Tuning the Audi RS Q5

"Thanks for reading our Audi RS Q5 tuning tips."

Due to the success Audi had with the RS Q3 they were inspired to create an RS Q5, and frankly this is the car I've been waiting my whole life for.

Taking the engine from the RS5 and adding it to the RS Q5 made a lot of sense, it was powerful and torque rich.

The RS Q5 is a good car modification project to try. Sit down first and research RS Q5 tuning to save yourself making the usual expensive errors we regularly hear about.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Improving the handling for many tuners first priority in your car tuning project but thankfully the RS Q5 setup is pretty good.

Fully adjustable suspension allows you to fine tune the handling of you RS Q5 greatly enhancing your drive so we're thinking a set of coilovers but the mag ride setup from Audi is one of the best setups we've tried.

We suggest that you fit uprated suspension (the RS Q5 suspension can be a little harsh and firm) and lower the car by 22mm - 31 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with motorsport suspension.

Turning our attention to the RS Q5's engine we need to get a bit more power 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.

Tuning modifications.

The following motorsport kits are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get started.

• 2.9 liter TFSI V6 twin turbo  444 hp 443 lbft

Getting the correct grade of performance upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 motor sport parts just don't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

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Stages of Tune

Stage 1 mods: Panel air filter, Lighter flywheel, Remap, Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 22mm - 31 mm.), Alloy wheels.

Stage 2 mods: Ported and polished head, high flow fuel injector, Fast road cam, fuel pump upgrades, Power/Sport clutch.

Stage 3 mods: Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Competition cam, Engine balancing, Sports gearbox, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves).

Peak power is nice in motorsport but for a drivable and fun car you need a wide power band and perhaps extending the rev range.

In this article we shall give a limited introduction to the best performance parts for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance part.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest performance gains for your money as far as a solitary tuning modifications goes on a NASP engine.

The exhaust and intake valve timings play a major role in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car hard to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a reflashed ECU for the best performance gains.

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

Most power losses, and erratic idling after tuning mods are done can usually be traced to timing or fuel delivery issues. To get sufficient fuel you may need to upgrade the injectors on your engine.

If you are increasing your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Air induction kits will only help to boost power if your air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most stock engines will see ZERO LOW END POWER GAIN AT ALL. If you have heavily modified your engine and it's need for air INCREASES DRAMATICALLY then an induction kit is the answer and will help remove this restriction.

Maximum power gains come from a full induction kit with a cold air feed on heavily tuned engines, this can be sited within an air box but a performance panel filter should suffice for most applications. TorqueCars suggest you use a panel air filter as these are easy to clean and maintain and generally perform better than paper ones.

Do not go with the widest exhaust you can find this will slow up the exhaust flow rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

Getting a professionally ported and polished head with larger valves can fully maximise your power gains. Your clutch can fail if it starts to fail and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of up to 46%. Fit a competition clutch to avoid power loss through the transmission. The best mods in our opinion for your RS Q5 are a remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.

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

We've also come across some owners playing with twin charging conversions and making some very high power figures.

The most phenomenal power gains for NASP engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. Superchargers are often easier to add than a turbo. It is difficult to map fuelling with a turbo as the boost comes on exponentially with rpm.

Superchargers, however will give a boost which is directly proportional to engine speed so is simpler. Adding forced induction will generally require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

As alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they will help to cool the brake disks. Don't forget that your choice of rubber greatly affects your cars grip and handling. It is not worth compromising performance with cheap tyres when you can buy directional tread pattern performance tires.We'd like to point out although they can look cool on the RS Q5 big alloy wheels 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.

Due to this fact we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 19 inches, although we know some of our members have with bigger wheels with no problems.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss RS Q5 options in more detail with our RS Q5 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.

We need your help improving this article, so please send us your feedback in the comments box below and pass on any tips, points or facts we have wrong or have not covered.

We really like hearing from our readers, and hearing about which mods were the most effective for them, it helps us improve our recommendations and articles to reflect current trends in modifications and ensures that our guides and tips are kept up to date.

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This article is flagged for an update, so please pass on specific tips below that I can include. All articles, and content was written by me, Waynne Smith TorqueCars founder. Some outlines are just too general so I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Audi. You can leave a response below or join our forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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