Roland Mayer began his career engineering Audi’s inline-five in the first Quattro, so if anyone can best tune these potent little engines, it should be him. Cue his company’s latest five-cylinder upgrade of the Audi RS3, the MTM RS3 R.
MTM (Motoren Technik Mayer) launched to fame with the S2 RSR, which was making 422 horsepower from its 2.2-liter turbo five-cylinder in the early 1990s. The front tires were wider than the rears, just as they are on the current 10Best-winning RS3 sedan. The extra R in MTM’s RS3, as you can predict, means more power. A lot more.
With MTM-spec turbos, a carbon-fiber intake, intercooler, downpipe, exhaust, and engine control unit software, the RS3 R’s 2.5-liter five-pot spins a crazy 565 horsepower at 6650 rpm (the standard car makes 400 hp at 7000 rpm). It boasts 494 lb-ft of torque at 3250 rpm; the stock one makes 354 lb-ft at 1700 revs. The lowered, cambered Gepfeffert suspension is within a millimeter of making the car look like a stanced Jetta, and we’re glad MTM didn’t drop it any farther onto its 20-inch Bimoto wheels. Via a small LCD control, MTM allows back-door access to the Haldex center differential’s torque split and locking functions, including an option to disable it for torque-steering front-wheel burnouts. MTM estimates zero to 62 mph in 3.5 seconds (on par with our test of a stock RS3) and a 186-mph top speed (12 mph higher than Audi’s claim).
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