# TTRS going stage 2 - advice...?!



## TondyRSuzuka (Dec 3, 2011)

So currently running stage 1 APR.

I am only testing the waters here, would like to know cost involved. Although I'm far from convinced at this stage that the gains are value for money. So here goes:

Having had a remap only a month ago, APR Stage 1 at Awesome GTI will I have to pay to upgrade to stage 2 and if so is it full price?

Cost of gutting the precat?

Cost of inter cooler?

Anything else recommended for full stage 2 and cost involved? Likely power output after? 
Anyone running APR Stage 2?


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## billyali86 (Jul 26, 2011)

For a stage 2 your looking at downpipe and intercooler ( you already have sport exhaust?) I have cat bypass pipes, intercooler going on in the next couple of weeks. Have apr stage one. I wouldn't say my car is quite a stage 2 but not far off. I would probs imagine a figure of between 420 - 430. Not much gains, the torque would be more telling though. I think you would probs just get charged for upgrading the map to stage 2. Wouldn't be that much I would think

Forge intercooler is around £700-800


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

Already had enough of the stage1? lol


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## TondyRSuzuka (Dec 3, 2011)

Patrizio72 said:


> Already had enough of the stage1? lol


No not at all, just wondering what lies beyond stage 1. So I mean what can be done to improve performance short of weight shedding?


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## LEO-RS (Apr 13, 2009)

It's an age old question and has caused many handbag fights in the past :lol: Is Stage 2 worth it over Stage 1? In the traditional sense, with the costs below, No, most probably it isn't.

Exhaust System - £1750 (Milltek race fitted)
Intercooler - £1200 (Forge race fitted)
Intake - £500 (ITG)
Remap - £650-£850 (Revo/MRC/APR)

So there is around £4200 worth of mods from standard to get to a full stage 2. Real world figures and not inflated dynojet figures will show around 430-435bhp/450lbft for a full Stage 2. A Stage 1 tune will give around 410bhp/430-450lbft and will save you £3500 on the above setup.

Real world difference, probably somewhere in the region of 0.5-0.8secs in a 0-100 dash. On the road, a car length or 2. On the dragstrip, typically a tenth of a second 2/10 on a good day and at the very maximum 3/10 tenths.

A lot of money for little gain. So far, so good :lol:

Is an aftermarket intercooler needed for S2?
Is an aftermarket exhaust needed for S2?
Is an aftermarket intake needed for S2?

Answer to all is no, I never had any of the above, mines was standard from a hardware point of view.

I bought a 2nd hand OEM downpipe off TTS for £250, knocked the cat out myself, 5-10 min job. All you need is a drill and a hole cutter attachment. Drill into the cat all the way through, make the hole larger and larger and the material then falls in on itself. You dont need to be a DIY expert, drill and 5 minutes, jobs a good un. Labour charge for fitting, typically 3-4hrs at a garage as its a ballache to fit. For me, I was charged £30+VAT x 3hrs, cheap labour up here  Once fitted, you will be presented with an engine warning light due to the 2nd lambda and the only way to get rid is with a Stage 2 tune. They map this out for you. On top of the decatted downpipe, Milltek bypass pipes are around £200 and panel filter around £50. Perhaps worth 5bhp for the pair.

Cost to go from S1 to S2, who knows, I wasn't charged anything other than a couple of hours on the dyno but expect to pay 50% of a S1 tune with some other tuners for the upgrade. Best asking your tuner though. Stage 2 is not a generic file, they will tweak the S1 generic file to suit your mods hence why they may charge a premium.

What does S2 feel like over S1 then? Well with removal of the primary cat, first thing you'll notice is a little more noise, you'll notice turbo spool a little quicker, you'll notice a greater whack in the back coming on boost and you'll notice it more eager 5000-6500. What do the tuners do? Well they may dial in a little more boost, lean out the mixture and add a little more timing. EGT's should drop a little from removal of the cat so they have a little more to play with here.

This is all you really need for ''Stage 2''

Intercooler? Another can of worms, sure, the aftermarket solutions are better than stock, but are they needed? I never had one and my times werent too shabby. For the last 6 months, temperatures have been between -10c and +10c, it's still freezing now in the middle of April. I would say for 9-10months of the year, an intercooler is NOT required. For the 2-3months around June-August, during the day, with a heavy right foot, you will notice a performance drop. These cars perform very well <15c but start to suffer the warmer and warmer it gets. I controlled this with more one off blasts in the summer months, for the first full right foot attack, the intercooler is fine, for repeated attempts, it heatsoaks. At the drag strip, I would generally do 4-5 back to backs and then off for an hour, bonnet open to cool down. You can combat this with upping the octane though, add in a bottle of octane booster and you will see no drop off in performance even during the summer months. It almost works like an uprated intercooler, £15 a bottle.

