Garage Built Wonder - the Audi R8 1:1

Garage Built Wonder

I’ve been working on Audi cars for all of my adult life. In 2015 I had an opportunity to be a part of a dream project involving an Audi; of building a perfect track tool that would deliver in the region of1000hp per ton and make a statement world-wide. Sami Sivonen has been a competitor Time Attack racing since 2011. He has won the FinnishChampionship in the Clubman class twice with an Audi TTRS (2011-2012) Won the European TimeAttack Masters FWD class at Zandvoort with a SeatLeon, and once again a Finnish title running in the Time Attack Unlimited class in 2014. After three seasons with the Leon, it was apparent to the team that a FWD car is not competitive enough against AWD and RWD cars on twistyt racks of the Scandanavian North. Hence Sami decided to build a car that would give no excuses and losing to anyone on the planet would not be the cars fault. An Audi TTRS was considered, so was an S5 and an RS4, but when he found an unregistered R8 from Germany, the plans changed very quickly.The R8 powerplant is a 4.2 liter V8, with a drysump lubrication system and typical for Audi, an over engineered driveline would give a goodchance for 4-digit horsepower figures, which was Sami’s plan from day one. Even though nobody mentions it a lot, the fastest TA cars in Finland ,Sweden, the UK not to mention WTAC are already closing to 1000hp mark. So to be competitive down the road the magical 1000 hp had to be our goal. Taking it from a track toy to track weapon As we noted the car was unregistered, as it ha been built as a track toy from new. This not only meant it had very low mileage, and it already had a rollcage installed, it was also affordable, being more than a third cheaper than second cheapest on the market. So after a bit if negotiating Sami became the proud owner of Scandanavia’s only Time Attack Unlimited class Audi R8. In an effort to see what we had bought we

World Time Attack Challenge. On to 1.5 Khp The old engine produced 1220whp, and bit over 1000lbft of torque on 20psi boost. We tried higher boost, but the car wouldn’t stay on the dyno rollers. Looking at fuel consumption and acceleration rate, 1500 crank hp was a safe assumption. The new engine made the same on 1.2bar, and we ran on 1.45 on track. Many said it is pointless to have this much power. However, Sami says the car puts the power to the ground perfectly. It doesn’t wiggle or wobble, just slingshots itself to speeds unimaginable for a tin top car. For example from 120 to 150mph in less than 5 seconds. In Sydney, we clocked 6.1 seconds from 124 to 188mph, from which first two seconds it is still held back by traction control, and at 170mph I dial 5psi boost off, to prevent it from going too fast on Brabham straight. However, Sami joined the exclusive +300kph club, shooting over the magical