I have decided to chip my A3 1.8T 180...
After asking most tuners about prices and performance-gain, I have come down to two different scenarios:
<b>Wetterauer: 210hp and 290Nm</b>
<b>MTM: 195 hp and 375 Nm</b>
It seems like I have to choose between hp and Nm (?) But what is the best setup for a)every-day driving b)'race' c)engine/clutch-durability ?
I have read tons of articles about hp vs. torque but either I'm not very clever, or the subject is actually quite complicated... -you don't have to comment on that ;-)
best regards
Lennart

Yep, I have the same problem, I have the 150 HP A3 and I have been searching for the best compromise chip to upgrade it.
I found that Abt gets 193HP with 260 Nm, whilst e.g. MTM does 185HP with 305 Nm.
I am going to Abt, also for other reasons, but would like to know that it's not the "completely" wrong choice !

My feeling is that more torque means more response, but also means more tensions inflicted to the engine in less (ms) time, so ... less (years) life time (Poisson law, eheh), right?

Pedro Lucas

...the Wetterauer setup will actallu make you car faster

put it this way, with the same HP but on with more torque you will only be able to maintain your acceleration with more people in the car and that's it. as with more HP you will actually gain acceleration...
.

It's great to be wrong !
Now I am more pleased of having selected Abt!

I have to be pleased, as I didn't have most of the choices as you, since e.g. MTM is not available in Portugal... wonder why, and since Abt installation will keep my warranty. And God knows the way our VAG importer works'round here.....

Anyway, a friend of mine gave me a nice way of explaining the HP vs torque topic.

Given a boat with a certain helix, you can:
increase the helix speed, this will give your boat more speed, but will not improve the behaviour when the boat is full of people.
On the other hand, you can increase the helix size, this will not increase your speed or acceleration, but it make boat able to keep the pace as you are putting more people in the boat.

+ helix speed + HP
+ helix size + torque

How's that ?