Transcript for:
Audi TT Modification Guide

so the Audi TT is a phenomenal car it was released way back in 1998 styling initially was controversial people loved it or people hated it some of the critics said it just looked like a squashed Volkswagen Beetle but others saw that it was really heralding the early motoring days of those classic sports cars we had a Resurgence in the lovely curves that you got on those early models which were certainly different to a lot of the boxier shapes that manufacturers were employing so the TT certainly stood out there and it's much appreciated now that design has grown on people the Audi group have evolved that design they've created something that has become rather iconic and it's certainly going to be an appreciating classic they've really looked at the available platforms and components that they've got and they've ensured that the TT retains the most sporty options is really set up for driver enjoyment that's really where the focus is on the Audi TT and I think this is why so many people are interested in modifying and upgrading them so in this video we're just going to look at some of the best mods and upgrades for your Audi TT and just look at the areas you should focus on for the best value upgrade and also we're going to talk about some of the mods that don't necessarily make as much power as people make out they do or the manufacturers of these parts claim that they do I really hate to see people wasting money I've wasted a lot of money over the years on Parts they haven't achieved what the manufacturers claims were and I've been left very disappointed and out of pocket so I want to pass on those tips to you so you can avoid that in your project it's a sporty car it still has four seats and quite a bit of space in the rear trunk called a boot depending on where you live you've got different names for it so we call it a boot over here but I know that winds a lot of people up so I refer to it as a trunk as well so the back bit of the car where you put all your junk there's quite a bit of space the battery has been relocated to that because it obviously the engine bay itself is quite cramped with the large engines that they've put in so just to capture a little bit more space in the front of the car the battery is been relocated to the back but it's a very very practical sports car for people it's very very reliable as well if you look after it if you neglect them there's all sorts of problems so I've done very specific engine guides on all of the different engines that they fitted to the Audi over the years so it started out with the 1.8T the 20 valve which was a phenomenal engine really really strong and capable of substantial power gains on stock internals so look at the videos that I've done on those if you want a little bit more detail on those we've got a 2 L TDI engine as well so that produced enormous amounts of torque it was probably a brave decision putting a diesel engine in a sports car but it certainly had sufficient performance and lowend torque to Warrant that decision that Audi have made and it's really one of those really nice models out there if you want something that's cheap to run so again I've done a video on the 2 L tdis the various generations of that engine over the years just to help you to see the problems that you need to look out for and the best mods and upgrades for those engines there was also a 3 .2 L V6 which was quite a phenomenal engine naturally aspirated so generally there's not as much you can do to those engines I've done videos on the 3.2 V6 as well just to help you to see where your money is best invested when it comes to upgrading those but this is going to be a very general guide to all the engines all the models of Audi TT the 1.8T had power ranging from about 180 to 225 horsepower the 3.2 V6 we putting down about 250 horsepower so power figures did vary from region to region and a few different models did have different levels that were set um primarily down to the tuning that they used on those engines there's been about three generations now over the years the first generation was from 98 to 2006 there was a minor refresh done in 2003 which saw a few improvements to the original design so obviously bear in mind it was a new design there were a few things that Audi wanted to address and a lot of that just reflected minor revisions to The Styling and the way the car looks the second generation obviously started 2006 2007 and ran to 2014 and then from 2014 there was a facelift they got the lovely new engines fitted to those so a lot of people really are hankering for some of the older models just for the Nostalgia trip but the new models are real performance cars out there that you won't spend a fortune maintaining and running as your daily driver so it's a good compromise if you can only afford one car and you want fun car go for the Audi TT so there's obviously the TT the T TTS model there's a ttrs model as well so depending on how sporty you want to get and often the components from those sporty models can be translated to the less sporty models so you've got a fairly easy upgrade path for example the RS brakes on the standard TT will give you that Superior braking ability and the brakes will fade a lot less than those stock ones will you obviously need to make sure the PCD and the offset and the alloy wheel size that you've got fitted will accommodate those larger brakes happily without causing any other issues or problems it was available as a coupe and a Roadstar which was the case as well for the second generation this second generation had an updated design a more aggressive front end it certainly evolved that early look and created a new design language for the Audi TT but retained many of those original details and components that made it the Audi TT the third generation the lines became much more angular and