Intake, I never tried, way too expensive for what I seen anyway, no evidence of improvement.

So there are ways around not spending thousands and still extracting excellent performance out of it, just need to compromise. For me, I was fed up of wasting money on car mods so on my 2nd RS tried it the cheap way and it worked out well for me.

Just counted out how much I actually spent on my car...

£400...MRC Stage 1 remap (Was development car so received discount)
£100... MRC Stage 2 remap (dyno time)
£250... OEM downpipe
£175...Milltek Bypass Pipes
£40...Panel filter

Recouped my downpipe cost, sold that for the same £250 I bought it for yesterday. I'll recoup £100 of the £175 for the bypass pipes (Still for sale) Recouped £25 for the £40 panel filter.

TTRS ownership has therefore cost me less than £600 in modifcations and I was running 11.3 1/4m and 3sec 60's so evidence that it can be done cheap. If money was no concern though, yeah sure, I would have liked a full stage 2 car to see what the fuss was about, but as I'm a cheapskate stingy Jock, for me, the above was good for me. Been burnt way too many times with spending a fortune on car mods only to get hee haw back come sale time. Spent about £10K on mods to an old Impreza of mine and then another £12k on mods on a Leon Cupra R and only really realised come sale time that I should have just bought quicker cars to begin with :lol:

In summary, you'll definitely run quicker Stage 2. The above is only my opinion, I never had experience with aftermarket intercoolers on this car, did have a full Milltek TBE on my manual RS though and would say my experience on the exhaust side was accurate. Take from that what you will, yep, another novel post, but some good info in there.


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

End of topic, it's all written in the above lol


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## jaybyme (Mar 10, 2010)

If you live in the UK,is it really worth tuning a 350 hp car anyway for the road ??  
The only real benefits gained in everyday driving will be torque.
After saying that,I'm sure if I were back in the UK, I would still tune my cars


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

It's an addictive thing, I found myself initially thinking just a simple stage 1 and then before I knew it I was going all out for stage 2 and now enquiring what costs for stage 3 are! in reality I probably won't go for stage 3 but at the time of purchasing the car and getting a good price it left me some change for the stage 2


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## beepcake (May 17, 2002)

Unless it's different for the RS (which it may be), the upgrade through the stages on APR is free. The hardware isn't though :lol:

If I bite the bullet and get my non-RS mapped I'll probably end up with Stage II+ - marginal high end gains, but seems to give nice boosts to the mid-range.


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## jaybyme (Mar 10, 2010)

I have all the parts for stage 2 fitted,would I enjoy stage 1 less,I'm not so sure.
Like you say it's addictive and you always want more.
I brought the car,with the aim of having 420ps and 600nm,if the car has that,I'm happy,stage 1 or 2


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## neilc (Aug 8, 2011)

Like others have said though , on the road would you really notice a difference :? I don't think so in reality.

It will be very interesting how we all get on at the 30-130 day in August. The proof of the pudding is in the eating as they say.


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## RobHardy (Feb 25, 2012)

Much more value in stage 1 for sure, guess some of the enjoyment of modding (at financial loss) is going that bit further.


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

Changing some of the mechanical components in a car is far more exciting than just changing the software, at a price of course. Titanium Scorpion exhaust system and new Loba turbo next for me... :lol:


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## brittan (May 18, 2007)

RobHardy said:


> Much more value in stage 1 for sure,


Which is exactly why I have only a very simple remap, and a couple of other mods. The car makes a better noise than standard and is a little faster but that still has the potential to get me into trouble.

I've done lots of hardware updates on other vehicles/engines when I did off road racing; now I prefer to drive the car to interesting places.


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

Stage 2 is not cheap that's for sure, I was fortunate to get a great deal on the exhaust and intercooler which was the bulk of the cost.


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## TondyRSuzuka (Dec 3, 2011)

I think I'll remain over the moon with stage 1 and wait for APR stage 3 hahahaha :lol:

Ive just spent what spare money I have on a GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition for an upcoming track day and diving holiday. Carbon wing mirrors at the end of this month, and eventually some 18"s and track & winter tyres.

These are the mods I think I'll stick to.

