Hello everyone,

I am new to the forums. I'm here to try and do a little research on the B5 A4 1.8T.

I currently drive a 2005 Saturn Ion Redline, and its fast and going to a stock A4 will be quite a downgrade. But I'm not so into the super fast. It's nice but I don't NEED it.

The problem with my Saturn is that my car payment and insurance are quite spendy. Doing a quick throw together of numbers with the A4 i could save my self almost 300 a month between insurance and car payment.

I come to here to find out what the modifications cost.

I'll give you a slight breakdown of what I'm looking at. I've been looking at the 1997+ B5 A4 1.8T Quattro.

I've been trying to research what I can do and I see there are turbo swaps and such.

My goals would be at most 350whp. I have no clue if that is reasonable or not. I would like to stay away from building the engine. Changing injectors, sparks, fuel pump, getting tuned, thats not a big issue.

Can you guys give me any idea what it would cost to get to 250-350whp?

Again I'm very under educated on these cars so help me out

Thanks!!!

 

First, welcome to the forums. I would recommend reading the stickies at the top of the B5 page, just to help accuaint yourself with the basics.

Secondly, I can understand wanting to save money, but before you commit yourself to one of these cars, make sure you look over it very carefully and have about $1k left in your pocket after the purchase price, for various and assorted things that will undoubtedly come up. Make sure you ask about service records, when was the timing belt changed? Take off the oil filler cap and look at the top of it, if there's gunk and sludge in there, you're gonna want to take care of that ASAP. Its entirely possible that you would end up spending more than the money you're saving on insurance and loan payments on repair costs if you get yourself into a poorly cared-for car.

Take your time looking, there's plenty of B5's out there, you just have to be patient and find one that doesn't suck.

As far as other mods go, if you want mods, go with a 99.5+ 1.8t. Lots of mods for those ones. The 2.8 V6 is a bit more reliable, especially the 12V, but the trade off there is that there are NO mods for the 12v motor. There are some asthetic things that can be tweaked and swapped and changed, but nothin to get you the power you're talking about out of a 2.8 unless maybe you go with the 30V and a PES G2 supercharger.

Anything more than that, the turbo guys are gonna have to speak up because i don't know that motor very well. GL!

 

Like cca4 said, most of the info you are looking for is in the stickies...

If you looking to upgrade to ~350hp, you're probably looking at a GT elims setup. Turbo kit ~$1300, exhaust ~$800, fuel injectors ~$400, tuning ~$700, suspension ~$700, FMIC $~800, overall $4000 - $5000 is do-able if you do most of the work yourself. If your tight on cash at the moment you can upgrade in stages.

 

I would be doing this instages I would probably do exhaust suspension and FMIC first and then save up some and get the Turbokit, injectors and tuning all done at once.

But ~350hp is ok on a stock engine? I was reading the turbo swap 1.8T thread and it seemed like it was possible.

 

Yes its doable. Just start off with the basic chip ($500) and turbo back exhaust ($700-1k) and move on from there. A new turbo setup, clutch and fmic will run you atleast $5k depending on the parts you go with, more if you get a better setup.

 

If its a manual, you need a clutch upgrade (auto trannys good for 350bhp?)

but ignoring that for the moment, $5000 for a turbo setup and fmic should go a long way:
http://shop.dthaus.com/product.sc?ca...8&productId=72

even with all the options, you're talking $3500 plus $1000 for the fmic.

am I missing anything?

 

Great info guys it's cheaper than I thought it was going to be

 

that is assuming there is no labor. $3500 will get him a elim or 50trim setup. It will be closer to $4k for a gt setup. Those include tune and fueling.

 

add in sport suspension and brake upgardes ... plus speeding tickets

you'll be bangin hot chicks in no time

 

a 71r elim kit will get you close to 350 whp but i don't think it could quite get there without a w/m kit and fine tuning from lemmiwinks. you'll def. get close to it though.