much sharper and I just wonder what the fourth generation is going to look like the two tfsi engine put out around 200 horsepower there were more powerful variants available over the years of that engine as well and the 3.2 V6 was now putting out about 250 horsepower so they've fettled the engine and extracted that little bit more power from the engine as well you also had Magnetic Ride which was a really clever suspension system through the fluid inside suspension they could make it much firmer or they could make it much softer so little iron tend to line up or not line up and move around much more freely depending on whether there was a current there or not and it was a very very responsive system so the Magnetic Ride is probably one of the best Factory suspension systems a manufacturer has ever provided but often these systems start to wear out over time so people look to upgrade the suspension system and it's hard to beat that original magnetic ride suspension but it's very expensive to replace so a lot of people will go with more conventional coilovers and adjust the ride height manually and just chill use a spring rate and a dampening rate for the suspension to suit their own driving style you obviously need to make adjustments to allow for the ECU that was expecting the Magnetic Ride so generally there's a little plug-in module that pretends to be the magnetic ride suspension to keep the ECU itself happy and it was a second generation where you started to see those 2 L TDI diesel engines being offered so this was round about the time that went from the PD the pum producer version of the engine to the common rail diesel system so these engines provided oodles of torque lots of power a lot of people have been annoyed by the use of the DPF filter on those higher powered versions of this engine but it was certainly necessary to have that to meet those emissions regulations I've done lots of other videos on living with dpfs and whether you should delete the DPF or whether there's Alternatives out there so the third generation came out in 2014 so it was greatly restyled the second generation was more of a sort of minor refresh of The Styling they made substantial changes but not as substantial as they made in 2014 so they've really taken the Audi design l language and applied that to the Audi TT but again they've retained The Styling and the setup of that original Audi but made it much more stylish much more modern and it appeals to a wider audience now they've addressed the rear spoiler as well which is often the thing that people criticize in the original styling so alloy wheels on the Ali TT are probably one of the most popular upgrades people go from 17 in right up to about 20 in now the 20 in and the 19 in look really really nice I have to ad that but they do often hamper the ride quality so generally the newer cars are more suited to those larger alloy room sizes but the grip that you get in wet conditions on bumpy road surfaces is often inferior on those larger Rim sizes plus the cost of tires is much more expensive so it's often a false economy to increase the rim size look Instead at the weight of the alloy Rim itself because that has a bearing on how the car handles the unsprung weight that you're adding by fitting larger rims can really adversely affect the handling of the car one of the best things that you should do that's often overlooked is just getting a decent set of tires for it the tires are your main contact patch with the road so what are some of the things that we should be thinking about when it comes to Tire upgrad those four points of contact with the road surface so the only way you're going to transmit the power to the road surface the cornering grip is going to be provided to you as you steer the car and also the braking power is going to work and you're going to be able to stop the car so if your tires are ineffective or just not able to provide enough grip you are going to suffer on performance I recently swapped the tires on my car and it made a night and day difference in terms of getting the traction down even in the dry conditions when the old tires were reasonably okay I was getting traction issues when I put my foot down and I explored the upper part of the RPM range so now with these new tires I'm not experiencing that at all never underestimate the importance of getting a good set of tires for your car the tires that I fitted to my car with the Uniroyal rain sports and there's a review going up very very shortly on that so if it's not up already be sure to check that video out but I found those fantastic they didn't just improve the wet weather grip they improved the cornering the car felt differently it felt like I'd renewed the brakes and the suspension and all the other components and I didn't have any traction issues whatsoever so be sure to check out the comments if you've got a recommendation to make about tires for this great Car drop in the comment section so we can share our expertise you may well have found something that I've not I don't have the resources to test every tire out there so I really do appreciate this feedback so let us know how you get on with Tire selections and what wheels and tires you've got on your car so let's talk about suspension upgrades on the ldtt there's lots of different options out there we've spoken about the magnetic rise setup being one of the best setups out there so if you can afford to replace the Magnetic Ride setup with a Magnetic Ride set up I would certainly do that but when you start looking at the cost and what's involved in that I can see why most people go for a decent set of aftermarket suspension kits so which brands of suspension kit work best on the Audi TT well there's lots of different brands and makes out there so I'm just going to recommend the ones that crop up the most and I've heard the most favorable