RI A6

pippyrips is an RS4 owner in the UK. He has been a victim of the intake valve deposit problem, and has taken matters into his own hands by enlisting MRC Tuning to help with the problem. He's posted on RS246 and AudiSRS websites, but he's also given me permission to post here, also.

MRC Tuning vs. pippyrips' B7 RS4

Over the past few months I’ve become concerned by the threads relating to oil/carbon build-up in B7 inlet manifolds. I've also been interested in the threads about developing the inlet manifold to help increase airflow and performance.


As I plan to keep the car for the long haul, I wanted to be sure that everything was as it should be inside my engine as well as seeing what could be done to improve an already great car - further.


Not having the skill/experience /time/ knowledge etc to do this sort of work myself, I needed to find someone capable of doing it for me. Since I’ve been around the Audi scene, I’ve heard nothing but good things about MRC Tuning so got involved in a conversation with them around what could be done.


These conversations culminated in me dropping my car off at MRC last Saturday for a week of work, focusing on:


• Investigating and cleaning any build-up in and around the inlet tract
• Testing a ported and polished inlet manifold
• Improving exhaust flow
• Custom mapping all of the above into one neat package.


MRC wanted to approach the work as a development programme, so it was important to have an independent assessment of results as the week progressed. Surrey Rolling Road was chosen for this so I took my car there for a benchmark dyno before any work commenced where she came in at 390.4bhp.


With the maker set, MRC took the car to their workshop and proceeded to take off the original manifold, only to be confronted by quite a mess:









Although the build up looks sticky, this was only surface deep and underneath it was rock solid and baked on.


Around 10 hours and some serious elbow grease later the guys had managed to clean up all of inlet and valves leaving them good enough to eat your dinner off!:






We plan to monitor any further build up in the intake by taking off the manifold in 1500 miles before sorting the problem once and for all.


With the valves cleaned, MRC continued by fitting a ported and polished inlet manifold they had prepared and headed off to Surrey Rolling road to measure the difference, firstly with just the stock map and then by applying their own custom map.


The results were:



Blue line – Car in stock form
Red line – Clean inlet, modded manifold, stock map
Turquoise line - Clean inlet, modded manifold, MRC map


So there it was the magic 414bhp with torque improvements to boot!


Buoyed by the good results the guys took the car back to their workshop and focused their attention on the exhaust. A day and a pair of free flowing downpipes later the car was finished and ready to go back to SRR to measure the final results – here they are... 431.1bhp!



Red line – stock car
Pink line – Clean inlet, modded manifold, stock map
Blue line - Clean inlet, modded manifold, MRC map
Green line - Clean inlet, modded manifold, free flow downpipes & MRC map


At this point it’s probably worth reminding everyone SRR is completely independent to MRC and has no interest or benefit in artificially inflating these results.

The final graph shows where the car was a week ago to where it is now:



I have gained up to 50bhp iand 40ftpd of torque in places over the rev range - not bad for an N/A engine! - I love my car

To say I am pleased is an understatement. The car is noticeably stronger all over the rev range and much more responsive than before with increased torque that almost feels like a mini turbo has been bolted on – oh and the soundtrack

I would like to thank Lucas, Doug & Minea at MRC for doing such a great job. They are a top bunch who are true enthusiasts and will be the only people to work on my car from now on.


MRC will be launching their new website in 2 weeks or so and will be featuring my car and all that was involved in a step by step blog. I’m sure they will do a far better job than me in detailing the work but in the meantime if anyone else is interested in following a similar path, give them a call – you won’t regret it!!

Tekk

Wow great write-up and INCREDIBLE results

What type of costs are we looking at for the cleaning of the IM?

RI A6

1Hr per cylinder to clean.

you should register over on RS246 or audiSRS and ask him. I believe

TeamImola

id also be curious to have seen a run with the stock manifold, down pipes and there tune. i bet alot of power came from your downpipes alone.

titsataki

I would be also curious to see a dyno run after they cleaned the deposits and the buildup. 390 whp on a dyno dynamics dynometer on a AWD car is not bad(they usually read low). Of course the numbers mean very little. The numbers before and after are more meaningful. How the owner likes and feels about the car before and after is even more important.
390whp to 431whp on a NA car is quite substantial.

What does a stock broken in RS4 do on that specific dyno?

Cheers

Nick

RS Maniac

This is not wheel, but crank HP. The average 414hp RS4 as measure at the crank yeilds low 300s at the wheels. They probably just measured the drivetrain loss (which is substantial on an AWD car) factor and converted it back to crank HP.

So wait, did he leave the stock exhaust and only changed downpipes? It is well documented that the Milltek cat back alone adds about 15whp. I have one and my dyno showed it (no downpipes though).

Does this tuner have a US rep?

Tekk

I was not aware that there are downpipes available for the RS4? Or were these custom?

RI A6

He's on www.rs246.com and www.audisrs.com. You can register and contact him there in the RS4 forum. He's located in the UK

RI A6

Milltek has downpipes for the RS4, but these were custom without cats.

Milltek RS4 downpipes have an issue, the upstream O2 sensor is placed farther away than the stock sensor. The custom downpipes that this guy had fabricated, placed the O2 sensor in the right place.

KryptoniK

I was looking around on ETKA and came about these images. Is this what I think it is? Do we already have an "oil catch-can" from factory?





Not sure what to think of the 2nd image..