Thanks all for your comments however 8)


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## beepcake (May 17, 2002)

Patrizio72 said:


> Stage 2 is not cheap that's for sure, I was fortunate to get a great deal on the exhaust and intercooler which was the bulk of the cost.


I'm just imagining some dodgy geezer down the pub.. "Awight mate.. want any ****? dvds? Turboback exhaust and 3" downpipe?"


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

Haha lets just say I was at the right place at the right time


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## Alexjh (Oct 10, 2012)

Patrizio72 said:


> Haha lets just say I was at the right place at the right time


Leeds or Manchester? lol


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

Lol, Liverpool actually! haha


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## jaybyme (Mar 10, 2010)

I've been driving a tuned RS since Monday now.I must say I forgot what the difference was like,just hope I have no problems this time.


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## TondyRSuzuka (Dec 3, 2011)

A brief update and maybe some advice if possible.

I have acquired a Forge Intercooler from JonnyC which I will fit asap to my Stage 1 APR. Now Jonny seems to think a stage 2 remap would be fine without a pre cat removal/downpipe/sportscat. So I spoke with Awesome at the weekend and was told a free upgrade to stage 2 was fine. Rang today and spoke with John who says that the remap wouldnt run correctly without doing something to the precat.

It sounds like around £1000 to play about with this part, then theres MOT implications etc. Unless you get a sports cat but there dont seem to be any that mate with the Audi stock Sports Exhaust. Not without paying crazy money anyway.

Does anyone have any suggestions of getting around this without huge cost, or simply wait for someone to sell the part im after?

Cheers


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## jamiekip (Nov 12, 2006)

Get a decatted oem down pipe and pop your secondary cats back in. If memory serves me they're effectively 100cel 'sports' cats anyway. Fully legal and stage 2.
Or just pop them in for mot's


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## TondyRSuzuka (Dec 3, 2011)

jamiekip said:


> Get a decatted oem down pipe and pop your secondary cats back in. If memory serves me they're effectively 100cel 'sports' cats anyway. Fully legal and stage 2.
> Or just pop them in for mot's


Where best to source, and what kind of price am I look at? Plus time and cost to fit?

@JamieKip - Off to see DaveB about brakes on wednesday. Next months bank balance has your name written all over it! :lol:


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## davectr (Sep 9, 2012)

jamiekip said:


> Get a decatted oem down pipe and pop your secondary cats back in. If memory serves me they're effectively 100cel 'sports' cats anyway. Fully legal and stage 2.
> Or just pop them in for mot's


Is this definitely correct? Its just i asked the question recently if i could do exactly this and was told it would fail its MOT. I'm waiting til after the MOT to replace the down pipe just in case


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## jamiekip (Nov 12, 2006)

davectr said:


> jamiekip said:
> 
> 
> > Get a decatted oem down pipe and pop your secondary cats back in. If memory serves me they're effectively 100cel 'sports' cats anyway. Fully legal and stage 2.
> ...


It'll pass. I run the milltek race with sports cat and it breezed through


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## jamiekip (Nov 12, 2006)

TondyTT said:


> jamiekip said:
> 
> 
> > Get a decatted oem down pipe and pop your secondary cats back in. If memory serves me they're effectively 100cel 'sports' cats anyway. Fully legal and stage 2.
> ...


What did Mitchy do with his old one? Didn't his car go back to standard?

Oh and good stuff with DaveB... Maybe you should try a different colour to Suzuka though lol


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## TondyRSuzuka (Dec 3, 2011)

jamiekip said:


> TondyTT said:
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> 
> > jamiekip said:
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Haha sorry, but convinced its a good match. Theyll wonder whos car is in at Harrogate soon... Wont be doing the rears as you have it though, will likely leave stock for now. Dave blew my mind with all the options so best to go down and talk it over.

Mitchy sold it to someone I believe. But if you hear of anything you know where I am  it looks like I'll be slowly building a stage 2 car.

Out of interest how do you find the intercooler? Noticeable effect? or did you have everything done at once?


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## TondyRSuzuka (Dec 3, 2011)

Found this, might be a consideration

http://www.034motorsport.com/engine...-flow-downpipe-audi-ttrs-25-tfsi-p-22896.html


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## davectr (Sep 9, 2012)

jamiekip said:


> davectr said:
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> 
> > jamiekip said:
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That's good news, I was worried about having to replace the down pipe every year for the MOT. Cheers bud


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## TootRS (Apr 21, 2009)

Secondary cats only will not pass MOT.