things please let me know in the comments if you feel I've missed any or I've been unfair to any of the brands out there and let me know your experiences on what suspension upgrades you recommend for your Audi TT also mention what year and what model of Audi TT you've got because that has a bearing really on the choices of suspension kits so we've got AP billstein H&R Connie spaxx St and the waych the KW variants are all very very good suspension systems that people Rave about on the Audi TT you've got to weigh up the quality and the price so often the cheaper brands have less adjustments so if you're happy with a more generic suspension set up it's obviously worth taking that budget option if you want to take your car out on the track day and really get the maximum performance you maybe want a little more control over different aspects of the suspension so that generally is what you get what you pay for when you go for those more expensive kits you get more adjustability over the suspension settings so coilovers are really the route to go on the Ali TT most people prefer the coilovers and the fact that they're fairly easily adjustable on the car you haven't got to take everything apart in order to make the adjustment so you can adjust the ride height at the very least and just set up the ride height to suit your driving style so if you've got a lot of potholes in your area a lot of bad roads you might want a slightly higher ride height but also you can on some of these adjust the spring rate the firmness of the suspension itself so you may prefer a slightly softer suspension I know that a lot of manufacturers in their sporty variants they've not gone for very hard very low suspension they've often lowered it slightly but they've softened up the suspension just to improve the road handling so there's a lot of things to consider when it comes to setting up the suspension you want the wheels to be in contact with the road surface the suspension itself is designed as the car corners and rolls to adjust the geometry the angle that the tires are at to maximize the amount of cornering grip you have so even if you don't change the suspension making sure that the angles on the suspension are set up correctly can make massive differences to the way that the car Corners so the camber angle of the actual Wheels the toe angle whether they point in or they point out can have a bearing on its ability to corner but often improving the cornering affects the straight line stability so there's often compromises some models it's much more of a challenge to make those adjustments you might need to get an aftermarket kit to adjust the cber for example um or to go significantly beyond what the manufacturer set but getting your suspension set up by a specialist that knows what they're doing can make a big difference to the way that the car handles the 3.2 V6 was a phenomenal power plant in its naturally aspirated form there's not a lot of scope for extracting substantial amounts of more power from it but certainly with a remap you can increase the torque curve and increase the mid-range power response and generally make it much more fun to drive so there's certainly a lot of things you can do to that but any turbocharged engine in the Audi TT is really remapping that you need to look at tuning the ECU to get the maximum amount of power and that usually is the most effective mod that you can do so what is ECU tuning remapping the ECU what are the benefits that you get from doing that Mod on your ald TT so I've done quite a few videos on remapping or tuning the ECU the ECU is the computer inside the engine it's controlling everything to do with the way the engine burns the fuel so diesel engines and gasoline engines have very very different setups they work completely differently check out the video on the differences between the two if you're not sure um but the ECU itself is controlling generally the fuel delivery the timing of the air if it's got a Turbocharger it may well be controlling the boost on the turbo and the ECU is just monitoring everything going on inside the engine and generally if it notices something arai too much air too little fuel it will make an adjustment and just make sure that things are running smoothly so inside the ECU you've effectively got a little map that tells the engine what it should be doing at any specific RPM it tells you what the air to fuel mixture needs to be where the spark needs to be if your engine has a spark ignition system there's so many complexities that go on inside the ECU but with a turbocharged engine the scope is phenomenal for just increasing the power by changing the tune inside the computer so for most turbocharged petrol gasoline or diesel powered cars you're looking at about 30% more power now that's effectively a free mod a free upgrade manufacturers have dialed back the power to meet emissions regulations conform to the local requirements of the maybe poor quality fuels the owners are not going to maintain their cars that well so they have to build in a big safety margin to coope with bad maintenance dirty plugs a clogged air filter that sort of thing so there's a lot of scope there for just improving what the manufacturer has done so will that necessarily increase the emissions well it doesn't always you can make the engine more efficient you can work to tighter sets of parameters reducing the fuel consumption and also getting more power from the fuel that you're using so the theory is that you use less RPMs to get a higher power figure so if you drive accordingly on a lot of situations particularly on diesel engines you will see better fuel economy after the engine has been tuned or mapped gasoline engines are slight different you don't always see better fuel economy on those and most people will tune an engine to get the maximum performance but check out the other