Fixeroh

Robr; sorry to learn that had some issues with your initial flash brother! But happy to learn it seems to be cleared up at this point. I think the Unitronic route to flash your own is the best option. Am convinced I will do that for the RS3 at some point. APR tunes for my S3 was over a several year period with some major hardware installations as well. Things I could not do on my own either. Cast downpipe and intercooler. Was driving my S3 today and still just love the drivability. Understand you missing your Porsche. Wish I know what it's like to own one actually but understand the anxiety you mention. I stress about parking my S3. Had it for 3.5 years now and not a single door ding or nick. Porsche is my dream marque. I'm originally from Stuttgart and take great pride in that. Mercedes plant was just down the road as well.

It will take some time for you and the car to learn the new tune. Transmission is relearning as well. You'll find the effort well worth it. I can easily say the jump from bone stock to Stage 1+ was more noticeable than the jump from Stage 1 to Stage 2. The latter jump was much more expensive too. Knowing what I know now, I probably would have stayed at Stage 1+ and not bothered to continue. Please keep us informed of how things progress with your tune and new incoming part!

Robr

The more torque was noticed yesterday. Once coming out of my work parking lot when I went into a 4 wheel drift coming around a sharp turn that I did not mean to do.
And once when I tried launch control and spun all of the wheels before actually moving

As a side note, Blizzaks are not very good for traction, especially where every road has some small amount of sand and salt left after the recent blizzard

Timmay

4 wheel drifting?!? Nice. LOL. I forgot you're up in Boston area and having to drive on winter tires so that will certainly make a difference, and not a good one, haha. Would love to hear about your setup with summer tires on dry pavement

Having said that, I'm curious whether anyone else around here has the same tune for their S3.

Robr

Dogbone and resonator delete happened today. Need to spend more time with things, but overall impression is positive. Exhaust sounds better than it did, and decent for a 4 cylinder car. I'd like more aggressive than it is, but for the price it's good enough (thank you again Fixeroh)
With the dogbone... so far the shifts I think do feel more solid, but I spent very little time in the car and almost none shifting aggressively.

As a side note, I don't know if there is a fix for it, but the shift lag drives me a little batty. To be fair, the only experience I have with a DCT is with a 458 so the bar is set a bit high. I was hoping the Unitronic TCU upgrade might have helped with it (it did not). It would also be pretty cool if both paddles back = reverse .

maybe this old thread will be helpful in managing lag. i'll give some of this strategy a try
http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...ips-and-Tricks

Fixeroh

Robr; So glad the res delete got there OK and obviously now installed! As a suggestion and if you want fullest sound all time, get an OBDEleven and set the exhaust flaps to open all the time. Using that method, you don't have to have the car in Sport mode to hear the louder exhaust note. OBDEleven is an awesome tool to change lots of settings on your car. Stuff you wouldn't even think about. I also disabled the Soundaktor under the hood. Allowed me to hear the exhaust note properly without some synthetic sound coming from a device near the firewall.

I got my TCU upgrade via APR and felt the shifts were pretty sharp afterward. With a cold car, sometimes too much so! Now I have a slightly different transmission 6 spd vs your 7 spd. No clue how much difference between the 2. Is it worth reflashing your DSG again to freshen the code?

By 458 do you mean Ferrari 458? If so then that is a damn high standard! LOL

Sending you a PM on another item you may be interested using.

Robr

I do have odbeleven I just haven't figured out how to use it yet. I haven't tried very hard though. I was running into some odd issues... I'll look at it again. I also have a 6sp The 7 didn't come until 2018. And yes...ferrari 458, but obviously I'm not expecting an S3 to compare. Some of the tips from the link I posted make sense so I'm going to test out those approaches It's worth reading. And of course we're about to get slammed with another snow storm today. Happy spring.

Fixeroh

Sorry about the weather. We're dealing with a snowy spring right now ourselves. Sucks! Thanks for the info on your DSG. Was thinking it was the 7 speed. Should be shifting rather quickly. Then again, I don't really have something like a 458 to compare with! LOL. Read up on the OBDEleven. Some nice settings to tinker with but don't go overboard. Think some could cause issues. I know you'll get your car setup just right at some point. Took me a while to learn and test as well. Part of the fun. Long as you don't break anything, you should be good. Forgot that PM. Will send in a few minutes.

Robr

It's not that it shifts slow.... when it shifts its nearly instantaneous, it's just that from the time I pull the + paddle to the time the shift initiates can be quite lengthy. (downshift is usually immediate). the link i posted above goes into some details about why that might be. essentially the "2nd gearbox" is guessing what you are going to do next, upshift or downshift. if you do the opposite of what it expects, it takes around 0.8seconds for it to select the correct gear and then switch. otherwise its 0.2 seconds. (i think the info in that page refers to the B7, might be quicker with the 8V). so the info in that link goes into detail about how to drive so that the 2nd gearbox is going to be placed into the gear youre going to be requesting.

it also talks about the hesitation when you try to launch from a stop and there's that lag where the rpms drop before the car moves. it looks like the clutches disengage when your foot is on the brake, it takes a moment from the time you remove your foot to the time the clutches engage. the author was pointing out if you take your foot off the brake, then wait a second, then floor the accelerator, no reaction lag. i need to play around with all this.

Timmay

Interesting. It's almost as though our cars need to have the functionality of Hill Assist even on flat surfaces so that the infamous lag doesn't kick in before acceleration. My point being it wouldn't be necessary to press the brake pedal, hence the clutches may not disengage. I don't know, just a thought.

I'd sure love a chance to drive a 458, or even a newer generation P-car with their PDK dual clutch tranny. Unfortunately it wasn't out yet when I bought my Cayman S a number of years ago otherwise I'm sure I would have opted for it. I've heard the PDK is about the best out there in terms of DCTs.

Robr

Winter tires are finally off! I have a couple of questions that have been bugging me a little........

with the dogbone insert, is it supposed to clunk and rattle over bumps? Ever since I installed it the car clunks over the smallest bumps or when shifting. I gave the shop the torque specs as provided by the manufacturer.

The other one is carbon build up around the exhaust. See pics, is this normal?