chassis

Is anyone building a high hp EA839 2.9TT engine? I was watching several videos on YT from 034Motorsports, and they are talking about 1,000hp and higher. Key word is talking - they did not state that any of their customers have built an engine to this power level.

What intrigues me is the robustness the EA839 appears to be showing as it ages. Iron-lined cylinders is one reason, and less complexity (one HPFP, one OVS, no cylinder deactivation) compared with the 4.0TTV8 is another. Hot vee is a simpler architecture than the prior EA837 3.0TTV6 "cold vee" with turbos on the outside. The EA839 had early teething problems with cam roller failures in 2017-2018. VAG corrected this in production and it has not resurfaced.

The 2.9TT is still somewhat new, but seems to be capable of putting out some power with the right components. 034 talks about head bolts, pistons and rods. They seem to suggest the head, block, crank, gaskets and bearings are up to the demands of higher power. Pretty strong positive statements for the factory design.

Macan and Audi S and RS models seem the likely places the 2.9TT will be built to higher performance levels. The 2.9TT had a relatively short appearance in 9Y0, being used on base, S and eHybrid models for the first 4 model years. The 2.9TT has been discontinued for Cayenne in the 9Y0.2 facelift. Shame, it's a great engine.

Nickshu

No but I have always thought it would be rad to build a race car out of a Macan and run it in Champ car or WRL. There is a team that runs a ute-type pickup truck built out of a Saturn Sky/Pontiac Solstice, and they do well. Would be a ton of work to build though.

DiscoWagon

One thing to note, the Audi RS EA389s will always have more potential than the Porsche variants due to superior air-to-water intercooling. So the high HP examples will be coming from Audi builds.

chassis

Thanks. I was wondering about cooling. And lubrication.

Isn’t it correct that the RS5 has a single air-water intercooler? Is it less capable than two air-air intercoolers? I know for certain the Cayenne S 2.9TT has two air-air intercoolers. Agree that a high hp build needs to address cooling related to more heat rejection.

VAGfan

I am not sure that the air-to-water intercooler is superior. Unless it has a completely "divorced" coolant system (from the engine coolant system), it is using 200F engine coolant to reduce the temperature of the compressed intake air, which makes it less efficient than using cooler ambient air in an air-to-air intercooler. I believe the Audi RS5 system is NOT divorced. As a side note, the RS5 intercooler is known to spring coolant leaks into the intake path.

Auto manufacturers usually use air-to-water intercoolers because they can be packaged better in the engine compartment.

joeyoro

That is correct, the air to water intercooler is prone to failure and is not divorced. Stock in the RS5 units pulls power due to the limitations of the comically small and incapable heat exchanger. I replaced my system with an air to air intercooler due to the space constraints of the smaller unit. The engine is capable but it is both handicapped by hardware options and extremely handicapped in tuning options. Your options are an off the shelf tune or nothing. Custom tuning that has been successful has all been out of other non-North American countries.

VikingPorsche

The 2.9TT is only found in the Cayenne S. Base and E-Hybrid uses the 3.0 single turbo which has better low end torque.

joeyoro

The 3.0 is the more modded engine just due to it being more accessible throughout so many other models. I am unaware of any tuning on the e-boost models as all of the tunes are based off S or SQ non e-boost.

Some of the positives of the 2.9/3.0 also become negatives. The HPFP issues have not been solved so all of the HPFPs have been remanufactured stock units. The RS and S peak with E60 and the pump cannot keep up after that. I have been talking to Stanadyne about trying to get a Stanadyne Goliath system setup for the platform to try to address this.

The gearing is more aggressive in the RS5 with the smaller turbos the low end isn't an issue. But I have no idea if they use the same transmission models in the Porsche versions. The hardware is there to get you around 700 crank Hp though.