videos I've done on ECU tuning the pros and cons the things to look out for and the sort of things you should take into account when you start looking at this mod now that mod itself helps all the other mods that you've done to work more effectively so you can just tune the ECU on its own changing the map and you will see significantly more power but if you've changed the air intake the exhaust altered the turbo made other adjustment to maybe the fuel delivery in the engine you need that ECU to be reprogrammed to take all of that into account so the next most significant mod that you can do is changing the turbocharger so turbocharger upgrades are obviously going to add a lot of power the turbo is that thing that is compressing the air allowing more oxygen Laden air to get into the engine adding a different turbo can dramatically alter the profile of the power that is produced from the engine so generally speaking larger turbos provide much more power at the top end but they take while to get going the turbines in them are somewhat larger they need a greater velocity of air to get going so you experience more lag low down now manufactors have done clever things with twin scroll turbo designs where the exhaust channels are separated and that maximizes the velocity and a lot of these turbos will spool up just as quickly as the smaller Factory counterparts also we've got variable vein technology into turbos that alter the angle of the air as it goes into the turbo which again can Aid the velocity and help the turbo to spool up more quickly so there's also some other consider ation if your car engine has variable valve timing on the exhaust and the intake you generally see better gains than if it's only got variable valve timing on the intake side because that affects the velocity going into the turbo so I've heard from people with some engines that have swapped the turbo to a larger one they haven't got the variable valve technology on the exhaust side and it's made the turbo very very sluggish it spools up very very slowly although they are benefiting from higher power figures at the top end of the RPM range so going outside of the manufacturer's lineup you can go for a hybrid Turbo which essentially takes the case of a factory turbo so it's a swap in replacement and they've completely changed the internals they may even have machined out the inside of the turbo to allow the larger compressor Wheels to go in but there's a lot of potential power on offer for Turbo upgrades it is a bit of a Minefield there's so much to choose from um generally speaking I'd recommend that you get a kit get something that bolts straight onto your engine you don't want to be doing extensive plumbing and extensive reworks but whenever you change a turbo whichever of these options you go for you should get an adjustment inside the computer it's now having a big change in the availability of air at different points in the RPM range so speak to your tuner tell him which turbo you're getting get his feedback hopefully it's something he's familiar with and he can give you a bit more advice as to whether it's suitable for your engine and I've done lots of other engine specific gu where we actually discuss turbo upgrades and I've based out on feedback that I've got from our members feedback from viewers on this channel and just general research that I've done when looking into upgrading these engines so if you've got any other tips to pass on please let me know in the comments I'm grateful for all of the feedback that we get we're all here to learn so when you've upgraded the turbo it's now time to think about the fueling so we've gone over to direct injection on gasoline or petrol powered cars as well as diesel powered cars the fuel systems provide a lot more fuel than they used to they're running at much much higher pressures which actually means in most cases we have a lot more head room to play with so what sort of things should we bear in mind when it comes to fueling upgrad the whole point of tuning your engine is to get it to burn more fuel so increasing the injector capacity so more fuel is going into the engine is an obvious route to getting more fuel in the engine but that needs to be supported by the high press fuel pump system the thing that's pressurizing the fuel rail so in most engines now you have a fuel rail where the pressurized fuel sits and the injector effectively open the injectors themselves set a spray pattern so the fuel atomizes as it goes into the engine some of the modern injectors have much more controllable settings so you can alter the rates at which they open and really shape the rate of fuel that's going into the engine and that has advantages when it comes to fuel economy and power so upgrading the injectors it's quite a mindfield there's a lot of different options out there but you really want something that's tried and tested so go to a specialist that deals with your specific engine and see what they've got in their lineup in terms of fuel injector upgrades you're generally looking at a cc capacity the amount of fuel that is injected so increasing that capacity will deliver more fuel but you obviously need to make other adjustments and just make sure that the fuel pump itself and the high pressure fuel pump are able to deliver sufficient fuel to the engine in some cases you may find that the high performance variants of your engine and even other models in the manufacturers range offer better injectors I know that some manufacturers have switched from a four nozzle setup to a five nozzle setup and they've changed the injector type in order to maximize that spray pattern so just dropping in injectors from the same manufacturer can often give you a little bit more Headroom when it comes to tuning a car so with engines you've generally got port injection where the fuel is squirted into the intake itself