Being new to Audi, but not new at all to owning German tuned cars, I lurked here for months to try to research the best I can on what company to choose to tune my 2019 B9 S5. The car was a 28,000 mile CPO car with warranty when I started my journey in Jan 2023 and today it sits a 34,000 mile Stage 1 ECU, Stage 2 TCU CPO car, that’s probably a TD1 candidate. :/
As I was learning as much as I could, the first tripwire I found was the dreaded rocker arm issue that appear to affect SOME of the 2017-2018s and very early 2019s. I immediately bought a bore scope and determined that my car has one of the revised rocker arm versions. Shooooooo *wipes brow* With that out of the way, my tuning search went full steam ahead.
What I learned quickly is that there are 4 main players in this space (APR/IE/UniTronic/034) and really only 3 of them offer modern tunes for the B9. After consuming as much B9 Youtube and forum content as possible, I narrowed my choice down to two, IE and 034, I’m sure many of you came to the same decision.
At the time (Late Spring 2023) both of the company’s offerings seemed about the same and it really was a coin toss. Then I stumbled upon 034’s Weekly Live stream on Youtube. I watched Javad and Nate for weeks upon weeks and they were kind enough to answer any and all questions I asked along the way. As silly as this may sound, it felt like a personal touch. I know that they have no idea who I am, but something as simple as the Q&A they do every week, was enough to push me over the fence to 034.
Summerfest Sale time! Like others, I took advantage of their tune discount during their annual Summerfest. Purchased Stage 1 ECU, Stage 2 TCU and the cable. Cable arrived from California all the way to the East Coast in less than 5 days and I was excited to get started, and then came the Summer of Hell B9 Edition, 2023.
I think it was either the same day or maybe the day after I received my tuning cable that I saw the first “Cylinder 6” or “Popped Motor” thread on here. Then another, then another, then I went to Facebook Groups. Oh man, don’t ever try to get real information in FB groups. As I tried to sift through the nonsense and noise to try to figure out what really was going on (hint, I still don’t fully know) I thought to myself “Self, what in actual F*ck did you just get yourself into?” So I just paused, and watched it play out for a few weeks. As of this writing, it appears the poor souls that are affected were mostly customers of one tuning company, not named 034 Motorsport. Again, I have no first hand knowledge of what happened with those engines, only what has been shared here, the other Audi forum, and FB Groups. My personal takeaway was that most of those incidents were isolated to one tuner. YMMV.
In that time I decided to do a a lot of pre-tuning logging. I had a bunch of VAG Com logs that didn’t illuminate much (user error probably) so I then reached out to the CS team at 034 about logging instructions with their solution. They were responsive and gave me clear instructions. I was a little concerned at first that I needed to flash their version of a stock ECU file before I could log it with their software. I pushed back on this a few times with them and in the end they were able to finally get it through my thick skull it was more of an ECU patch that allowed their logging solution to capture data. Comforted by that answer, I marched on and pulled out whatever oil the dealer put in it and swapped it with LuquiMoly 0w20 and ordered a Blackstone Oil Analysis. That took damn near 6 weeks to get results back, but they concluded that internals look healthy. Here we go…
The first couple stock logs I gathered and sent were terrible logs. While waiting for them to review those terrible logs, I got impatient and posted them in the S4 forum “Post your logs” thread. Some very kind members verified that I indeed captured mostly crap. So, a couple days later I went and gathered some good pulls and submitted those. I also performed the cardinal sin when it comes to 034 email communications. I pinged them about every other day looking for verification that they received the logs and were happy with the way they looked (pre-tune). As I grew a little more impatient, I even pinged Sean@034 here on this very forum. What I’ve since learned is every time you email them, back to the bottom of the queue you go. Sean was super kind in his responses and re-educated me on their process but reminded me they state clearly in the email they send out to their customers, to only reply once. *bangs head* Of course I never read that part. My bad…
Ok, now I understand how it all works and apologized for being an idiot. Sean escalated my email and I had an answer that same day. Good to go, flash away…
The day I flashed was the very first weekend of the recent v3.0 release. It was easy, super intuitive and completed without a hitch. I drove the car gently for about a 1/4 tank of 93 octane then got the nerve to stomp on it. Those that say this is how the car should’ve felt from the factory are correct. OEM-like when driving with some sense but pushes you in your seat when WoT and my god, those shifts. It’s not as fast as the car this B9 is replacing, but it simply doesn’t matter. The car feels excellent and the firm shifts are giggle inducing. I dig it.
I now have an 034 intake installed (purchased from a forum member) and just recently purchased the 034 transmission insert. Pro tip, if you’re getting the stage 2 TCU tune, add the trans insert to your cart at the same time, you’re gonna need it.
I share all of this to say that if you’re on the fence about which tuner to go with maybe my words help make your decision, again YMMV.
What I can say with a zero degree of uncertainty, is that I’m completely satisfied but already considering moving to E85 just to see what it feels like. You know…. just the tip. :/
Special thank to James in CS. Thanks for being patient with me.
Happy modding. Full send…
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Originally Posted by oesman
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