# Project TTS:SF - APR Stage 3 (Crosspost from Blog)



## [email protected] (Apr 9, 2004)

*words: Jason Crouch
photos: Sa’ Jamil Hogan & Jason Crouch*

In our previous installment we flashed the ECU of our Audi TTS with that old APR magic to Stage 1. We also became the first mag-ride equipped Audi in North America to utilize the new KW Suspension “Elektronics kit”, defeating the CEL’s that usually go along with that while creating a beautifully handling and properly stance’d MK2 TT. This time around, it was time to go one step, or rather two stages, ahead with the first APR Stage 3 build on a North American TTS.

Before I even get into the story here, APR is to be thanked for their cooperation in backing this installment. Due to their great attitude towards Project TTS/SF we were able to use this car to aid APR in the development of their Stage 3 setup for the 265hp 2.0T FSI. This in turn has pushed the car’s numbers to very near the goal that we were originally planned when this whole series began.










This installment started in March when I checked up on the APR website to see if they had added anything new for the TTS. On this particular day there was a new entry on the TTS page that said something to the effect of “New TTS Stage 3 kit coming soon”. I put an email in and was excited to hear back from APR’s Keith Lucas that they were actively seeking a TTS for research and development based on the success of their Stage 3 S3 for overseas markets. Obviously the S3’s 2.0T FSI engine is nearly identical to that of the TTS, so APR already had a fair amount of the work completed. I think they would have preferred to have an R&D car of their own, but the concept of a cross-country trip sounded like an unforgettable adventure. I offered to get myself, and the car out there to become the first official Stage 3 TTS in North America. APR Japan had apparently already put in a fair bit of the groundwork and had a TTS that was fitted with the Stage 3 S3 kit, but my car would be the first to have a fully engineered kit with remap compatible with North American cars.

I jumped in the car at 5am on a Tuesday and drove the TTS as it was meant to be driven: flat out and stopping almost exclusively for lightning fast fueling and some cruddy gas station cuisine. I arrived in Opelika, Alabama home of APR Tuning in less than 2 days. The next morning I joined the APR team flying down to the Homestead race near Miami to witness some mental racing by the APR Motorsports team. I was proud as hell to watch the B8 S4 and their pair of VW GTIs chasing down the competition and showing them all who is boss. After two busy days of running around filming the event, we returned to Opelika. When we got there, we discovered that Charlie Coleman (APR’s main mechanic) and the APR engineers were already tearing down the engine of the TTS in order to make way for the Stage 3 hardware.

When I finally saw the APR headquarters for the first time, it was truly impressive. The headquarters is perched on a hilltop looking out at Alabama’s Highway 280 with a view of most of the Opelika/Auburn area. At 36,000 state of the art square feet you’d be hard pressed to find another tuner in the world who is better equipped to handle every aspect of not only their tuning business, but their racing team as well. Honestly I was totally and completely blown away. Seeing their facilities made me very proud to be running their gear.










I stayed in Opelika for 2 weeks because it looked as though there was a good chance that the TTS could be done in that timeframe and within two days the car was totally built out with the Stage 3 hardware. However, the engineers still needed to work their magic on the ECU to prepare it for the new hardware and the nearly doubled power levels. During this time, the car received all standard bits usually seen in a Stage 3 kit from APR. This particular system centers around a GT2871 turbo and new APR manifold. Other parts included in the kit are a silicone intake hose, all new gaskets and sparkplugs, steel braided oil/coolant lines, turbo discharge pipe and high flow injectors. Additionally I added a few more components to the mix. I had APR rebuild my fuel pump to their high flow spec, add the AWD divorced down pipe and mid-pipe and top the car off with their front mounted intercooler.

So after 2 weeks it was decided that the APR engineers would like to spend more time running tests to get this whole Stage 3 package ready for prime time. I flew home and came back a few weeks later to fetch the car and bring it back to San Francisco. The video Webisode 6 at the bottom of this story will give you a better visual for what we got to see along the journey of the "road trip" part of this adventure. 










My whole trip back to California started on May 1st, which was exactly 10 days after the BP oil spill began. This meant that as I was driving from Opelika, Alabama to Biloxi, Mississippi I was essentially heading right towards Gulfport, the largest oil-boom stationing location in the area. I basically tore though that area as quickly as possible stopping in Biloxi, overnight before heading southeast through Gulfport and out to New Orleans to avoid what had already become an enormously congested area for traffic.










