Bob Fisher

I am the proud new owner of an old 2000 A6 1.8T. It hiccups, like many of its siblings, and I want to cure it, or at least reduce it, or at the very least have some fun trying. Can anyone tell me if the diagnostics on this engine are capable of dumping time logs of the engine parameters or is that available only from later models? If so, what are the keywords that describe this capability, as opposed to reading error codes? I am assuming I will need to buy computer software to do this - and probably drive with my netbook hooked up....
I am the second owner and I don't believe it has been chipped.
Thanks Bob