600 BHP Audi RS8 in the pipelines

[thepolarfoxqx]

Power to smash the M5? Really. I believe you overlook the fact M5 has a few advantages of its own. First, the nearly 400lbs lighter it is than RS6, seccondly, the fact it gets a true manual as opposed to an auto, thirdly, the fac that there will be a 600+hp V10 (maybe bigger, maybe tweaked, who knows) for the M1 project sitting in the parts bin.

Your data furthermore contradicts a motor trend article from a few months back which stated that a new, reworked 4.2L TT engine was going to be released, good for approximately 500hp, they said there were no plans for the Gallardo V10 to go under the hood. I say that is a smart move on audi's part. BMW has the high winding V10, and the M5 is a much edgier car than the RS6, if Audi tried to emulate this, people would go for the real thing first. Audi has a good and distinct flavor with their very fast, refined, low end torquey turbocharged cars with AWD. It would be a mistake to try to disrupt that. As for S4 getting a N/A V8, the turbocharged V6 was already one generation old, about to be two, M3 was being given a V8, as was C55, the answer to Audi was easy there. That said, it is still the slowest of the 3.

[mv]

Originally Posted by thepolarfoxqx Power to smash the M5? Really. I believe you overlook the fact M5 has a few advantages of its own. First, the nearly 400lbs lighter it is than RS6, seccondly, the fact it gets a true manual as opposed to an auto, thirdly, the fac that there will be a 600+hp V10 (maybe bigger, maybe tweaked, who knows) for the M1 project sitting in the parts bin.

Firstly it might be 400lbs lighter than the current one...if it is 400lbs lighter than the next one is the question

Secondly the upcoming RS6 could get(and is likely to get it) a DSG transmission with no lags when shifting..

Thirdly, audi already has a 600+hp V10 engine in works (remember nuvolari,le mans)...they have been testin it for a long time (there were some issues with turbochargers overheating hence they couldn't get more than 600hp but that was a year ago)


And i keep hearing especially from germany that as for S,RS-line audi is gonna produce more focused cars...lightweight,high-revving NA engines so as to take on BMW...well,that doesn't mean they want to abandon turbos completely,2.0l tfsi will be offered wherever it is possible..than there is the upcoming 1.8l tfsi which should supercede not as successful 2.0l NA fsi with the same power but with significantly more torque and better torqe curve.

RS6 wise , i admit that v8 biturbo is still an option despite german's claims.

[thepolarfoxqx]

motortrend and even the conservative people at edmunds have audi keeping the RS6 on a 4.2TT into the next body. My guess is the new RS6 isn't getting much lighter. It's getting bigger, it's still staying a steel unibody, not going all A8 style, they could cut some weight, but the fact stands that they will not be able to get as light as M5 for a few reasons.

Assuming they go aluminum intensive how BMW did, do all the little weight saving measures like lightweight padding and specially formulated glass, the the M5 has a mangesium engine block (there alone is close to 100lbs), and does not have AWD, which means no center diff, no front diff, no front driveline, which account for close to 200lbs in and of themselves. That tranny is cool, but it's heavy too.

As for that V10, VW is having seccond thoughts putting that in other cars, their brand managers have started to understand somethings can't be shared effectively. Also, 600hp in a concept car is different. Concept cars don't have emmissions gear and don't have to be rock solid and even. I'm sure that motor, turbocharged, could put out something close to that, but it's besides the point.

Trying to emulate BMW seems like a mistake. An RS6 won't ever be the edgy car M5 is. The all wheel drive messes up the weight distrobution and polar center of inirtia pretty bad, it won't ever have the same light on its feet, flingable feel. A high winding motor without gobs of torque have never been well suited to heavy cars with big drivelines (AWD). I'm not at all convinced they are leaving their turbochargers for one minute.

[mv]

Trying to emulate BMW seems like a mistake. An RS6 won't ever be the edgy car M5 is. The all wheel drive messes up the weight distrobution and polar center of inirtia pretty bad, it won't ever have the same light on its feet, flingable feel. A high winding motor without gobs of torque have never been well suited to heavy cars with big drivelines (AWD). I'm not at all convinced they are leaving their turbochargers for one minute.

I couldn't agree more.I have never said I fancy these speculations that Audi is dropping turbochargers and i would be pretty dissapointed if it comes true...I'm a big fan of turbocharged Audis

However it sadly seems that at least the new RS4 will drop turbos...germans keep saying it will have the NA v8 and this is said to be directly from the RS4 dev team...they claim it tends to have less power than a v6 TT would have but on the other hand you'll get instant gas response etc.

[thepolarfoxqx]

Response, to a point, i still think it takes less time for a turbo to get up to spool than for you to drop a gear and get the engine milling back into torque curve, the NA engines definately have a place and a theme, and are my personal preference, but in a heavy, somewhat softer audi, they might not be the right thing.

I hope that speculation is wrong and the motortrend and edmunds folks are right. It was sad when the really spectacular mecedes 3.2L Kompressor V6 got dropped for a heavier V8 with negligibly better performance. Non of the 55 series cars are faster than their 32 series predecessors, and have worse weight and distribution. That was a mistake to me, just like audi dropping their turbos.