3 March 2022 - We recently had a customer come in who was the victim of an unfortunate connecting rod failure on his Audi RS3 (8V). This is a somewhat common occurrence on this platform, due to the high levels of torque these cars can make in a tuned state. As such, upgrading at least the connecting rods is good insurance if you plan to push beyond the stock power levels.

For this customer, we sourced a new OEM block and upgraded it with the following:

 - IE connecting rods

 - Mahle pistons

 - ARP main studs with line bored mains

The factory main bore tolerances are extremely tight on the DAZA engine, so in nearly all engine rebuilds we will have the block align honed to our specifications. 

The customer also took this time to upgrade to a larger TTE700 turbocharger, which is based on the OEM turbocharger but employs larger compressor and turbine wheels. 

Once the car was back up and running, we put it through its paces on our Mustang AWD dyno. This allows us to control and monitor the critical piston ring break-in phase, and also allows us to ensure that the car can perform consistently at the limit.

Power output on this RS3 was fantastic, coming in at 637 wheel horsepower and 497 wheel torque (very healthy numbers for our "heartbreaker" Mustang dyno)! For reference, we normally see around 580 wheel horsepower and 450 wheel torque with the TTE700 turbo on a non-built engine. So this customer is now enjoying more power, along with the added safety headroom of upgraded internals.

We build engines for a variety of Volkswagen & Audi applications, and can work with different application and power goals to build a setup that suits your needs. Contact us today to discuss your build plans!