Audi S3, and 4WD

My sister and her fella have just bough a '15 plate Audi S3 and they brought it round last night to take me round the block in it. I rarely go out in other people's cars and certainly never anyting this fast AND new, so it was a good experience for me. So smooth, so composed and so capable. I was amazed by the performance as well. Instant power everywhere etc.

The first time he nailed it, I thought "oh dear, this feels quicker than mine"

It wasn't until he put his foot down at 50+ that I realised it was only in first and second gears that it felt incredible. Any higher than that and, although still 'making progress', it didn't have anything like the urge of the Coupé. It then occured to me that, despite having driven a car that can keep up with early noughties supercars from a roll for years, I've never experience sub 5 second 0-60 pace. At anything less than national speed limits, my coop is either outside of it's boost threshold or fighting for grip. This S3 just picks up with no drama and barrels off up the road.

Of course it was good to go out in mine after and show them that the old girl still has a few charms, but I can't help but wonder what a 4WD Coupé (with enough power to match mine when rolling) would be like off the line

Yes last Sunday a participated in a hill climb and it was frustrating when on a full on standing start it took a second or two before all hell broke lose.

I have decided that a tuned coupe and mainly second gear hill climbs is fun but just can't be good for the box and spooling flat out.

I'm going try our Clio cup 200 on the next one.

That Audi sounds fun Trappy,what are its stats?

Wait until you come up against an RS3 or a TTRS - they are spectacularly fast up to about 100 and will annihilate most modded Coupes

However, there's an awful lot of computing power being used to allow it to happen and I imagine it all feels a bit "sanitised".

I had a "comparison" with a Merc A45 AMG a while ago and it obliterated me round a roundabout and coming off it (I've realised that Toyo T1Rs are no longer good enough...) That said, up the next length of dual carriageway, the story was very different

@ Magooagain - your Clio will be much more fun than a Coupe on a hillclimb. My Coupe is only about four seconds faster than my old Honda CRX (130bhp) round Curborough (66 seconds v 70-ish)

I only have data for the auto version so I've added a defalt 0.3s to the gear change increments. This gives the following. I'd catch up at 255m from perfect standing start in perfect conditions... He's getting it remapped to 360bhp in the coming weeks...

Audi A3 S3 Manual (2015)
0-30mph: 1.6
0-40mph: 2.7
0-50mph: 3.6
0-60mph: 4.7
0-70mph: 6.3
0-80mph: 7.8
0-90mph: 9.5
0-100mph: 11.7
0-110mph: 14.2
0-120mph: 17.0

Calculated 60ft (18.3m): 2.08s
Calculated 60ft (18.3m): 34.3mph
Calculated 330ft (100.6m): 5.65s
Calculated 330ft (100.6m): 65.9mph
Calculated 1/8 Mile (201.1m): 8.62s
Calculated 1/8 Mile (201.1m): 84.8mph
Calculated 1000ft (301.7m): 11.16s
Calculated 1000ft (301.7m): 97.5mph
Calculated 0-400m: 13.24s
Calculated 0-400m: 106.1mph
Calculated 1/4 Mile (402.3m): 13.29s
Calculated 1/4 Mile (402.3m): 106.3mph

But don't you find cars always feel faster in the passenger seat anyway? When you're driving yourself I think your body is already expecting the shift in momentum, like your brain and neck muscles are primed because they're connected to the foot that's about to stamp on the loud pedal. I always think cars feel faster as a passenger.

....and with absolutely no talent whatsoever required. I test drive one and concluded that I'd be bored with it on the road because it is just way too fast and capable to be used in both a safe AND engaging way. Christ knows what speed you both got up to.

I did say that at the time actually (more to console myself than anything if I'm honest ). There is no doubt that it is quicker than mine at sub 50 speeds though.

The whole "body expecting it" thing is very real however, but I have no idea why! My sister had been telling me that she hates it when her fella boots it in the new car as it makes her feel sick it's so fast. When I was driving mine later, everyone was totally silent when I floored it. Because of this, I mistakenly took it for indifference and 'kept my foot in' hoping for some positive remarks. It felt quite slow to me, especially with three passengers... It wasn't until I spoke to them afterwards that I realised it was probably more terror than anything causing the silence!