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## LEO-RS (Apr 13, 2009)

I sold my downpipe last week mate for £250 (Same price I paid TTS for theirs)

The actual process of decatting is a 5min job with a drill and a hole cutter attachment. You dont need to be any good at DIY, just drill the cat material through with the hole cutter and it will eventually all fill in on itself. Then fit this downpipe to the car (3-4hr labour charge)

Cost of around £250 for the downpipe + 3-4 hrs labour = total spend of around £400-500 (Then you have a spare downpipe which you can recoup money on come sale time)

You need the cat out for stage 2 mate, adding an intercooler only to S1 would be pretty pointless in my eyes, dont fall for the marketing BS of 10-15hp gains from Forge, there have been many tests carried out by TTRS owners and the forge unit you talk of (Street I think its called) only works better when the OEM cooler is completely heatsoaked (So practically never out on the road but more than likely in a dyno cell) In other words you need rid of the power sapping cat first in advance of adding a cooler. As you have said though, I dont think any tuner will touch a car with OEM pre cat in place and S2 tune it with just a cooler, but may be wrong.

As to MOT, my thoughts echo Jamie's, I would assume the 2nd cats would be enough to pass an MOT, but haven't read anything to confirm/deny if this is the case.


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## LEO-RS (Apr 13, 2009)

TootRS said:


> Secondary cats only will not pass MOT.


I think the primary is 400 cell and the secondary 800 cell? Sports cat from say Milltek replaces the 400 cell cat with a 200/100 cell and eliminates the 800 cell 2nd cats?

But if there has been someone that has verified this then interesting to know


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## TootRS (Apr 21, 2009)

Mitchy said:


> TootRS said:
> 
> 
> > Secondary cats only will not pass MOT.
> ...


Pretty sure 996cab tried it and failed on emissions.

Think there's a reason the primary is so close to the turbo outlet to increase it's effectiveness.


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## jamiekip (Nov 12, 2006)

TootRS said:


> Mitchy said:
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> > TootRS said:
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I dont believe that as the cat on my Milltek isn't near the turbo outlet. 
Wasn't William fully decatted?


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## TootRS (Apr 21, 2009)

On the factory exhaust I think that's the case, could be wrong.

No I remember reading a post where William said he tried a few options, one of which was primary cat delete with secondary in place and it failed.


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## beepcake (May 17, 2002)

I always thought the primary cat did most of the work when the car was cold because it gets up to temperature quicker; so unless you get it to the MOT station hot, and they test the emissions straight away, it's going to fail - unless they stick the sensor up someone else's exhaust pipe "by accident" of course :wink:


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## LEO-RS (Apr 13, 2009)

Would be interesting to know I suppose.

Tondy, if you can't find a spare downpipe, I'm sure the guys at Awesome will decat your existing OEM downpipe for you and refit. This will then buy you time to scour around for another OEM downpipe (If it is indeed required for MOT) They are pretty rare 2nd hand buys but they do come up on ebay and the forums from time to time.

Awesome shouldn't charge any more than 4-5hrs to do this for you. (Pretty sure their labour charges are reasonable at around £65 an hour)


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

I also run a milltek race fully decat like jamiekip, the cat is kept at the workshop and put back in before MOT which they said doesn't take long for them to swap in and out, when they service the car prior to MOT it will go back in then.


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

I have a full OEM exhaust system like new that's only done 400 miles in my garage


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## jamiekip (Nov 12, 2006)

Patrizio72 said:


> I also run a milltek race fully decat like jamiekip, the cat is kept at the workshop and put back in before MOT which they said doesn't take long for them to swap in and out, when they service the car prior to MOT it will go back in then.


I'm not decatted - I run the sports CAT


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

Ohh so you're a sensible one then hehe


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## TondyRSuzuka (Dec 3, 2011)

You guys are up far too early!

To save all the fekking about, surely this is the best option then?

http://www.034motorsport.com/engine...-flow-downpipe-audi-ttrs-25-tfsi-p-22896.html

Then if it passes emissions, or certainly with secondarys back on then I can sell my OEM downpipe and recoup the cost right? What would a stock OEM downpipe fetch with some lovely RS people?


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## TondyRSuzuka (Dec 3, 2011)

TootRS said:


> Secondary cats only will not pass MOT.