it goes over the valves into the engine where it mixes and you've got direct injection where the fuel is directly injected into the cylinder usually at the last moment there certainly advantages in both setups and some of the new engines that are coming out have both they have port injection which does help reduce the carbon buildup on the intake valves um a lot of people have also looked at methanol injection kits where a port injection setup is added to a direct injection setup so that can supplement the amount of fuel going into the engine switching fuel types as well is another way of getting more power for a lot of these other fuel types you need to supply a lot more fuel to burn to make the power so the injector capacity needs to be dramatically increased but they generally work quite efficiently and quite cleanly people have used various ethanol mixes I've done videos that specifically discuss the different fuels and how people get more power out of engines just by swapping the fuel type but for most people for most of our viewers watching this channel a simple fuel upgrade changing the injector and the fuel pump is all that's necessary and often that's only necessary when you've bump the power up by 50 to 100 horsepower again that depends very much on your engine setup I find that the modern factory direct injection setups deliver quite a lot of fuel they're almost over specified from the factory so that's good there's usually a lot more scope there for extracting power out these before you hit a problem but make sure there's always spare capacity don't calculate the fuel delivery to the exact requirements of the engine because as those injectors degrade and get older the fuel pump degrades and gets older you're going to start to be running out of fuel when you need it and the engine itself is going to have to start backing things off so let's talk about the other common mods that people do on the ldtt so we've got the intake the induction kits the air filters and those systems so let's just have a little chat about the air intakes on the ldtt and what you should expect and whether they're actually worth doing if you've done nothing else to your engine you're wasting your money fitting an induction kit to these the the stock Factory filter and intake setup flows more than adequately for the stock engine when you start to ramp the power up significantly you will start to hit a restriction and that's the point you need to think about the intake so I would still recommend going with a performance panel filter so this replaces the factory paper filter with a higher flowing one they're typically made of some sort of cotton gauze material and it flows much better than the factory one and that'll often give you a little bit more freedom at the top end the turbo will tend to spool up that little bit more quickly because there's not so much of a restriction in the system so the performance panel filter is really what I would recommend if you've got experience with the full induction kits on these please let me know let me know the models that you fitted or the makes of the induction kit that you fitted and what your experience has been I'd really love to hear about your projects and what you're actually doing to this great little engine the main reason a lot of people fit these open cone induction kit filters is because of the lovely induction raar that they create it really does make the engine sound much more sporty much more throaty but the downside of that is the engine can be hard to live with on long drives and long commutes a lot of people that have had induction kits fitted eventually Tire of the noise and the constant drone so manufacturers have designed their intakes to really minimize the noise that's coming on the intake so you obviously lose that design feature from the manufacturer but you are increasing the engine's ability to breathe so depending on your engine and the other mods you do you may well be needing to remove a restriction so a full induction kit is obviously the best way to go don't sight it in the engine bay where there's all the warm air try and channel it off most engine Bays you can put some sort of box mechanism in there to just filter it and have a cold air feed feeding cold air outside because just remember that cold air has more oxygen and the engine is really needing that oxygen in order to burn the fuel if the engine is sucking in warm air it's getting less oxygen and it's going to be down on Power and let's now talk about the exhaust system on the Audi TT where are the areas that you typically find the restriction on the Audi TT exhaust what are the best upgrades that you can do and what can you expect from a performance exhaust system so let's just chat about exhaust upgrades and what your options are on the ldtt so wire exhausts good upgrades and good mods well again it depends on the engine that you've got the general idea is to remove restrictions in the exhaust you want those exhaust gases to exit the engine at the fastest velocity possible now the engine is pushing out these exhaust pulses don't think of it as a constant stream I know when you look at the exhaust pipe itself it seems to have a constant stream but there's actually pulses coming out of the engine and that's a good thing we get a Scavenging effect from this so as each exhaust pulse pushes down the exhaust tube there is a vacuum that forms just behind that and that vacuum is actually beneficial to emptying the exhaust from the cylinder and just allows you to get a little bit more fresh air in if that Scavenging effect is lost I.E you've got an exhaust size that's too big you're losing the velocity of the air due to the large ball size that can have a detrimental effect on the Scavenging so effectively you'll still have some exhaust gases in the engine on the compression stroke so that can also lead