Audi D2 S8 Manual
 

Hi all. I have a 2000 S8 lovely car apart from that terrible auto box.?
I would love to have the car converted to a manual box. So I have 2 questions

A, where can I get this done??

B, how much will it cost??

It depends if you have a LHD or RHD as to how easy it would be but here is a topic that could be of interest:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showthread.php?t=13216

LHD its just a matter of collecting the parts from Germany. Cost is probably ~£3000 for parts as they are very, very rare, but its all bolt-in. Fitting is 3-4 days work.

RHD is more complex as there was never a factory option for this so it requires the clutch assembly to be fabricated. There are two of us working on this at the moment (with original 01E or RS4 0A3 gearbox. Cost of the 01E conversion using original parts is likely to be in the region of £5-6000 fitted. The 0A3 needs a lot of fabrication and custom parts so hard to say at this stage. Give it six months I think and we should both have a better idea of how the conversions fit together.

Why would the RHD conversion cost £3000 more than LHD when the only non-factory parts are a machined clutch pedal, some trimming of the brake pedal, and a machined bracket to bolt onto the pedal box to house a factory master cylinder?
Someone with access to a CNC machine can make these parts at low cost.

If the ECU does not have the manual software built in, re-coding should not cost more than £400

*edit* sorry just re-read you said fitted. Yes that would add at least £2k - £3k to either conversion as there is so much labour involved

I'm curious to know why you think the Auto box is so terrible?

+1.

Its slow to shift, weighs more than the moon, leaks oil everywhere, and has many built-in design flaws which cause it to explode at the drop of a hat or every 100K, whichever happens sooner. I can't see why anyone would try to defend it myself.

If you want to cruise along the autobahn or sit in traffic I guess its acceptable, but it ruins the car when you want to have fun anywhere else. My diesel A6 is more fun to hustle on the wiggly bits and it has 1/3rd the horsepower, but it has a manual gearbox so it does exactly what I want it to whereas in the S8 the corner is already done by the time the 5hp24 remembers how to gearbox. Tiptronic just doesn't cut it on the wiggly bits either, although there I would struggle to explain why. Thats more useful for pre-selecting a lower gear to overtake something than pretending you can drive it like a manual.

Is it a FL thing? I found the PF 4 speed a good box really, in plain auto it nearly killed me once changing down mid bend but lesson learned from that flip it into tip. I was shocked when i went for a ride in Mikes FL S and even in tip it would still change on it's own.

The auto box in the sprinter is really bad, that thing just does what it wants all the time, even in tip it'll still only change when it wants.

Is it not possible to give the TCU a more aggressive map?

There used to be a 'tip chip' available in the US for the 5HP19, but I've never found anyone over here who can do it. Such a thing might improve its performance, but wouldn't help it being made of soft cheese.

It might be a 5HP thing. I've never driven a 4-speed version quickly so can't really compare them.