J Wood

Does anyone have info as to aquiring mechanical components and software (kit) to convert a "non" Tipronic tranny into a Tip ????<br>You can email me if you like.<p>Thankd in advance.

stevebrown

Ask Cameron...think he got his from TAP: www.tap1.com

Jason M.

He actually got it from AMS

Cameron

The 1996 and 1997 Audi A4 was available with a 5-speed manual or a 5-speed automatic. No Tiptronic option existed until the early build weeks of MY1998. The unit comes in a box 14x16x70 or so and contains everything you need to retrofit Tiptronic yourself. The cost of the kit is around $1100 by the time all is said and done.<p>The new gate from AMS is the Audi metallic die-cast. Your dealer can also provide the black plastic Tip gate used in Eastern Europe. This, in my opinion, works better with the 1997 onyx leatherette interior where, otherwise, the gate would be the only metallic thing in the cockpit.<p>The electronics under the gate include electromagnetic switches that sense lever position. Do not remove this circuitboard to figure out how the electromagnetic sensor array works. I did, and had to order a new one because I couldn't reinstall it successfully without slight alteration. The circuitboard is connected to a trim piece which is connected to a rolling sleeve that holds the "sheild" that rolls inside the gate. I finally decided I didn't really like the look of either gate, disassembled all this, realigned the sensors and sleeve, and covered it with a black shift boot from a VW Passat. Perfect fit, since the two cars share a mold for the center console panel. If you're interested in doing this, the vertical offset for the circuitboard is +1.3, the offset for the gate mounts is +4.2, and the horizontal offset for the mounting points relative to the trim panel is -4.5. All those are in cm. You must put the gate on top of the shift assembly even if you only plan to use a shift boot, since it links the shift box to the trim panel in the right/left dimension. If you do it right, the boot won't look funny.<p>There is a loop-to-loop linkage between the shift control module (the box under the shift lever) and the torque converter interchange. These two pieces are connected with a meter-long piece of hose. If the hose isn't lined up correctly, it will look like the hose needs to be longer than it is!!! Do NOT add another linkage hose between the two as a patch! Be sure the back of the control module lines up properly with the interior trim, as this is one of the few cases in automotive work where how it looks from the inside is actually mechanically relevant. If it lines up on the inside, it lines up where the hose is running. Note the shift action will be actuated by a lift of the activating node, just like the unit you're replacing. BE SURE TO REMOVE THE SHIFT **** CAREFULLY, you'll be reusing it, along with the black sleeve around the shift lever itself. I didn't do this well, and if you look carefully you can see damage to the sleeve at the base. It's easy to get these parts grungy with the grease filling the box, so use gloves when touching the greasy parts. This will also spare you from interior clean-up duty later on. Once you have the center console off and the dash taken apart (leave the backing wire harness -- green on 1997 1.8T's -- in place, you can work around it and it's a royal pain to put back in place), everything should be pretty intuitive. Replace the box, thread the hosing, make sure everything is attached. Like everything in the realm of transmissions, you can't truly test it while the car is taken apart. Be very careful when testing the car. Unless you're like me and have driven manual A4's in first gear, you probably haven't been in first gear a lot as a driver of the automatic. The Tiptronic will downshift for you when it bangs up against the anti-stall logic but it WILL NOT UPSHIFT AUTOMATICALLY.<p>Be warned. Your transmisssion assembly has NO rev limiter, because the automatic transmission logic, the smart people at Audi thought, would shift long before you ever overrevved the engine. Ha! So be careful. I was a ways beyond the rev line before I shifted a couple times, but not in the last four months or so. The transmission seems durable, though I'll soon test that by (to use ZF's word, not mine) overloading the AMS version of the ZF 5hp19T through a K04 install.<p>Note: The Wetterauer chip overrides this problem with the AMS Tiptronic Kit (the only real problem I've found) by adding a rev limiter on both automatic and manual cars to the logic map.<p>This is a complete kit, comes with everything you need to install the Tiptronic transmission, and I would highly recommend it. It's also a bargain, since ordering everything I'd need from my dealer would cost $1,420.90, versus $995.99 for the AMS kit. Other companies may offer kits, but AMS was the first company to offer a button-shift option for the A4, and now offers a gate-shift retrofit as well as a button-shift retrofit. Their experience retrofitting advanced technologies into earlier cars made me choose AMS, and I am a satisfied customer.<p>Note: I incurred an additional cost of about $20 in addition to cost and shipping of the AMS kit since I used a slightly-different-from-stock magnet setup in the transmission. The magnets that came in the kit would have worked fine, but weren't properly shielded and could damage floppy disks sitting under the handbrake. I solved this with a little lead shielding on the inside of the center trim panel attached with duct tape.<p>Cameron