Must Upgrades?
 

I am going to be purchasing a 2006 B7 S4, and I want to know which upgrades are a MUST.

I'm sure that some people are against the OBX headers, but would it be a plausible upgrade, if the welds are redone? I know people are always against, OBX. There just isn't anyone who makes a set reasonable other than them.

I see that some people use flowmaster mufflers, would a 40 series be loud during highway travel? I like the sound of them, but I don't want to be on a 4 hour trip and it be super annoying.

With the muffler setup, should I have the muffler shop go custom all the way to the headers, X pipe? I'm just trying to figure out everything before I make my purchase; essentially how much I need to set aside.

JDM shortshift?
APR Program?
Headers?
Exhaust?
Intake?

imo the throw on the shifter is short enough, but i would advise against a jdm short shifter, being that this is a german car. jhm makes a short shifter. but i dont really fel it is a must

ecu reflash, deffinetly.....

i havent gotten into headers for mine yet, but i ran OBX un equal lengths on my STi with zero problems, so i am in no way against OBX.

as for exhaust, i had a muffler shop do super 10's with no resignators.... i had an x pipe put in place of my resignators... it is loud during acceleration, but on the highway i dont really hear it. the only time mine drones to an annoying sound is if im at 1800-1900 rpm cruising. which is ussually at 45mph in 6th gear, so not very often...

when i purchased mine it had an intake on it, brand unkown, my first order of bussiness was to get rid of that for the stock intake.....

when you open up the exhaust you will notice a much smoother acceleration when in higher rpm's. at first mine felt kinda sluggish when getting on the highway at a fast pace, when exhaust was opened up that corrected this. also you will notice a HUGE improvement in all around performance and driveability when you get your ecu retuned.. big +1 on doing the reflash.

I'm just going through the normal things I would do with a V8. So you have tried the short shifter you think stick with the stock one? I'm used to the UUC on bmw's and there seems to be nothing similar.

As far as the obx's go, every-time I see them the quality seems to be there, but people knock it because it's a copy or w/e. So I'm not really sure. I guess the only way to figure it out is test the welds and if they are bad, just tig them I guess. I'm still thinking about exhaust though... I love the sound of the flowmasters on the V8s though.

i personally have not tried a short throw on my b6 s4, i feel the factory throw is short enough. if i shortened it i think it would be too short, but i as i said i have not tried the short throw yet.

if you go to the thread on loud b7 exhaust, i posted a vid of my exhaust before i replaced resonators with an x-pipe. so that vid is with factory exhaust with flowmaster super 10's welded in place of factory mufflers. i think it sounds pretty good myself...

as far as obx, like i said, i hae personally used obx products and have never had a problem with the quality of the product. i would recommend htem as a company.