Hello everyone, I am new to the forums and I have been looking into getting a B5 S4 for quite some time, so I looked quite a bit into them. I just had a few questions about the car in general because I am in the process of buying one and I just want to know what I am getting myself into.

The car I want to get is a 2000 S4, and it has 160,XXXkms/99,XXXmiles. The timing belt/water pump has not been done yet, the car is sitting on tein coilovers and has a RS4 bumper conversion, and a stage 1 chip.

I want to replace everything practical for reliability and power (turbo-back, piping, intercoolers, silicone couplers, timing belt kit, etc.) without fully going stage 3, (K04s, fueling, clutch+flywheel, tuning) because I do not want to dish out that much cash quite yet, but I am planning to eventually go stage 3.

So my questions are;

Specifically what parts are a good idea to change at that mileage?
If I decide to just do piping, turboback, etc. that go with K04's, will it fit on the K03's?
Is it better/necessary to do everything at once, or is it fine to go step-by-step, like I suggested?
Is there anywhere I can read up more about these cars other then the forums?
How much stress can these engines/transmission handle?

Thank you for the time, sorry to be dumping a wall of text, and possibly sounding like a noob.

 

Hello, welcome to AF!

Some of your questions are a little difficult to answer but ill do my best.

Your correct in knowing that the timing belt needs to be done, but you never really know what youll find in addition to that. Obviously "while your in there" there are other things youll want to look for. Check the car for any codes using VAG-COM(dead sensors, leaks etc), Oil & coolant leaks, check the motor mounts, tie rods & controll arms (complete upgrade kit less than $500), boots on the drive shafts, anything that looks suspicious really because its better to do the labor once that 2 or 3 times and you want everything right before new turbos.

As far as what to do EXTRA while your in there thats up to you. THe same turbo-back exhaust and intercoolers can be used with K03's and k04's so whatever you pickout for your stage 3 setup will work. YOu could also just gut the downpipes and get a cat-back if you wanted to save some money.

YOu should know that if your trying to access the downpipes, replace the t-belt, and do other stuff at the same time the easiest way is to pull the motor because it makes everyhting easily accessible. This means your going to have to pull the motor AGAIN to replace the turbos. As long as you understand that and still want to do it this way.

When it is time to go stage 3 the k04 turbos and inlets are about $2700 alone, or you can buy them with a tune and fuel stuff. If you allready have downpipes and intercoolers that would put you at full stage 3.

The motor in the s4 is pretty robust, the first "weak link" is connecting rods but they usually last at least to 500HP/tq so with k04's you dont really have to worry. The manual trandmission is allready a little flakey, the tolerances in the 01E transmission are a little too tight so after a little damage you might lose 1st,2nd, 3rd, R, or completely lock up your gear box. the JHM rebuild kit for about $1200 will fix this with better designed higher stregnth parts. Stasis also does rebuilds for alot of money lol... If its an automatic you should be fine, might need a new torque converter down the road.

While we try to help as much as we can here, Audizine and Audiworld both have much higher traffic, especially in the s4 forums, and tend to have more information. Theres alot of good resources out there and im pretty sure theres some good links in the FAQ's on here and AZ