Following some of the suggestions found on the following thread, I decided to modify my existing stock exhaust to allow it to sing a better tune. 

https://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php/406948-Exhaust-Mod-Resonator-replaced-w-X-Pipe-(video)

So, I had a Magnaflow 11385 installed where the baby resonators are located, and straight piping where the mid muffler.

And here is a drive by, drive away, inside, and some reving all in one:

​As for my initial thoughts, it is near stock like quiet when cruising at 60 mph, no drone at all. Once you open it up it has a prrr like sound very familiar to a VR6 or VW R32 with out the the lower tones. The best part, if you drive it gently, it really is not much louder than stock. Not to mention from the outside, it still looks 100% stock.

In typical Audi fashion, it didn't take long for my first problem to come up. I noticed on our weekly trip to Costco that the A/C wasn't kicking on. I'm so glad I got the OBDEleven scanner as I was able to find out the problem while waiting in the Costco gas line. If you don't have a OBDEleven, it is so worth it. You get everything the VCDS (VagCom) has, but in a easy format. 

The faults I got were 00457 & 00256:

The part I needed was an A/C Pressure Switch (Part Number: ​4H0959126B)

• https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/audi-vw-ac-pressure-switch-4h0959126a
• https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-volkswagen-audi-parts/a-c-pressure-switch/4h0959126b/

The install was super easy. Just remove the black plastic tray that sits over the top of the radiator and A/C condenser. This is the same tray/cover that is in between both headlights in the engine bay.  Next, look down just behind the front grill on the driver side and you should see this:

You do need a 24mm wrench or super deep socket. Simply remove it counter clock wise. If you are using a socket you will need to unplug the electrical connector. Once it is nearly off you should here a small "phsss" for a second. That is just a small amount of refrigerant coming out, but it is ok. Now if you hear a ton coming out more than a few seconds, well, you just lost your refrigerant and you got another valve that needs to be replaced (sorry).

At this point, just go in reverse order and install the new switch. Done. Enjoy have working A/C!

I will never understand the reasoning behind this. I know in MMI you can electronically see the level of the oil, but how can I judge the life of the oil without seeing it? Very very odd! Why Audi?

Anyway, I found the part number for the correct sized dipstick (06E-115-611H) and a quick search on Amazon and i found the following: 

• http://a.co/d/aafbA8b

I got this in the mail today and I happy to announce this was the easiest modification I've ever done... Who knew adding a oil dipstick would ever be consider a modification until now. 

As I had no idea when they were last replaced I figure it would be a good time. As well after chatting with EPL after everything was flashed it was recommended to replace the spark plugs. I went with the NGK PFR8S8EG gapped to 0.026" per their recommendation.

The install was very similar to my previous B5 S4. I had to move the coolant reservoir and stock air box out of the way to get to the coils, but wow are the coils a pain in the butt to pry out. I thought for sure I was going to break them trying to get them out. With the old plugs out they actually weren't in too bad of shape, but as I was already here I replaced them anyway.

​Nothing too exciting with this post, but it is one less item to replace.

Honestly, I'm not sure why so many people are a fan of this filter, but as it is a little cheaper than a K&N filter (at the time), I figure I would give it a try. Installation went smooth, but I don't really feel a difference. It certainly makes the supercharger even louder. So I'm happy with that. 

Amazon will say this filter doesn't fit, but it does. Below is the link:
http://a.co/d/agNoW5I

Stage 1 EPL engine tune and DSG tune has been successfully flashed today. EPL has awesome services, so I highly recommend them. The DSG feel so much snappier, as for the engine tune, the S4 is still going through the adaption phase so I'm not going to judge just get. As well EPL suggested I get some new plugs so I got those on order.

Next, I got my ECS Tuning Carbon Fiber Intake boot/pipe installed. This is connected to to my ported air box so it is not a true open air intake. I love the look of that carbon fiber in the engine bay. I had my daughter record this video so I apologize for the shake, I scared her a few times while revving it. From within the cabin the the supercharge whine is noticeable, but not over the top. I've heard that any new intake takes a few weeks for the sound to get louder so we will see how loud it gets.