to other problems so there's very much a lot of consideration that goes into the design system of an exhaust and generally manufacturers have done a reasonable job when it comes to determining the flow rates of exhaust but bear in mind they've optimized it for everyday driving usually for economy purposes if you're a performance driver and you spend most of your time in the upper end of the RPM range there's certainly going to be an advantage there to having a larger ball size so ideally for high RPMs you want a large B size to just maximize the flow and at low RPM figures you need a narrower B size just to maintain the velocity so as the ball size increases the velocity generally decreases and it really is velocity that counts the area that most people should focus on if it's legal to do so in your area is the catalysts and the dpfs the diesel particular filters these tend to be the biggest drag the biggest pain in the exhaust system there are often Sports Alternatives that can be fitted legally in a lot of areas and if that's the case that certainly is your option to freeing up that lost power due to these devices so obviously when you've made your car go faster you've got a lovely quick LTT you need to think about braking brake upgrades improving the brakes but are they worth doing is it a mod that's worth considering so let's just look at some of the options with break upgrades now often with the Audi group you can change the brakes for more sporty models so the Q3 RS brakes the T TRS brakes the Porsche the Lamborghini brakes they've all been used as donut upgrades for some of the less sporty models in the Audi range and the Audi TT is no exception so it's often a very cheap upgrade just to Source parts from the local Breakers yard from one of these performance models but check the PCD check the offset just make sure that they will physically fit inside the rim as well and generally speaking they're fairly easy to swap in and you've got an instant upgrade to your braking system but there's a little bit of variation between model years obviously so seek a little bit of advice chat to your local mechanic about the upgrade and the feasibility of what you're actually planning to just get the best out of that so what can you expect from break upgrades on the ldtt there's obviously a lot of debate out there with brakes a lot of people have this conception that big brakes big discs and big pads will stop the car much more quickly but in the real world that's not always the case when it comes to brakes so larger brakes will generally allow the car to stop more effectively when you've done repeated stops so on the track you're using the brakes a lot there's a lot more Heat going into the brakes the brakes are effectively converting the kinetic energy into heat and dissipating that they're stopping the tires rotating it's the tires and the grip you have that determines the speed at which the car stops far more than the size of the brake disc or the pad so there are some instances where larger brake discs and larger pads outperform the factory setup and you do get shorter stopping distances so most people though would just see a benefit by changing the pads the friction material that is actually used so just changing the pads can actually sharpen up the brakes a lot of those budget pads are very inefficient they don't bite very quickly but be careful competition pads need to be hot in order to bite so a competition or a race speec pad generally has a much higher operating temperature so they will get hot very very quickly when you apply them but they won't bite from that instant they first go on like the factory fitted OEM Ones Will so take that into account there's various low break dust formulations that keep the alloy rims nice and clean and there's various different grades of friction material but generally those budget long life ones should be avoided they're not great options when it comes to stopping the car I've done other videos that discuss breake upgrades in more detail and that'll just help you to determine which breake upgrade is appropriate for your car but it's a significant mod a lot of people think about it and as your brakes start to get old and start to degrade a lot of people look to replace them with something that's a little bit better so Quattro the Audi four-wheel drive system was fitted on some of the more performance oriented versions of the Audi TT and they're obviously the ones to go for if you want to make large power gain on the front-wheel drive Audi TT you will hit traction problems at about 225 250 horsepower and beyond that you start to waste your money on mods if you've just got front-wheel drive the Quattro system can be retrofitted but it's really fiddly and really expensive to do so essentially the cars are pretty much the same underneath all the space is there to fit the Quattro system and if you've got a Quattro donor car that can make the transition from the front-wheel drive to the all-wheel drive system much more accessible and relatively easy to do so let's talk about intercooler mods now so the intercooler is basically a radiator and it takes the compressed air from the turbo and cools it down why does it cool it down well when you compress air it gets very very hot the more the air is compressed the hotter it gets you probably noticed that when you pump up your car tire the nozzle of the pump starts to get very warm that's the effect of the Compressed Air heating up so you really want that intake charge to be as low as possible when it comes to the intake temperature so an intercooler effectively exposes that hot compressed air to the ambient air and drops the temperature back down so you might think that having a massive intercooler will add loads of power but it doesn't quite work like that the intercooler size is generally determined by the flow rate of the engine