RJdelo

Briefly- I've had a '15 s8 for almost a year now and love it, but the hamster wheel in my brain never stops spinning. I love the idea of a wagon. I love the manual transmission experience. I love the performance of the 4.0T, but the high reving 4.2L seems like a lot of fun too. So, here's the question:

I've been looking at a 2007 manual S4 Avant. It is "well cared for" but over 120k miles, so probably could use some love. Daydreaming about buying it with plans to do a full engine overhaul, suspension, etc. What are your thoughts?

- worthwhile project?
- cost to make it a real dynamic daily driver?
- the 4.2L seems widely used with a lot of available room to tune, what kind of performance is available there? Is it that much different than the rs4 4.2?
- anyone else intrigued by the idea?

Again, I'm only daydreaming at this point and posting to stimulate entertaining discussion. Cheers

1stGOAT

I will skip to the end... a worthwhile project if you want to spend 10K
You are not going to get a hi-revving motor and you won't want to spend what it would cost to completely rebuild and modify that motor so it could do what an RS4 motor can do. Just about everything is different from block, bearings, rods, piston, valves and head design. Also a high revving motor is sort of the opposite of what you want for a daily driver unless your daily drive is just all open road as opposed to traffic.

About the only way to add power to this NA motor is to add forced induction. There are very few aftermarket parts out there for the 4.2. There used to be a few different superchargers kits for it but I think that VF may be the only choice left on the market. Still quite expensive at 7900 for the kit but it adds significant power taking it to 496 hp / 434 ft/lbs. LINK This would make it quite a bit quicker than an RS4 and provide much more usable power than the RS4 motor.

RJdelo

👍
Thanks. That sounds like fun.