It's quite scary really, isn't it. I remember reading about the outrage when Vauxhall / Lotus built the Lotus Carlton back in the day. Apparently it was considered morally irresponsible to build a car for the road that could go that fast and still seat 5 people. My Coupé would chew one of these to bits. There are cars out there that would do the same to that A45 AMG, even from a launch.

At least in the Coupé, you get a very real sense of how ridiculously fast it is! Vibration from the engine, sensation through the suspension and feedback through the steering wheel leaves you in no doubt as to what's going on.

In my old age, I'm now also accutely aware of the NCAP rating this ting would have scored had it been tested...

He probably does and as long as he's not an informer for Plod, I'll be OK....

Suffice to say that the talents of the Merc are definitely concentrated around the launch and going round slow corners quite quickly, with the computing power doing a lot of the work. However, the stats speak for themselves - the Merc has 100bhp less and weighs 100kg more than my Coupe.

The really fun part was that the poor Merc driver (literally - they are over £40k) just wasn't expecting an 18 year old FWD Fiat to show him the way.

The sad fact is that there are very few hot-hatch type cars that are truly engaging, rather than just plain fast. The latest Civic Type R is an exception - all the mags are raving about how accomplished AND driver-focused it is. Problem is, it looks so awful...

Yup - I just struggled to find anything that's engaging and good-looking. The A45, with 380bhp from a 2-litre production engine, ought to be great but I came away uninspired. The Alfa 4C ought to have been great but had terminal understeer. It says something when you buy the least powerful model of a car with limited dynamic capability because you want something that needs a bit of thought to make it go quickly. But it does at least put a smile on my face when I get it right.

My Leon Cupra 290 has the same EA888 engine as the S3 and Golf R.

Standard it didn't feel that fast and you really had to rev the knackers off it to get the best out of it. Being 2WD It's slightly quicker than a Golf R and S3 once rolling.

It's now mapped to approx 360bhp and it pulls much better. I've owned a lot of cars since my Coop so it's hard to compare them standard to standard, but, the Cupra didn't give the same 3rd gear white knuckle ride the Coop did.

Modern day turbo charged cars are more linear in their power delivery. You can't beat the good old skool kick in the back when the car comes on boost.

A new shape TTRS will be my Coupé replacement.

They are fast but do they do a manual box?

With the dynamic pack for the sports exhaust?
Just reading an Evo review and they say the five cylinder sound is very good

I'm not supposed to be ordering anything yet but I've put a spec together and requested a price

Sports Exhaust ticked but not too sure about the speed limit increase and those ceramic brakes at £4000 won't be getting selected.

So it's either This one or This one maybe

I changed from my Coupe to a remapped S3, albeit a much older model, I didn't have it checked but remapped they normally produced 250-260bhp.

It was reasonably quick and very capable as daily car but it lacked any sense of fun and there was no character to it.

My old coupe 16vt felt quicker because of the boost while the S3 was quite linear in its power delivery.

Erm you could buy a very nice Aston for that money Bob!

As you know I did have an Aston dream but I was talked out of it by a friend. His advice was that I should rent one and get it out of my system rather than buy one. This was the advice that he had been given and is why he now has a McLaren. I can't stretch to one of those

I finally found some performance numbers for one of these the other day. It was in from the continent so in kph so I've converted to mph.

Shocking

Audi TT 2.5 RS (2017)
0-30mph: 1.4
0-40mph: 2.0
0-50mph: 2.6
0-60mph: 3.3
0-70mph: 4.2
0-80mph: 5.3
0-90mph: 6.5
0-100mph: 7.9
0-110mph: 9.6
0-120mph: 11.4
0-130mph: 14.0
0-140mph: 17.4
0-150mph: 20.8

Calculated 60ft (18.3m): 1.98s
Calculated 60ft (18.3m): 40.2mph
Calculated 330ft (100.6m): 4.99s
Calculated 330ft (100.6m): 76.8mph
Calculated 1/8 Mile (201.1m): 7.55s
Calculated 1/8 Mile (201.1m): 97.5mph
Calculated 1000ft (301.7m): 9.77s
Calculated 1000ft (301.7m): 111mph
Calculated 0-400m: 11.61s
Calculated 0-400m: 120.8mph
Calculated 1/4 Mile (402.3m): 11.65s
Calculated 1/4 Mile (402.3m): 121mph
Calculated 0-1000m: 21.39s
Calculated 0-1000m: 151.2mph

good grief - that's faster than I thought it would be - that's 4WD, modern electronics and trick diffs for you.