My wife flew down to Louisiana from her native New York to meet me there or the drive home to California. We spent 2 days in New Orleans and our drive back was a more reasonable pace along the Southern I-10 route and back through the Southwestern USA. Admittedly there were more than enough opportunities to open the TTS up on all those lonely stretches of road between Alabama and California and that was precisely what I did. I mean after all, isn’t that what you’d do with what feels like a brand new 400hp car?

To learn more about what APR can do for your car check out: http://www.GOAPR.com






*PHOTO GALLERY*
* Project TTS SF *

*MORE INFORMATION*
* www.GoAPR.com *
* www.KWautomotive.com *

NEXT INSTALLMENT: It's a goodyear for some new shoes


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## EKGTI (Jul 13, 2003)

*TTS:SF - CA Smoggable?*

Gorgeous car...but will it pass SMOG?


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## Senater_Cache (Dec 28, 2007)

Nice.
Just to be clear...the numbers are bhp or whp? whats the awhp?


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## sabba (Oct 25, 2008)

Jason enjoy the car and welcome to the stage 3 brotherhood :thumbup:

Your car must rip!


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## DgonzTT (Oct 8, 2009)

Why did you decide to stick to the gt28? Thought you'd ight want to go bigger...? I know if and when i change mine its going to be a GT30 series for sure, at least in my opinion, i feel if im going to bother doing a change at all, might as well go big but not too big that im going to have to tear my motor apart to upgrade other engine components


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## inny (Apr 7, 2010)

Another excellent video production - please keep them coming!
Are you planning on subjectively (or even better, objectively) evaluating the performance diffferences versus stock and letting us in on the costs involved?


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## MagyarCC (Mar 29, 2010)

nice, well done!


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## iMod.:R (Nov 14, 2005)

Sorry for the late response all, I was out for most of the Holiday weekend. Anyhow, here are some of the answers you all asked for. BTW, thanks for supporting the Project TTS/SF series:beer:



EKGTI said:


> Gorgeous car...but will it pass SMOG?


Maybe the APR guys can chime in on this, but to my knowledge with the stock catback system on, or perhaps a more conservative muffler in general, I'd imagine it would pass just fine.



Senater_Cache said:


> Nice.
> Just to be clear...the numbers are bhp or whp? whats the awhp?


I'll leave this one to Arin since I didn't get to see the Dyno run with my own eyes. They have a calculation to convert the fwd to awd figures. Thats what I am quoting based off of the dyno figures that I have always taken as awd.



sabba said:


> Jason enjoy the car and welcome to the stage 3 brotherhood :thumbup:
> 
> Your car must rip!


Thanks for the warm welcome man! Glad you liked the webisode:thumbup:



DgonzTT said:


> Why did you decide to stick to the gt28? Thought you'd ight want to go bigger...? I know if and when i change mine its going to be a GT30 series for sure, at least in my opinion, i feel if im going to bother doing a change at all, might as well go big but not too big that im going to have to tear my motor apart to upgrade other engine components


Danny, I drive the car quite a bit, so I was after a higher horsepower solution that is tried and tested. The APR kit seems like the best all around safe solution. This is the 2nd most expensive car I have ever purchased, so I'm not willing to roll the dice with a self-cobbled solution. I asked the guys at APR and the engineers claimed that they'd already tried using larger turbos, and didn't think it would offer longevity in terms of the whole kit and engine health.



inny said:


> Another excellent video production - please keep them coming!
> Are you planning on subjectively (or even better, objectively) evaluating the performance diffferences versus stock and letting us in on the costs involved?


 The graphs on the APR site are really thorough in terms of the performance gains VS stock. Cost wise, I am happy to share that with you via PM. 




MagyarCC said:


> nice, well done!


Thank you much!:beer:


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## Fissues (Nov 6, 2008)

Dude, When yer all done and ready for your next obsession. I'll trade ya for my boat, just love that car, specially in Sprint Blue Bayou!


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## iMod.:R (Nov 14, 2005)

Fissues said:


> Dude, When yer all done and ready for your next obsession. I'll trade ya for my boat, just love that car, specially in Sprint Blue Bayou!


After I'm done with this car and the amount of $$$ thrown into it, I would only be willing to trade it for a CPO 2008 R8!


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## DgonzTT (Oct 8, 2009)

iModTTS said:


> After I'm done with this car and the amount of $$$ thrown into it, I would only be willing to trade it for a CPO 2008 R8!