If there is anything I am really missing right now is my exhaust from my old B5 S4. I don't think it was the best sounding exhaust, but it was way better than stock. Loud enough to hear the car, but no drone, and did not annoy the neighbors.

This B8 S4 is stupid quiet and it takes the fun out of switching it in manual mode as you can't tell when to shift unless you are watching the RPM's. So... I know the AWE Touring kit is highly recommended, but good lord, $2k is pricey. Should I save up or go custom? Comment and let me know.

It is disappointing how much Audi muffled the supercharger.... so, a ECS Carbon Fiber intake boot is on the way to fix that problem. I've already ported the air box. I can't feel any difference, nor do I hear one, but we will see.

Next, EPL (European Performance Labs) was kind enough to extend their "Back to School" sale for me and I have a Stage 1 and TCU (aka DSG) tune in the mail. I'm super excited to feel the difference.

​More updates coming this weekend!
​

From my 97 VW Jetta VR6, to 2001 B5 S4, and now to my 2013 B8 S4 the first thing I do is always port out my stock air box. It seem like all newer cars the air box gets bigger but the intake to allow the air into the box gets smaller. In any case I cut out about 3-4 square inches of the box on the back passenger side of the box. Also on the front side I added about 20 or so 1/4 inch wide holes. While I was in here I check the air filter but it looks like the dealer I bought it from installed as new one as it was extremely clean. 

Any difference in power? No not really, but I was mainly doing this to increase the sound of the super charger as this was recommend. I can hear the super charger ever so slightly now, I still need to get a new intake boot to really increase the the sound.

Just got it today.... more pics and details to come...

Well my B5 S4 was sold tonight, so the search for a b8.5 S4 is in full swing. Time to put on my negotiator hat.

Well, I'm ready for a upgrade and have my heart set on a b8.5 S4, and since I only have a two car garage and my wife won't park outside... the B5 S4 is going up for sale. 

You can find my post on Craigslist here:
https://seattle.craigslist.org/est/cto/d/2001-audi-s4-stage-1/6685411661.html

I'm in no rush to sell, but if you are interested let me know. 

Well the time has come for me to look for something a little newer. I love my B5 S4 but it is not the best for commuting. So yes, I'm sadly looking for an automatic. Seattle traffic simply sucks, and I'm getting too old and lazy to deal with it. And to top it off I did test drive a B8.5 S4 and that 7 speed DSG, all I can say is wow! So smooth!

So I got approved for a loan with my local credit union, but man I am having a heck of a time finding any good B8.5  S4 (2013-2015) in the state of Washington. The only one I found was good and at the time I thought at a good price, but the seller tried to say it had a clean record when it was actually a total loss from TX. Thank you Carfax for the save! 

Anyway, if you know of anyone selling a B8.5 S4 please comment below. I'm on a budget and I'm still not sure what I will do with my B5, but you all know I will baby the B8.5 and treat it with only the best care. Thanks all!

If you don't follow this Youtube channel, I highly recommend it for all you car enthusiast. 

Well the carbon fiber trim wrap is done! Took me about 3-4hrs total to do everything, but I was taking my time trying to clean/prep all trim surface as best I could.

I did cheat a little on this as I didn't remove all of the door or dash trim. I did remove the ash tray, shifter boot, and the trim around the cup holder / hazardswitch, as those corners we very visible, plus I just wanted to do a really good job to prep them. As for everything else, I just thoroughly cleaned the trim with rubbing alcohol, applied the film using my Amazon Vinyl installation kit (link), and finished with a little heat and a tracing cut around the each of the trim. I'm actually surprised how easy this really is. The trick I found was that you don't want to heat the film too much, but just enough where it adds a little flexibility when pressing out the air bubbles. When you are dealing with corners, add more heat, and stretch the film around, but hold it until the film cools so it hold the shape.

I do think this really refreshed the look of my interior. There is some orange peel effect on the film if you look closely. I'm guess that is likely because I used super cheap film, but I'm still proud of my work. The real test is how this will hold up 90+ degree heat.... we get maybe a week or two of that here around the Seattle, but we will see.

Products Used:
Carbon Fiber Vinyl Wrap: https://www.wish.com/product/5a0fa38523b4151774024fd7
Installation Kit: http://a.co/dqdVQPs

For anyone on the fence on doing a project like this, just do it. It is actually fun and super easy. Just clean the trim surface as best you can and I think you will get good results.

