It's been nearly 3 months since my last update... I suppose a new one is due.
The last 3 months have been quite busy for me, particularly due to my house. Here's a little timeline:

• early November my wife and I discuss replacing our carpet, which appeared in decent shape when buying the house, but seemed to wear quickly over 8 months of ownership. We ended up finding a laminate we liked and bought 745 sq. ft. for roughly 575 sq. ft. of carpet.
  
• also in early November one of my 2.0T coil packs died abruptly during my morning commute, 1/2 mile from work. Fortunately I was able to diagnose it during lunch and limp the car home on 3 cylinders (the corresponding injector was unplugged). Temporarily threw in the stock AWM coil packs and re-gapped plugs to 0.028", and ordered 4 new latest-and-greatest 2.0T black top coil packs.
  
• middle November we started moving furniture and tearing up carpet in the front half of our house. We found some good size cracks and lots of sloping and general non-flatness in the concrete subfloor. No good for laminate!
  
• day after Thanksgiving we had a company come out and fix the subfloors in the front half of our house. It was super expensive, messy, I couldn't do anything to help except write a check, and there were workers in our house. Good news is, after 3 times of coming out they got the floor flat enough that we could install our new flooring!
  
• early December we started laying flooring in the front half of our house. I was doing most of the cutting and general figuring things out while I tried to get my wife to pick out which pattern to lay where. (our laminate has about 12-13 unique patterns, and they are profound enough that we half to carefully choose where they go)
  
• we finished laying floor and moving furniture back into the front half of the house by Christmas.
  
• we drove up to San Jose after Christmas and stayed for 4 days. We took my A4 and I drove 750 miles (11 hours) round trip, without really any hiccups. This was the first time I drove the car for more than a couple hours!
  
• before New Year's we moved furniture and tore up the carpet in the back half of our house. Similar to the front half there were cracks and lots of sloping.
  
• also before New Year's I did an oil change on my A4, washed and waxed it, and did a nice drive with a group of other Audi enthusiasts. It's really rare to get snow where we did our drive, and we got some pictures! (see below)
  
• January 5th the same company came out to fix the concrete subfloor in the back half of our house. Again it took them 3 times coming out to finish it, but they did finish. After all that work on the floors in our house, we paid out $5,000... huge sum of money and it blew out our budget for this flooring project. Could have bought another NICE B5 A4 or something with that much money...
  
• January 9th I had the day off work, and so started laying more laminate flooring into the back half of the house.
  
• and currently we are still laying flooring, hoping to have it all finished before February... that also includes reinstallation of baseboards and touching them up.

 

And now some more specific stuff about the car! My tune from Motoza still hasn't had the throttle control in 1st gear that I want, or had back when it was on the stock tune. On Jan. 9th I spoke with them on the phone for nearly half an hour and we came to the conclusion that I should keep all my hardware exactly the same, except swap in stock injectors and re-flash my original AWM stock tune. So... I did that yesterday.

Since then throttle control has gone back to normal (no bucking or unpredictable throttle control), which suggests to me that something may have been wrong with the Motoza tune from the start. We'll see what they have to say. I also want to switch to a 3" MAF housing, and have an air box lid nearly complete and fitted with the FrankenTurbo 3" MAF housing (TT225 or MKIV VR6 style).

 

I wish I could mail you my car...so I have the FT F21 as well. Went with APR for tuning, a mod KO4 map. No matter what I do, there is no pull from the turbo. It runs, I can hear the turbo whine, nothing seems out of the ordinary, but the "rush" isn't there. I am at a loss on this one. I have the stock injectors/coil packs installed. The original turbo blew up (189,000 miles on it) so while having to replace it, I figured I'd go a little bigger with the turbo. I am on limited budget and this car is my daily driver. It's a 98.5 1.8T Quattro. Love the car! I am at the end of my knowledge level on turbos though. If this were a small block Chevy, I'd have it sorted out by now but the electronics plus the actual plumbing/vacuum/intercooler items is now outside of what I know. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Hey man really nice setup! I had a question though because my b5 is modded as well and I'm trying to do what you did with your maf. The 3 individual intercooler piping you have where did you buy them and was was the length of each piece ? Shops where I live will cost you and arm and a leg to make a single piece your way is pretty strait forward

 

Do you have a boost gauge? It would be a good idea to find out how much boost your engine is seeing.
Also your tuning sounds rather inadequate. The F21 really needs bigger injectors than the stock AEB injectors, and it also needs a larger diameter MAF housing. I liked the United Motorsport Stage 3 tune (uses larger diameter MAF and 630cc injectors), but you're gonna be out nearly $1k for the tune and supporting pieces unless you buy used components.

Are you referring to the intercooler piping? You can find it on eBay for reasonably cheap (~$200-350 depending on brand and where it's coming from). Mine is from CX Racing:
cxracing.com: CXRACING Intercooler Piping Kit For 94-01 Audi A4 B5

You can also get the full intercooler kit for not much more:
cxracing.com: CXRACING FMIC Intercooler Kit For 94-01 Audi A4 B5

 

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Yeah I was referring to the intercooler piping I thought you bought separate pieces for eBay or like a hard wear store not a kit. I already have the front mount intercooler and the piping but since I'm relocating the maf I thought I could build a new cold side with 2.5inch pipes for cheaper then 200 bucks.

 

When you did your (hillbilly tunning) blow threw maf did you use your front mount piping you bought of cx racing or was it custom because when I was reading your set up you mentioned 45 degree and 90degree bends so I thought you bought pipping that wasn't part of a kit

 

Ah yes, that was the setup on my old car. (my newer B5 uses CX Racing kit) I did have a custom cold-side piping arrangment, in 2" diameter. Still have it actually, it's just sitting in my parts pile and I probably won't use it again.
Would you be interested in buying it?

 

I was actually I was looking to go 2.5inches in the cold side piping but I can always buy your spare parts when I get money for a friend of mine that also has a b5. The angles you had on your old b5 were two 45 degree pipes and the one 90 bend ? I'm trying to do the same setup. If responding here is a hassle you can shoot me a call or text at 661 873 5458 - Devin

 

I don't remember exactly what angles off hand... the only hassle is that I don't have the parts in front of me

I think it went like this: intercooler --> 45 deg. silicone coupler --> 90 deg. pipe --> silicone hump hose coupler --> 45 deg. pipe --> coupler to throttle body (if using 2.5" piping and a stock throttle body, you would use a straight 2.5" coupler)