I've heard in this forum that installing down-pipes will be good for keeping the exhaust temp down for your turbo. My question is, what are you replacing? Or are you just getting down-pipes that are bigger? I have a 2000 A6 2.7t stock, no mods. Sorry if this sounds like a dumb question. It's been a while since i've worked on cars. Thanks!

 

well your replacing the downpipe lol ... I bought some vast piggies and they are great ... vast claims they add 30hp im not sure about that but you can feel a difference... there are other threads that ask this exact same question... search at the bottom of the page

 

I guess i should have asked...whats the difference between the stock dp's and the ones from vast performance?

 

i believe the ones from vast are just bored out... they actually are the stock downpipes because when i ordered them they charged me 650 or so and then gave me 300 for the ones that were on my car when i sent them back to them... they just let the exhaust flow better and in-turn it keeps the temp down behind the turbos making them run more efficiently and you yield better results!

 

yup, the APR and Miltek DPs are 3 or 4 times the price for little more...
I have VAST piggies too and am very happy.
I sent them my cores, they gutted them, cleaned them up, fixed the flanges, returned them to me for $345 all in I think.
Oh yeah they also relocate the O2 sensor bungs pass the pre cats so you get no CEL and pass inspection.
Rock, great mod for the $. Install is a bit of a PIA I hear.

 

yea 8 hours of disassembling and reassembling ahhh!

 

Joetm kind of answered this, but the vast downpipes (piggies) are actually gutted stock downpipes. They aren't enlarged or anything, VAST just removes the pre-cats. Right after the flange from the turbo (on the downpipe), there is a thick mesh inside the downpipe that acts as a pre-cat. What VAST does is they gut (AKA remove) this thick mesh from the pipe. It *greatly* increases flow, because in essence it's like pouring some drain cleaner through your sink. Your sink used to drain well enough, but once you got rid of that huge hairball, it just flows SO much better. Same thing with the VAST downpipes. They remove all that "junk" that you don't really need, so they flow tons better. That also helps significantly with turbo temps. The exhaust coming out of the turbo used to hit that pre-cat mesh, and kind of stop dead in the downpipe with nowhere to go, so your turbos would heat up. Once you gut the downpipes, all that heat has an open passageway to escape, and doesn't get caught in the pipe.

If you still have K03s, the word on the street is that downpipes will help with their longevity, because your keeping them nice and cool. The only problem is that it's hard to justify getting downpipes done unless you are getting other stuff done at the same time, because removing them is a PITA, and if you have a shop do it, they'll charge you out the @$$ for it. Personally, I'm just gonna wait until my K03s die, and then just do downpipes when I need to bolt in K04s. That's kind of the ideal time to do them because you're almost getting the labor for free.

 

I think I paid about 300-350 for labor.

 

Thanks all! I now have a much better understanding.