here ).

So, at any time in a production run for a given country they can add a little bit of 'sauce' to the tune they give their model

The dyno numbers confirm something MACCAA has talked to me about, after driving facelift S3s compared with pre-facelift -- the grunt lower down. Robbie's car, which is a facelift and Revo'd, has even more!

[Timbo]

I've said it before, but I am quite sure that if the pricing is in fact about the $62-65k mark for an R on the road (DSG 5DR w/ Leather/Xenon standard), ill make the jump from the $57k highly specced GTI to the R. It might not have a sunroof or Nav but I can always retro fit the Nav through Derek.

Here's something for you to think about. Suggests to me that a DSG version would be $67k