sparkhill

Someone over on RS6.com claims the following. I quote (spelling errors and all), <i>"I also had the S4 B6 and initially the RS4 only felt marginally faster. Its not that the S4 feels faster because of some handling characterisitc. It is because the RS4 ecu limits power for the first 1000miles only releasing the further 30% when it feels you've run the engine in. I rang audi technical and they confirmed my suspision that the ecu limits the power. Now that the RS4 is run in properly it feels much faster than my tired S4 and thats because it is much faster."</i>

Anyone up there in miles notice a difference?

Theresias

Audi claims this in some of their internal documents, so I tend to beleive this.

TinkyWinky

I don't have an S4 to compare it to, but the RS4 does not "feel" as fast as my stock M3 although we know it is faster than an M3. But the RS4 only has 300 miles on it so its not seeing sustained full throttle and RPM's above 6k. When I get to 1,000 miles I'll make sure to be accelerating to see if the car suddenly surges more.

noobie_boobie

Makes sense. I have 5000km's on my RS4 now and it does feel much stronger than it did when I picked it up. Audi has done a lot of "big brother" like things with the Rs4 - I beleive it is to get the power levels they are with reliabilty they have to limit the user from doing stupid things.

A good example is limiting the revs until oil temp is up to operating range.

Hope this helps....

SG

Radak

Also, if they're actually bringing the power up later in the engine's life, it's probably a subtle ramp up, not a sudden change.

Pete @ Stratmosphere

I think the revs are not limited. Just "advised" levels according to manual for "safety reasons"