I won't taking on one of those from a standing start, unless its over a bit longer distance than a quarter-mile (our 0-130 times are almost identical).

However, once rolling, I'd definitely show it a clean pair of heels - TT-RS 60-130 is 10.7 against my 8.9

Still mighty quick though....

I've just found another data set that's a little slower. I think it more proves the first set actually...

0-30mph: 1.4
0-40mph: 2.0
0-50mph: 2.7
0-60mph: 3.5
0-70mph: 4.5
0-80mph: 5.6
0-90mph: 6.9
0-100mph: 8.5
0-110mph: 10.2
0-120mph: 12.3
0-130mph: 15.2
0-140mph: 18.5
0-150mph: 21.1

Calculated 60ft (18.3m): 1.99s
Calculated 60ft (18.3m): 40.1mph
Calculated 330ft (100.6m): 5.07s
Calculated 330ft (100.6m): 75.4mph
Calculated 1/8 Mile (201.1m): 7.68s
Calculated 1/8 Mile (201.1m): 94.9mph
Calculated 1000ft (301.7m): 9.97s
Calculated 1000ft (301.7m): 108.7mph
Calculated 0-400m: 11.84s
Calculated 0-400m: 117.9mph
Calculated 1/4 Mile (402.3m): 11.89s
Calculated 1/4 Mile (402.3m): 118.1mph

For a laugh, I just lined your car up next to one from a dig...

- It would pull 9.4 lengths out of you when you reached 316m, both cars at 114mph before you started to claw it back in.

- You would pass it at 1084m doing 164mph vs its 155mph after 23 seconds.

To be honest, it's much the same story for a 550bhp coop. One of those would catch it after 17.5 seconds instead, at 725m up the road doing 155mph vs its 137. No Coupé is going to scare one of these from a standing start...

From a roll it looks like my frankly 'pathetic' 420bhp should be enough to keep it within a length before eventually passing it at 140mph+. I think it's safe to say that your average slip-road dust-up isn't going to cut it unless you're 'committed'.

There are already several TTRS tuning options.

Unitronic offer a stage 1 Performance Software only upgrade producing 476 HP/ 469 lb-ft of torque. For for those with access to 98 RON fuel, a Stage 1+ is also available giving 505 HP/496 lb-ft of torque. This chip tune also requires no hardware modifications

I think i would prefer the more warranty friendly ABT options though.

I've had a few TTRS short test drives and also managed to blag one for a day. The car is phenomenally quick in standard spec but I do understand the sanitised criticisms. It is easy to drive the car very quickly but as suggested it never seems to demand anything from the driver. The one I tested with the magnetic dampers was better, in dynamic but yes still no real involvement.

My current A5 with the sports diff and magnetic damper options does actually make my car feel more alive, rwd, when in the dynamic mode than the TT ever does. The A5 is a big car though and it makes the Coupé, and TT feel tiny. The A5 does though have a proper Quattro gearbox, not the Haldex that is on the TTRS & Golf R. I had never really been a fan of the Haldex 4WD systems, especially with the older DSG box. But I have to say the new gearbox and Haldex on the TTRS is superb.

I know that some would suggest that a Cayman or a Jaguar F would be better drivers cars. I haven't taken out a Porsche because I really don't like it but I have driven the V6 F-type. This is also a HUGE car and actually felt bigger than my A5. Sadly I didn't get to push the Jaguar but suspect the RWD will give the car that driver involvement aspect that people are seeking. The V6 also sounds quite nice but, and this is a big but, the Audi RS 5 pot sounds epic.

No matter what I find to hate about the TT, and yes there are a few things I don't like, that engine always pulls me back. With the Sports exhaust engaged the soundtrack just matches the performance. As you start to run out of torque along comes that power band, it's like a 20VT on steroids and for me, the new DSG gearbox and 4wd is a perfect match.