You all might laugh at this, but I just discovered wish.com. I thought I could get lot on Amazon, but holy crap this site is crazy. That said, I ordered some gloss carbon fiber vinyl wrap and the thought was to wrap the fake wood trim in the S4. I've seen a few rolling with the same setup so I figure I give it a try. I've never done any kind of vinyl wrapping so I figured it would be fun to see how it turned out....

Below is my first attempt around the shifter. I'm only not sure about it being super glossy. I have on order some non-glossy carbon fiber wrap on order just in case I change my mind. So what are you thought? Do all the trim or keep it stock?

First off, I bought this tune, with my own $$$, so take note this is not some hidden sponsored blog post. I ordered the Stage 1 tune, and had the software and first revision of the tune within a few days. They do ask for all your modifications so they can prepare the tune as the cable is getting shipped out. You log into their online portal, download their software and download your first tune. With the OBDII cable provided, you connected it to the OBDII port and your PC. Getting the PC and OBDII to connect can be a little fussy some times. If you are a computer nerd such as myself take note that using a USB over serial type connection like this cables can require a reboot of the PC when things to don't work. So for laptop users that just leave their computer in standby mode, reboot and then connect everything to reduce connection errors. That said, you first "Read the ECU" to save a copy of your current ECU setup. As I didn't know what I was running, I really didn't care about that, but did it anyway. After that, to Write to the ECU you locate your tune file that your previously download and get ready to write. You will get warning that it is best to have a charger connected to your battery. I risked it and didn't do that, but I turned off all lights, radio, AC/blower, etc so there was little to no draw. The writing process takes about 5-10 mins from start to finish. Once it was done I disconnected and then connected vcds to do a throttle body adaption. This was not requested by Motoza, but I did it anyway as many forum members recommended it after loading any kind of tune or resetting the ECU. After that I went for a drive for about 20-30 mins to get the S4 nice and warmed up. After it was warm you enable logging via their same software with your laptop and the supplied OBDII cable. They recommend to log for 15+ min to get a good sense of how the car is doing. Do a couple of WOT runs, cruise on the highway, and some city driving. After the logging, you upload the log files to the same online portal. 24-48hrs later they review the logs and provide a new tune revision if one is needed. When I got my second revision, I did the same thing write, log, and report my experience. Currently I'm waiting on my last revision as we are going to bump up the boost a little more. Currently we are peaking at 20psi at WOT so I'm interest to see what this 3rd tune will feel like. They have been very clear that doing this little extra with the boost is likely going to reduce the life of the turbos. If the k03 die, I guess I'm forced to upgrade. Oh darn.

How does this tune feel?
Simply great! I drove from Seattle to Leavenworth, WA and back and had a 27mpg average while doing 65+ mph pull most of the way. My S4 pulls hard for being on KO3... harder than it ever has. Keep in mind that I have APR tune and a MTM tune, all I can say is this Motoza tune is heads and tails better than any of the others. Which is not shocking as must S4 owners will say custom tunes are always going to be better than "tune templates" like what is offer by GIAC or APR. The simply fact that is custom to my setup is really bring my S4 back to life. 

Whats Next?
Well Motoza offers a Stage 1+ upgrade, but it requires using 550 CC injectors, but the tune itself is only $40 upgrade. I could do a E85 tune if I wanted, but there is little to no E85 stations around the Seattle area.  So I'm out of luck with that. I think I'll get the 550 CC injectors later this summer and do the Stage 1+ upgrade. This should pump out another 20-40 more HP and 10-20 ft-lb of torque. Nothing huge, but it does prepare me for future K04 or other hybrid turbos. 

In Summary, if you looking for a new tune, or maybe you were in my boat and didn't know what tune you were running, I can't recommend enough about Motoza Performance. The tune is impressive and the service and support and honestly the best I've ever experienced ever in my life. And best yet the price is hard to beat. 

Link: ​http://motozaperformance.com/product-category/software/audi/audi-s4/b5-2-7t/
Price: $349 (as of June 2018)

I am so glad I was able to make it this year. We had 6 cars show up for our pre-meet include a Audi R8 and everyone was just really cool. If you never have gone, I highly recommend it no matter what shape you car is in.