Eh... Unless it's the V10 I'd stick to your TTS


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## iMod.:R (Nov 14, 2005)

DgonzTT said:


> Eh... Unless it's the V10 I'd stick to your TTS


One word Heffner tuned!


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## DgonzTT (Oct 8, 2009)

iModTTS said:


> One word Heffner tuned!


thats two lol and yea i know, a meteor grey one here in miami was at a dealer recently with the Hefner kit and a sick set of orange caliper big brakes... it went for 130 & barely had miles on it! The lucky ass buyer got himself a sick R8 for the price of a regular new one:thumbup:


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## kendoist4162 (Mar 15, 2010)

Nice Jason!! Keep them coming!


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## burakusta (Aug 30, 2010)

did you work on dsg or it is stock ? 

i am looking for an atp gt30 kit local revo dealer says tts dsg is diffrent than a tt dsg so tts does not need any clutch upgrade or dsg remap for stage 3 ?


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## burakusta (Aug 30, 2010)

you know have my dream kit on tts, big turbo  i hope everything will be nice for your car


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## DarthTTs (Dec 7, 2009)

DgonzTT said:


> Why did you decide to stick to the gt28? Thought you'd ight want to go bigger...? I know if and when i change mine its going to be a GT30 series for sure, at least in my opinion, i feel if im going to bother doing a change at all, might as well go big but not too big that im going to have to tear my motor apart to upgrade other engine components



Danny, 

I thought about going bigger with the FWD too, but after being at the track and understanding that races are won at the corners, and seeing how -with a simple remap -much my tires were spinning, I went for a K04.

If I had AWD, maybe...


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## [email protected] (Jul 29, 2008)

Senater_Cache said:


> Nice.
> Just to be clear...the numbers are bhp or whp? whats the awhp?


Estimated crank with 10% DTL. 

WHP was around 360-370 on our dyno. 




DgonzTT said:


> Why did you decide to stick to the gt28? Thought you'd ight want to go bigger...? I know if and when i change mine its going to be a GT30 series for sure, at least in my opinion, i feel if im going to bother doing a change at all, might as well go big but not too big that im going to have to tear my motor apart to upgrade other engine components


The turbocharger is a GT2871R speced and built by APR. 

The TTS is RPM limited to around 6800 RPM's depending on gear. A larger turbo would only add more lag to an already limited small RPM band. We also can't run infinity boost. Above 22 or so it starts to get hot and a 30 series only shines around 30PSI. We simply don't have the fueling to keep going with more and more and more boost. Also going higher and higher and higher with boost requires running off the map sensor which will lead to strange part throttle drivability. So, it may be fun in a straight line, but not so much around town. 

That being said I've never seen a 2.0T faster than this one, and we did this with the same GT2871R Turbocharger:








burakusta said:


> revo dealer says tts dsg is diffrent than a tt dsg so tts does not need any clutch upgrade or dsg remap for stage 3 ?


The clutches in the TT-S are the same as the GTI. With APR software you never need upgraded software for the DSG. We simply don't need it. We know what we're doing. ;-)

That being said if you want a higher redline, yes, you'll need to upgrade the TCU. That absolutely cannot be altered by the ECU.


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## carma (Sep 30, 1999)

Great video Jason. I'll have to meet up with you and check out your car one of these days. I remember meeting you at TST, parked next to you at the show, and you were working on chip tuning and were waiting for APR to come out with a tune for the TT-S. I too made a long trip recently, up to HPA to get a new tune after the water/meth injection got installed. Went from Vancouver to Banff, through Idaho and back down to SF. Car is running beastly like yours, 400 HP.


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## Senater_Cache (Dec 28, 2007)

Thanks for the feedback Arin!

Now that we (were) on the subject, I have the StageIII+ but in the MKI TT (GT2871r but on 1.8t).
The graphs you guys had plotted for that kit back then, were they also DTL 10% and estimated bhp, or were they whp numbers??

What were the actual whp numbers for the MKI TT 225 VVT StageIII+?
I know its off-topic, I just want to compare MKI and MKII numbers one-to-one you know?


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## [email protected] (Jul 29, 2008)

Senater_Cache said:


> The graphs you guys had plotted for that kit back then, were they also DTL 10% and estimated bhp, or were they whp numbers??


The numbers for the 1.8T were estimated crank. They were produced long before I was here so I don't have the raw data in front of me. That being said, I do have raw 1.8T GTI graphs and our published GTI graphs. For those cars we used 10% drivetrain loss as well (wheel HP figures divided by .9). Obviously that was in front wheel drivemode. 

