Matt Danger's B5 S4 Owner Log

I went down to Empire Raceway tonight with my buddy Brendan and his MK3 GTI with a cammed VR6. I spent all night messing around with different launching techniques, tire pressures, and shift points but I couldn’t get anything solid. My best time was a 12.4 @ 116 mph, with a 1.8 something 60 foot. I kept hitting the 1st gear rev limiter. It was frustrating. I dropped my tire pressure to 25 psi all around right before my last run and it seemed to help me get a decent launch. I’ve ordered a WOTBox and hopefully it will help me get the launches even lower.

I met up with my friend Paul, another VAST customer, and used his flashing cable to load the first revision for my tune. I had sent VAST my logs a few weeks ago and today the changes were made available for me to load. Really wasn’t much of a difference, but the timing and fueling is a little bit smoother.

I ordered Evolution Raceworks side mount intercoolers yesterday. I was divided between those or a front mount. FMIC kits are cheaper and have yielded better results, but I didn’t want to deal with cutting everything up to mount it and then not have things fit well and deal with more boost leaks.

I am currently running RS4 intercoolers and further cooling the charge with water/meth. The IATs hover about 20* over ambient and I know they can be lower.

Conveniently, my friend Brad with a K04′d S4 just had ERs installed along with a fueling kit and tune for e85. Last week we met up and ran some logs.

Here’s a plot of the two setups:

I talked to someone in Canada with the same Vast 93+meth tune, but with ERs. He said his IATs hover around ambient, so I’m hoping that’s where I end up.

For kicks, here’s a plot of 4 setups. Brad’s stock SMIC car on K04s, my stage2+ car on just RS4 SMICs, my current RS4+meth setup and Brad’s current ER setup. Soon I’ll add a ER+meth plot

I’ve been wanting to install some height adjustable coilovers ever since I bought the car. I went back and forth on what to buy. For a while I wanted a set of Vogtland GTs because of the good reviews they were receiving. Unfortunately, it seems that their quality control has taken a dive and many owners are complaining of low speed clunking coming from the rear. So then I thought I might purchase a set of Konis, but I worried they would be too soft.

I was exhausted with the research and the idea of spending over $1000 for something that I might not be happy with. So I went the opposite route and bought one of the lowest priced coilvers on the market: Vmaxx.

I picked the Vmaxx setup because of the price and because Strat, the US distributor, is right down the street in Victor and I wouldn’t have to pay shipping costs. The guys at Strat were very nice and answered all my questions. Their kitchen is nicer than the one in my apartment…

This weekend I installed them. I didn’t attempt to remove the front upright pinch bolt. Instead, I disconnected the shock at the tower and at the lower control arm. I then disconnected the front sway bar and lowered it, so I could push the upright downwards and lift the shock over and out the front. I used a floor jack to compress the shock for a little more clearance. This whole process went pretty quickly, with the exception of a stripped sway bar bolt.

Removing the rears were more difficult because several bolts were corroded. My weak Craftsman impact wouldn’t budge them, so I had to use a long breaker bar. This took forever. After the old coilover and housing came out I had problems getting the new shock up into the housing. The mount was slightly larger than the housing so I had to break out the grinder and trim it. I then used a punch to line up the shock mount holes in the housing.

This was when I first set the height.

The front was too close so I raised all 4 corners up 1/2″. I still need to dial in the height, maybe sometime this week, and probably roll the fenders a little. When turning, the driver side tire occasionally rubs the liner.

My old setup was a Bilstein shock/spring combo. They had almost 100k on them and one of the rear shocks were blown so the old ride quality was poor. My initial impressions of the ride quality with the Vmaxx are good. I think they’re a little software than I’d like. I would not say they’re bouncy. I’m sure they’re no match to a more expensive setup but for me they’re fine.