I shopped around for about 3 weeks for a good chip and exhaust for my '00 and consider myself to be the expert now!:) First, I looked around at the tuners for mufflers and a complete cat-back exhaust system. I looked from Remus to B&B triflos, basically I researched every possible tuner and their prices, all of which were either too quiet or just too expensive. I like it loud and a little more noticable. I called UUC, after hearing their S4 VM exhaust and really liked it, but they said they have no plans of making one for the A4. And as of April 2000, APR has not come out with their A4's yet, but I considered everyone else's. So, its back to the drawing board, and I recalled the days when I was in Detroit and everybody had custom exhaust piping and magnaflow or powerflow mufflers. So I called magnaflow and they direct me to a shop in Santa Ana, CA.

I went there and found out this was a quality shop, they make exhausts and turbo piping for Hondas, Porsches, and American V8s. My first wish was to make the car sound like a Mustang V8 with that distinctive rumble, but my mechanic said there was no way in hell that it will sound remotely like a V8. So I said I want to make a loud but not like a Civic buzz box loud. Because I hate the A4 4 banger buzz, I wanted an exhaust loud enough to cover the engine noise. So the decision to remove the middle resonator was established.

Then came the muffler choice, I chose a straight through magnaflow muffler, just because of its big-name with Detroit cars. For the exhaust piping I selected 2.5" in diameter because that's the biggest size that all the tuners run, I wanted 3", but my mechanic said it might be too loud, but if I do this again I would select to go with the 3 inchers, bigger is always better. Between the piping for the cat and the middle resonator, there's a connection where my 2.5" piping begin and all the way to the tip. As for material of the whole exhaust, I elected aluminum because its cheaper than stainless steel and I would never see the system from ground level anyway. Of course I elected mandrel bent and tig-welded because every tuner is the same way, and maybe it flows better and smoother. As for the tip I wanted a 5" single oval tip, but they only had a 4" one in the shop, so I had to settle for that one. My mechanic did a very nice job of putting everything together and it took him like 4 hours to do the job to my perfection. And the total cost including tax and install was $400!!!

Ok, now how does it sound and drive??!! Well, at first I was disappointed because it didn't have a ferocious growl that I dreamed of, but its pretty noticable. Its not as nice sounding like a M3 or Porsche, but its a little better than the Hondas, and it certainly is noticable, I don't hear the engine no more! As for performance, it feels much faster, due to the fact that the turbo spools up quicker. This can be credited to the fact that I took off the restrictive resonator which was like 2' by 1' and weighs 30lbs!! and the fact I have a better flowing muffler. I don't know about hp gains, but it certainly gets the turbo going faster and I can actually hear the turbo now. Then there's the chip, it came down to only APR and GIAC, and GIAC won my vote just because they had a local place to install the thing, so if I ever have a problem I can always go back. As for the GIAC chip, of course, the difference was very noticable, because they have the turbo spinning at its maxium at a low rpm, so I don't doubt the power claims. But I'm very disappointed at how the car behaves after 4000rpm. It has absolutely no pull after 4000 rpm, I mean 0, nothing!! The sensation of speed are very impressive before 4000, but after that the thing just doesn't do much and engine just gets noiser like stock. This is after all a 4 cylinder car. Maybe I'm spoiled by much faster cars that comes alive after 4000, but this high push at only low to mid rpm takes a lot getting used to. My 2wd spins its tires wildly in 1st and 2nd gears!!(lots of fun) And the torque figures claim by GIAC and any other Audi tuner is simply unbelieveble. When was the last time you heard torque figures higher than horsepower -- me never!! But Audi must have done something great by making all those low end torque, and the tuners just took it to a unbelieveble level, literally. Especially with my exhaust, the turbo sounds and hiss much much louder which is fun to listen to, but also worries me that the turbo is working much harder now. I am not like the other chip owners that tells people that after a chip its like night and day, yes, I admit its a different car now, but maybe I expected too much before I done it. So I wasn't THAT impressed, but I will tell any 1.8t owner without thinking twice to get a chip no matter what the consequence!! Oh, and by the way, other chip owners say its smooth, I think its same as stock, maybe less so, because now the power rushes pretty fast, you have to keep an eye on that tach. Hope this helps, email me if you have ?'s.