Here is something I had done a week or two ago when shopping black friday offerings.

The Rebel LS is a top offering for any of us at $1500 with harness included. Just a blazing deal for what you can add to your car. With minimal difference in options, buying an R3 and harness right now would be twice the price at $2800.

Haltech offers impressive software and hardware as packages and for the life of me they just don't do a top job of talking up what their kit can do. They didn't even have the Rebel in their own comparison chart so going by their articles, website, quick start documentation, a yt video and other sources I cobbled together as accurate a representation as possible.

For whomever may benefit from this: enjoy!



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I am very closely following your info as I am really at a crossroads with getting more power. I am beginning to understand the limitations of my 2000 A4 engine management system as I go along. I want 600 rwhp it's just how do I go about getting there. Stroking my current LS1 with FI sounds like it will be really pushing the limits of my current ECM, and the price seems to be what I could get a 6.2 crate engine for. I have thought going big cu in with a stroked LS3, again engine management is an issue. I checked out Haltech after your first post about them. Of course now with even more info and options my pea brain is really beginning to smoke.

 

The factory ECU can absolutely handle fuel and spark delivery for big power.

Nothing about a Haltech or Holley (or Motec) make more power in or of themselves. They do take in more information if you feed it to them, and they do process it faster, as well as offer greater depth of tables and cross-referencing inputs. So they have the potential to run the car more efficiently and that, yeah, translates to power. My interest in my setup has been purely for the ability to control boost / power / traction by gear which strikes me as being a sinisterly good upgrade. Being of the 'built not bought' school I also want to compete as best I can against these 8 or 10-speed autos with my old school manual, so the no-lift-shift function ought to help me keep up with the Joneses out there. If a mechanical failure happens, nothing is saving your engine. But if an input flags and you've tagged in your tables you have the ability to select any number of options to mitigate damage up to or including turning the engine off.

Yeah - that boost/power by speed or gear with traction control sounds like the ticket to me. Absolutely maximizing your tire's traction without blowing them off is as cool as it gets in my book. And in each different gear all the way up.

I don't have running engine experience on the platform yet. Just fuddling with the software on my desktop/laptop. It far exceeds any need I would have as a shadetree mechanic.

As for 600rw with an A4.... eventually the expensive part will be the transmission(s) so that is the biggest thing to plan for the build

 

I agree along with too many times in my youth where the big power engine went in first....with the trans being fixed in short order. This time I will work from the back forward as far as purchasing parts.

 

I just want to see mine run again.