Tuning the Audi RS Q8

"Tuning guide to the greatest Audi RS Q8 modifications."

If you look at the range of engines you get on the Q8 or even the SQ8 you might be hard pushed to see a need for an RS version, but we are pleased that Audi decided to produce one, releasing it in 2019.

The 4.0 litre engine was not powerful enough as a NASP so they bolted on two turbos and then this mighty V8  has an added mild-hybrid power and achieved a heady 591bhp and 590 lbft of torque!

A 3.8 second sprint to 60 is no mean feat in a car that weighs around 2400kg!

The RS Q8 is a good car tuning project to play with. Plan ahead and research RS Q8 tuning to save yourself making the usual costly errors we get told about.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are high on most peoples lists for the RS Q8 as most stock Audi setups are rather harsh, but we were quite impressed with the RS Q8 setup.

Good suspension tweaks that substantially benefit handling for the RS Q8 include a couple of degrees negative camber and 1-1.5 degrees of toe in or out on the front wheels. Toe in for stability, or Toe out to improve cornering. It would also pay to improve the brakes, by adding larger discs and or higher friction pads., factory settings are pretty much spot on though, so don't go too far from this.

We suggest that you fit uprated suspension and lower the car by no more than 24mm - 34 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with performance suspension such as the RS Q8 and it will usually require a complete reworking of the suspension geometry.

Turning our attention to the engine we need to get a bit more bhp out of the top end.

Smaller engines do not provide much of a return in terms of power so start with a bigger engine. Engine swaps are a good option if you have a small engine size.

Power mods.

The following motorsport mods are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you begin.

Getting the best motorsport upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 motor sport parts just won't work well on the road hard to control in slow traffic.

Please watch our introduction Video tutorial to car tuning. Be sure to subscribe and support our new channel.

Modifying to Stage 1:

 Panel air filter, Sports exhaust, Lighter flywheel, Remap, Alloy wheels, Suspension upgrade (drop 24mm - 34 mm.).

Modifying to Stage 2:

 high flow fuel injector, Power/Sport clutch, Ported and polished head, fuel pump upgrades, Fast road cam.

Modifying to Stage 3:

 Engine balancing, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Competition cam, Sports gearbox, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger).

You should keep as much low end power as possible and aim to achieve a wide power band rather than a narrow top end power hike.

In this article we shall give a brief overview to the best mods for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance modification.

Ideally you'd add your chosen mods and then finish up with a reflashed ECU. We'd also caution you not to go with a motor sports profile cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics, the 4.0 V8 is not designed to be a high revving high RPM engine block.

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to increase the fuelling as you add other mods.

Frequently power losses, flat spots and erratic idling after motorsport kits are done can usually be traced to fuelling or timing issues. To get sufficient fuel you may need to improve the injectors on your engine.

A fuel pump will only deliver a finite amount of fuel, so you may need to uprate this if your injectors are demanding more fuel.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Contrary to popular belief there is often a small power gain got by fitting an induction kit, they only become beneficial and are recommended after you boost the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

Derestricting the air feed into the engine is the primary part of car tuners so get a freer flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean only if you find the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound sporty but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not do much to increase power and often rob you of power.

Sports exhausts generally help improve air flow through the engine but do not go too big or you could will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches as a rule of thumb.

Getting a professionally polished and ported head with larger valves can fully release the engines power.

Your clutch and automatic transmission can fail as the power goes up, if it starts to fail and the standard clutches and auto transmissions are only ever good for reliability for power gains of up to 30%.

Fit a performance transmission to avoid power leak through the transmission you'll also need to make sure the shift point and torque limits in the transmission ECU are ready for your power gains.

The best mods we would do for your RS Q8 are fast road camshaft, remap, induction and exhaust, suspension.

Remaps offer significant power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful. However a remap on a NASP engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods.

We've also seen some tuners experimenting with twincharged applications and making some seriously high power hikes.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Due to the fact that alloy wheels are less heavy they improve performance and they help to cool the brake disks.

We can't go into too much detail here about tires but they are how the car puts the power down on the road so are a critical choice. track legal slick tires work well on RS Q8, and make a big difference over budget tires.

Please note although they can look cool on the RS Q8 big alloys will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this to the change in your effective final drive ratio.

With this in mind we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 22 inches, although we know some of our members have installed larger rims with no problems.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss RS Q8 options in more detail with our RS Q8 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Audi tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below.

We love to hear what our visitors have got up to and which mods work best for them on each model of car. Comments are used to improve the accuracy of these articles which are continually updated.

This article was written by Waynne Smith on TorqueCars, and I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Audi. You can leave a response below or join TorqueCars forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

If you liked this page please share it with your friends, drop a link to it in your favourite forum or use the bookmarking options to save it to your social media profile.

Check out TorqueCars new YouTube channel, and see their awesome new content...