Below is a little video I made just so you can get a feel of what it was like this year. Enjoy!

Man I feel like someone higher up really didn't want me to install this M3 lip on my S4. So if you saw my previous post, the first paint attempt fail at the end. Color didn't match and some bubbling occurred.

I sanded it all down and tried again, but pained it black. All look good until I picked up the lip after it was drying and all of the clearcoat started to crack. It hit me after the fact that the humidity was too high and I was not allowing enough time between coats. This is a fail on my part.

Waiting a day I started to sand it down once more. At this point I've almost paid the same amount in sand paper as I have in the lip itself ($30). This project was failing fast. After hours of sanding I put the lip on the trunk of my car just to keep it off the ground. Next day I leave for work planning on coming home during lunch to prime it and start the process again. I get home for lunch and I can't find my lip. So I pull up my home security cameras and see where things went wrong.... like an idiot I drove off with the lip just laying on the on my trunk. I drive the same route back to work to see if I can find it but no luck. At this point I consider that lip is lost so I go back on to eBay and buy a new painted lip. The painted lip was $20 more and I'm kicking myself for not going that route from the start. Literally hours later my wife calls and tell me she found the original lip.  REALLY?!?

I figure if the new lip doesn't show on Wednesday (today) I would start the painting process again on the old lip as I really wanted the lip installed before the Leavenworth Drive. I get the notice on my phone it was delivered but per my security camera nothing was there. Immediately I start fearing someone took it and start going back in my security cam history, but I can't find any record it was delivered. No FedEx truck no nothing. My sanity is start to hit a real low point now. Try to keep things in check I contact FedEx and they reach out to the driver. The driver thought he delivered it to a different unit in my townhouse complex. Apparently knocking on her door scared her so much she came down yelling at us. Both my wife and I finally get out of her that she did not get a package so we start heading home. I check my phone and see another voicemail from FedEx saying they know where it is. Apparently the eBay Seller fat-fingered my address and the FedEx driver just guessed and delivered it to some random home that didn't even have the same matching house number. I go to the house and knock on the door just in case someone was there as I could see the package was on the front. No one answered so I took it home praying this lip was ok and more importantly painted. 

Back at home, I open the box and luckily it looks perfect. Thank god! I prep the trunk and clean it all down and start measuring my halfway points to get this lip all aligned and ready to be installed. It took a me a few attempts but in the end it came out good. FINALLY!!!! This M3 lip spoiler project has been a pain in the a$$, way over budget, but it is done. Up next is a good wash and wax for for the Leavenworth Drive... 

Not a lot of pre-meet activity going on in regards to the Leavenworth drive on Saturday June 16th so I figure I try to organize a pre-meet for those that don’t want to be up super early or want to avoid the traffic we cause. 

Meet Time: 10:30am
Roll Out Time: 11:30am
Place: 60 acres fields in Redmond WA 
It’s the southeast parking lot. It’s the biggest paved parking lot if anyone gets confused. 100+ parking spot
Google Maps Link: https://goo.gl/maps/HDjVUprJp242

Official Leavenworth Drive Details: https://www.facebook.com/events/2057124151231347/ (take the time and read this over)

Other Details: If you can make it, please post so we have a good figure of how many are joining. I'm hoping we can get a group of 10-15+ cars but it would be awesome to see way more. This meeting spot is technically a King County park, so lets be kind to it as best we can. Aka no burnouts or excessive noise please.  I know this starting point is going to be hard for us to stay as a group so if you get separated I'm sorry in advance... not a lot we can do. 

During the meet we can figure out which route to take to get to HW-2

• Option #1: Head towards Kirkland (Totem Lake) area and jump on 405 to 522, and take the Monroe exit to HW-2 
• Option #2: Get on HW-202 (Redmond-Woodinville Rd) to 522 in Woodinvile and take the Monroe exit to HW-2

I'll be driving a B5 Audi S4 (blue, lowered on stock rims) and will try to get there a few mins before our meet time. I might bring my drone, so if anyone wants some cruising shots of their car during the pre-meet, feel free to find me. Again post if you are joining!