My 2003 WRX (putting down about 285hp to the crank) was involved in an accident with frame and suspension damage while it was parked and I'm 95% sure I'm going to sell it and buy out my cousins lease on her 2005 A4 1.8T auto with sport package, sunroof and less than 15k miles when it's up in August for a pretty good price. Insurance is cheaper for the Audi too! Not for the bad news: It's not Quattro Prior to the WRX, I had a 240SX (RWD), so I've never had an FWD daily driver. Anyone else go from an AWD to an FWD car? How much did you miss it? I realize I'd be getting something much more luxurious but at the expense of handling.

Now, assuming I go ahead and buy her car, where do I begin modding it so I don't miss the WRX so much? What appealed to me initially was spending somewhere about $1k to bring it somewhere up to par (speedwise anyway) with a GIAC FX chip, injectors and a diverter valve and hacked airbox. If it's not enough, where do I go from there? Exhaust and a downpipe? K04? Will I need to touch the suspension at this point? How much power can the stock auto tranny handle? I'm definitely not looking at going all out with this vehicle as it'd be my daily driver not to mention that it's still got like 35K/3 years of warranty left.

 

You're not even going to touch 285 with a ko4 kit.

 

if it is a CVT there is not much you can do to at all those tranny's can't handle much

 

I had a FWD before ... after driving around a few days in my friend's WRX, I fell in love with AWDs.... hence, quattro....
compared to RWD, FWD handle better in wet/snow. do fwd a4s have lsd?
CVTs are awesome, but like clconversion said, won't be able to mod much like you're planning...
I would never go back to FWD... You should test drive your cousin's car first and see how it handles on a wet day.

 

Hmm. I'd be getting it for like 6k under blue book. Maybe I'll drive it for a year and sell it, break even and buy another AWD. Am I pushing the CVT tranny with just a chip and injectors?

 

i'm not 100% sure on what they can handle but I think even a chip is a lot for that tranny check on www.audizine.com

 

Maybe this is a silly question...are all the 2005 A4 1.8T automatic trannys CVT?

 

no, they certainly come in quattro as well.

 

What I'm getting at is that any chipped wrx/sti will kill a chipped and/or heavily modded 1.8t, correct? almost makes me want an sti instead.

 

not really just the CVT tranny is not mod friendly get a Quattro and you can mod the **** out of it and beat STI's and WRX's no problem