For jasons TT-S it was also dynoed in FWD mode as dynoing haldex quattro cars in AWD mode on a loaded dyno is not good for the transmission.


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## iMod.:R (Nov 14, 2005)

carma said:


> Great video Jason. I'll have to meet up with you and check out your car one of these days. I remember meeting you at TST, parked next to you at the show, and you were working on chip tuning and were waiting for APR to come out with a tune for the TT-S. I too made a long trip recently, up to HPA to get a new tune after the water/meth injection got installed. Went from Vancouver to Banff, through Idaho and back down to SF. Car is running beastly like yours, 400 HP.


Sick! Yeah your R is no joke man. Did you do any kind of a write up about your adventures?


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## DgonzTT (Oct 8, 2009)

[email protected] said:


> Estimated crank with 10% DTL.
> 
> WHP was around 360-370 on our dyno.
> 
> ...


Sick... she moves pretty well, what does that car top at? My concern honestly is from mid range to the higher range being that im fwd and as is now with stg 2 on water meth, i can never get out of the dig clean, so i never really run at tracks only rolling starts of like 35-40mph


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## [email protected] (Jul 29, 2008)

DgonzTT said:


> what does that car top at?


I've buried it past 180mph and redlined 6th gear.


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## DgonzTT (Oct 8, 2009)

niiiiice.... as is i've hit 160 but let off there cuz an alarm louder than any know to the automobile world was going off at that point.... my gf :laugh:


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## kendoist4162 (Mar 15, 2010)

DgonzTT said:


> niiiiice.... as is i've hit 160 but let off there cuz an alarm louder than any know to the automobile world was going off at that point.... my gf :laugh:


LOL!!! :laugh: Wait until the gf becomes a wife...:banghead::screwy:
Ah oooga! Ah oooga! Dive! dive! dive! ... makes your (expletive) hair stand on end


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## McMerc (Apr 29, 2006)

Arin,

In the video did the stage 4 GTI run with 100 octane fuel or regular pupm 91/93 octane fuel?


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## [email protected] (Jul 29, 2008)

McMerc said:


> Arin,
> 
> In the video did the stage 4 GTI run with 100 octane fuel or regular pupm 91/93 octane fuel?


Sunoco 100 octane fuel. That's all he ever runs.


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## DrDomm (Feb 16, 2003)

[email protected] said:


> I've buried it past 180mph and redlined 6th gear.


You've hit 180 on the dyno, or real world? It's tough to get to 180 anywhere due to aero drag.


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## Remedy (Jan 31, 2004)

The video is so well narrated. A+:thumbup:


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## [email protected] (Jul 29, 2008)

DrDomm said:


> You've hit 180 on the dyno, or real world? It's tough to get to 180 anywhere due to aero drag.



Real world.


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## DrDomm (Feb 16, 2003)

[email protected] said:


> Real world.


May I ask where? No matter how much hp, it takes a long strip of straight road to do that. Impressive.


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## mikeg6045 (Apr 14, 2010)

DrDomm said:


> May I ask where? No matter how much hp, it takes a long strip of straight road to do that. Impressive.


not when it only takes 23 seconds to do so :thumbup:


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## MagyarCC (Mar 29, 2010)

loving the car!!!


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## kendoist4162 (Mar 15, 2010)

DrDomm said:


> May I ask where? No matter how much hp, it takes a long strip of straight road to do that. Impressive.


 Route 15 into Vegas is a nice stretch. Run at sunrise and nobody there. Boom, baby!


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## M this 1! (May 17, 2000)

still dude, 180 is abit fast for that stretch a road! it's no longer straight is my basic point.


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## iMod.:R (Nov 14, 2005)

M this 1! said:


> still dude, 180 is abit fast for that stretch a road! it's no longer straight is my basic point.


 I guess I 'll find out for you all on Saturday!


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## Fissues (Nov 6, 2008)

iModTTS said:


> I guess I 'll find out for you all on Saturday!


 Since we can't be there, don't forget us and please film that session. 

The offer for the boat stands! If your ever in Boston I'll take you out for a test ride an hook you up with one of these, if I can hitch I ride in yours 

Last weeks catch! A 9800.00 fish.


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## kendoist4162 (Mar 15, 2010)

Now THAT is one humongous stack of sushi dude!! 
How long did it take to boat it? (and be able to raise your arms again... :laugh:


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