and you can actually reduce the velocity and the flow rate significantly by going with the wrong intercooler design now a larger intercooler does offer benefits over a smaller stock Factory one in that it doesn't heat up as quickly it will dispel the heat that builds up in the exhaust charge for longer periods of time so with a lot of factory setups is the small intercoler is barely adequate and if you're doing a lot of Spirited driving that intercooler itself is starting to get warm and if the radiator that the hot air is going into is warm it's not going to be as efficient at cooling it down so upgrading the intercooler it doesn't significantly add power it stops you losing power in that situation where the intercooler has started to get warm itself so reciting the intercooler some engines have intercoolers mounted at the side some they have a water cool intercooler where the water is then channeled to the front of the car and cool down so just changing the routing aiding air flow through the intercooler itself can all help to reduce those intake temperatures a lot depends on the engine you've got and the style of the engine bay of your car and how much scope you've got of maybe adding a larger intercooler at the front but generally speaking the front mount intercoolers perform really well they're relatively cost- effective the downside is the long runs that you have in pipes to feed them so that's why a lot of Manufacturers have a water mounted intercooler mounted quite close to the engine easier to pump the water around than it is to get the air charge moving around the engine bay um and they then expose that water to the Ambient Air Temperature which reduces the temperature of the water which is then passed on to that intake charge as it goes into the engine but we're talking about fairly complex setups there so intercoler upgrades are usually quite expensive and they don't add significant amounts of power but it can help to free up power on those higher powered projects so let's talk about the flywheel now so the flywheel itself what's it do well it's a large metal disc awaits on the side of the engine and as the engine spins the flywheel spins so an engine is never perfect there's a series of explosions going on at stage intervals there's a lot of vibration going on in the engine the components are moving up and down left and right there's a an awful lot going on inside the engine and you don't really want that to upset the smooth running of the engine so the flywheel effectively stores the kinetic energy and just Smooths everything out so in the gaps where nothing is happening explosion wise in the engine the flywheel is still rotating the engine assembly the transmission assembly so it keeps everything moving smoothly so the heavier the flywheel is the less inclined the engine will be to lose RPMs when you drop off the throttle if the flywheel itself is lighter the engine revs the RPM will drop quite suddenly as soon as you ease off so that can be beneficial in a race situation where for example you want to do some rev matching you want those ref changes to happen very quickly to have maximum control over the engine but on the long run you really want the flywheel to maintain momentum otherwise as soon as you hit a hill you're going to have to make a conscious adjustment on the accelerator for every little fluctuation you get whereas the flywheel helps to keep everything smooth so with some engines they have a dual Mass flywheel which is essentially two sprung loaded plates or weights and they work to really dramatically minimize the amount of vibration going through the transmission from the engine so a lot of dual Mass flywheels start to suffer they start to break down the Springs there's a lot of vibration going on in them they are taking a lot of abuse but it's better to have that abuse in something that's relatively cheap to replace than in your expensive transmission or other components within the engine so when people replace the clutch they generally look to replace the flywheel if you've got a dual Mass flywheel it is possible to replace it with a single Mass flywheel but on some engines particularly older diesel engines that's not always advisable you really do want that protection from all the vibrations that are going on in the engine but do ask people who've done this mod specifically if they've got the same engine as you and just compare notes is it giving you the advantages or the flexibility that you want another little plus of having a lighter flywheel is there's less weight in the car and less weight allows the car to accelerate more quickly it makes it handle better so most people for an everyday car would just look to get a slightly lighter flywheel you can get slightly lighter dual Mass flywheels and slightly lighter single Mass Flywheels for most engines so I hope that's given you a good overview on all the mods that you can do to the Audi TT please check out the engine guys that I've done I go into a lot more detail on the engines there's so many differences between the engines particularly the gasoline engines the turbocharged the naturally aspirated and also the diesel engines they have a very very different approach to tuning and upgrade parts and different years had different challenges to face as well there were different problems associated with different generations of the engines so I've tried to do videos just to make you aware of these problems and avoid those usual pitfalls that people hit when they start modifying and upgrading their ldtt so please boot the like button because that really does help us to get out there if you're interested in learning more about getting performance out of your car I've lined this video up for you and please subscribe if you haven't done so because we'd love you to stay tuned thanks for watching and I'll see you in this next video