Well I might as well put my 2 cents in, this is probably going to get long winded, but here we go. I installed this kit this weekend and got flashed on Monday. This is on a 2018 Audi S3, DQ381 7 speed DSG, just the turbo, no additional fueling, 93 octane. For reference this car had EQT OTS stage 1 then EQT OTS stage 2, as well as EQT DSG Tune. I can fill in why I switched to this kit later on. To give you an idea of who I am, I drive to work and back, 25-30 miles each way. I take the highway to work, back roads home. I don't go to the track, I don't ever drive in "Mexico", I'm not looking to take anyone to Gapplebee's, there are no canyons in rural Connecticut, I don't care if your FBO GTI or Golf R can do the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs. I just want a reasonably fast, fun car without having to deal with too much bullshit, I don't have time for that.
I won't get into installation, there's plenty of information on removing/installing a turbo on the MQB platform. I will say it's not that bad, just time consuming.
In regards to the ECU/TCU Tune and driving experience, the car is incredibly smooth and refined. Not sure how to put it any other way, it's really that smooth. It doesn't give you that torque punch during hard acceleration from a roll, but you look at the speedo and you're already way past legal speeds, it's deceiving. I put the stock airbox back on with AFe dry flow filter, there is barely any turbo noise with this setup. I have an APR open hot air intake if I want whistley noises, but I wanted to keep IAT in check for now. Driving in D from a stop, if you give it some good throttle it feels as punchy as the IS38. I'm sure it's due to the gearing, but it makes up for any lag and you're up to speed right away. On the highway, the top end over the IS38 is nice to have, 70-90mph passing is a breeze. The one complaint I have is with the TCU tune in D when taking off slowly or in a slow speed area (30-40mph), I'm in 5th by the time I get to 30mph. If I'm cruising along at 40ish I'm in 6th! This is where the turbo lag really shows up, the car is quick to downshift if I give it moderate throttle, but I feel like it should be down a gear to begin with to be closer to the powerband. With slowing down, it holds gear way too long. Basically I wish it was less aggressive to up shift at slow take offs and more aggressive to downshift when slowing down. In Sport its completely different, if you're crusing along, the transmission is keeping you right in the meat of the power and it holds until you ride it out before changing gears. On the EQT DSG Tune in sport, if you were in say 3rd, but didn't really accelerate, it would go to 4th after a few seconds and chill, APR.....nope, it's keeping that thing in 3rd until you run it to redline, but it is a different turbo, so I would expect the characteristics to be different than EQT. I will say the shifts feel faster and more crisp on the APR TCU tune overall.
I only have maybe 150 miles of seat time, but I was driving through some New England back roads today. If you're from the area you'll know the type...winding roads, through the hills, trees everywhere two feet from the road, short straight aways, nearly every corner is a blind corner. I put it in manual mode, kept it in 3rd and I let it rip. Really good transient response, as fast as you would really want to go on the street, no power drop off, easy to get into some butt puckering situations.
Overall, I am pretty satisfied so far, this kit fits my goals and what I was looking to achieve. If you're looking to run your car on the ragged edge, drag racing every weekend, trying to blow doors on that asshole neighbor that has the Dodge charger with the punisher sticker on the back, I don't know maybe this kit isn't for you. All I'm saying is temper your expectations, do what you want, I'm not your father.