With the smell your car makes at the moment being totally decatted, absolutely no chance of passing an MOT :lol:

Not that thats a concern for a few years


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

I love the decat smell! its addictive and reminds me of burnt racetrack fuel, I get high going in reverse with the roof down :lol:


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

TondyTT said:


> What would a stock OEM downpipe fetch with some lovely RS people?


Wouldn't mind knowing this myself


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## beepcake (May 17, 2002)

Patrizio72 said:


> I love the decat smell! its addictive and reminds me of burnt racetrack fuel, I get high going in reverse with the roof down :lol:


Now we know why you've never had time to do the Fabsil


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

beepcake said:


> Patrizio72 said:
> 
> 
> > I love the decat smell! its addictive and reminds me of burnt racetrack fuel, I get high going in reverse with the roof down :lol:
> ...


LMAO


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

beepcake said:


> Patrizio72 said:
> 
> 
> > I love the decat smell! its addictive and reminds me of burnt racetrack fuel, I get high going in reverse with the roof down :lol:
> ...


Need to make the most of these sensory pleasures, they will all be gone once cars all become electric, no sound no smell no need to change gear or steer! :x


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## LEO-RS (Apr 13, 2009)

TondyTT said:


> You guys are up far too early!
> 
> To save all the fekking about, surely this is the best option then?
> 
> ...


Makes the most sense I suppose but the costs are soon running away.

£625 delivery cost to UK
£175 VAT & Import duty
4hrs labour at £65 an hour

Total cost £1060 to change out the downpipe.

Then add £200 milltek 2nd bypass pipes to the above and its not a million miles away from the full milltek race decat system.I'd imagine you'll get around £250 back for your downpipe which softens the blow I suppose. Your £££ your choice, looks like a nice bit of kit, not sure if anyone else in UK is running one or whether there may be fitment issues. (LHD vs RHD may be positioned slightly differently so worth checking that)


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## TondyRSuzuka (Dec 3, 2011)

Mitchy said:


> TondyTT said:
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> 
> > You guys are up far too early!
> ...


Cheers already got secondary decat pipes.

Will look into VAT and import duty, RHD etc...

surely I will get a little more than that with it being complete and not passed around different owners?


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

Wonder how much my whole OEM exhaust system would go for, its like new and just hanging up in the garage


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## LEO-RS (Apr 13, 2009)

TondyTT said:


> Mitchy said:
> 
> 
> > TondyTT said:
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Yeah perhaps, they are expensive new at around £800-£1000 from Audi, guess if someone is really wanting one then they will pay a bit more than the £250 I quoted.

Pat, not really sure who would want a stock exhaust system to be fair (Other than the downpipe)? I would think best bets would be to keep hold of it and come sale time of car, refit the standard exhaust and flog your Milltek?


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## billyali86 (Jul 26, 2011)

£850 + Vat from Audi for new exhaust.

Also interested in going with a downpipe. But I like the way the car sounds at the moment and I fear it could drone


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## TondyRSuzuka (Dec 3, 2011)

billyali86 said:


> £850 + Vat from Audi for new exhaust.
> 
> Also interested in going with a downpipe. But I like the way the car sounds at the moment and I fear it could drone


If I get positive feedback on this downpipe ive linked above. Would you be interested and try and get some discount?

If its all good news, then I may ask them for bulk discount and start a Group Buy on here.

Sounds good anyone?


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

jamiekip said:


> Patrizio72 said:
> 
> 
> > I also run a milltek race fully decat like jamiekip, the cat is kept at the workshop and put back in before MOT which they said doesn't take long for them to swap in and out, when they service the car prior to MOT it will go back in then.
> ...


My sports cat in storage til MOT :/


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

billyali86 said:


> £850 + Vat from Audi for new exhaust.
> 
> Also interested in going with a downpipe. But I like the way the car sounds at the moment and I fear it could drone


thanks for that, so realistically my almost new exhaust could fetch around £500?


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## billyali86 (Jul 26, 2011)

TondyTT said:


> billyali86 said:
> 
> 
> > £850 + Vat from Audi for new exhaust.
> ...


In all honesty, I would want to hear how it would sound first. My car already has sports exhaust and cat bypass pipes. Worried about the noise being a bit OTT


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## Patrizio72 (Mar 22, 2011)

billyali86 said:


> TondyTT said:
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> > billyali86 said:
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+1 very true, the audio side of things is always a personal choice, much the same like choosing a colour


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## beepcake (May 17, 2002)

Patrizio72 said:


> +1 very true, the audio side of things is always a personal choice, much the same like choosing a colour


Red. Easy. 8)


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