Tuning the Audi RS5

"Thanks for reading this Audi RS5 tuning article."

The A5 is a great compact coupe and it made a lot of sense for Audi to produce a high performance RS5 variant.

With the addition of brakes, suspension and engine upgrades an awesome car has been created making the RS5 one of the most memorable cars I've driven, even inspiring me to keep it for a whole weekend and take a long coastal drive on my favorite road.

The RS5 is a awesome car tuning project to execute. If you do your homework then you can create an awesome RS5 but don't be fooled there are lots of sports mods out there that will simply not suit it so read our unbiased guides first.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are high on most peoples lists for the RS5.

Good suspension tweaks that greatly benefit handling for the RS5 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..

We would go to a maximum drop of 21mm - 35 mm. on most models. You risk compromising your handling if you go lower than this, older versions tolerate more of a drop, but the mag ride works so well we doubt you'll even try to improve the setup.

Our aim in engine tuning should be to increase peak bhp at the top end.

The best power gains come from larger engine sizes. The more you start with the bigger the return on investment so engine swaps are good value mods for small engined cars.

Power mods.

This list of the stages and performance parts are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you start.

RS5 2010–2015

• 4.2 V8 FSI  449 hp @ 8250 rpm and 317 lbft @ 4000-6000 rpm

RS5 Cabriolet 7AT (2013–2015)

• 4.2 V8 FSi 450 HP @ 8250 rpm 317 lb-ft @ 4000-6000 rpm

RS5  (2016 -

• 2.9 liter TFSI V6 twin turbo  444 hp 443 lbft

Getting the best motorsport mods for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 motor sport mods just don't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

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Modifying to Stage 1:

 Suspension upgrade (drop 21mm - 35 mm.), Panel air filter, Lighter flywheel, Alloy wheels, Sports exhaust, Remap.

Modifying to Stage 2:

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

Modifying to Stage 3:

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

Your aims when modding your car should be a nice flat torque band. You want to avoid sending all the power to be at the top end of the rev range unless you are creating a motor sport car.

In this article we shall give a little insight into the world to the best upgrades for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance mod.

A fast road camshaft proves to be one of the best NASP power modifications you can do from a single upgrade to your engine.

The intake and exhaust valve durations play a major role in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car challenging to drive in traffic.

You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a reflashed ECU to fully realise your gains.

Don't forget to increase the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty.

If you find you have flat spots and power surges after your tuning modifications you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Increasing the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned RS5's uprated injectors.

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 usually very little power gain to be had by fitting an induction kit, they only work well and are recommended after you boost the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

For most RS5 engines TorqueCars would suggest you just go with a washable panel air filter.

On heavily tuned engines and turbo vehicles an induction kit will help release the power providing you address the problem of supplying cold air.

Sports exhausts generally help improve air flow from the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too wide or you may end up will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional gas flowing.

These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. In nearly all cases of RS5 tuning your clutch will start to suffer and this needs an upgrade - read our tips on clutches for more information.

The best mods we recommend for your RS5 are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements.

Remaps offer big power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful.

However a remapped ECU with a fast road camshaft on a NASP engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of other supporting mods.

Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give very large power gains.

Turbos are often harder to add than a supercharger. It is difficult to map fuelling with a turbo as the boost increases exponentially with revs.

It is more straightforward to map a supercharger because the boost is proportional to engine speed on a linear curve.

Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Due to the fact that alloy wheels are less heavy they improve performance and they will 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 RS5, and make a big difference over budget tires.

Please note although they can look cool on the RS5 large 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.

Although some people have with bigger wheels we would stick to a 18 inch rim size as the maximum alothough 19's look great I personally thought the ride was more harsh and it was prone to tramlining.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss RS5 options in more detail with our RS5 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.

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