BY MARK VAUGHN
pWHEN AUDI CAME OUTWITH its525-hp V10-powered all-wheel-drive R8,it seemed like a pretty well-engineered
supercar. It didn’t seem to need anything else. ButAudi tuning specialists Stasis Engineering gave it an-other 185 hp anyway. Ach du lieber!Stasis Engineering, formerly located in the pad-
dock of Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., andnow at Summit Point Raceway in West Virginia,has been tuning Audis for 10 years. Companyfounder Paul Lambert has been racing for almost adecade more. We have driven two Stasis cre-ations—an A3 and an S5—and liked them both (“Stayin Balance with Stasis,” AW,March 26, 2007;“Stasis State of Tune,” AW, Nov. 3, 2008). TheStasis specialty is suspensions, so being at a race-track is handy. Both the A3 and the S5 wentthrough our slalom faster and held higher g loadsaround our skidpad than their stock equivalents. Sothese aren’t just boy-racer modifications. This stuffworks.In the past, though, Stasis has shied away from
significant engine modifications.“There are millions of dollars in R&D spent on
the engine,” Lambert said of our A3 from four yearsago. “We can’t hope to put an engineering dent
into all the work that’s in there.”The engineers at Stasis have put something
more than a dent into this new creation. It’s more likea wallop. The sledge hammer they used was aMagnuson/Eaton twin-scroll supercharger, whichpumps in as much as 7.5 psi of boost. The unit sitsatop the engine under a big metal plate that ob-scures it from view. All you can see is the Stasis-ma-chined intake plenum leading into it. Installation was a bit of a pain, since the R8 V10
they were working with was something of a proto-type loaned to them by Audi. The relationship withthe big German carmaker has its advantages,among which was being able to show off this caron the Audi stand at SEMA last year, Audi’s first of-ficial presence at the storied Las Vegas celebrationof style. But the drawback is that a critical cross-member was welded in place above the engine in-stead of bolted. So engineering director Henry Hsuhad to work around the big bar while doing the in-stallation. If this stuff was easy, everybody would bedoing it.Regardless, the result is a happy, howling 720
hp and 523 lb-ft of tumultuous torque, availableacross a very wide swath of tachometer. The stain-less-steel Stasis exhaust not only lowers backpres-sure but also tunes the roar that comes out theback end.To make full use of this extra power, the car was
lowered three-quarters of an inch with uniquesprings, shocks and sway bars. It rides on Stasis’sown 20-inch 6061 forged-aluminum-alloy wheelswrapped with Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 rubber,255/30 in front and 325/25 in the rear. Stasisclaims that the setup is good for just more than a g.
Unlike the case with the other two Stasis carswe’ve driven, we did not get to take this one to atest track. But during a spirited drive on some twist-ing canyon roads, the steering response and gripfelt compelling—about like a Ferrari 458 Italia andmaybe a notch better than the car’s LamborghiniGallardo sibling. Steering was like sitting on thefront axle with a tie rod in each hand.On wide-open roads with the throttle floored, it
was like taking off in a very small, very angry, nicelystyled jet plane, one with a tuned exhaust. Stasisclaims 0 to 60 mph in 3.1 seconds, and with thestock automatic transmission, it’s likely that mostdrivers could achieve something close to that. Hsuestimates the quarter-mile at “under 11 seconds.”We’ll go with that.Only a few things need to be sorted out. This is
the exact same car that was on the Audi stand atSEMA, so it was set up as a show car. The tiresrubbed the fenders at full lock, but that will go awayonce they set the car up for the street instead ofthe show stand, Hsu said. The S5 we drove a fewyears ago had similar tire rub, which Stasis fixed, soit’s not a big problem.The car comes out in the second quarter of this
year with a price, fully kitted out as our test car was,of about $50,000 more than the cost of your R8V10. The R8 V10 starts at about $150,000, butnobody buys the stripper R8 V10. So by the timeyou account for installation of this cool kit at one ofmore than 50 authorized Stasis Audi dealerships inthe United States and Canada, you could be ap-proaching a quarter-mil for your new mill.It’s worth it.
THEFIXERSTHERE AREN’T MANYPROBLEMS THAT 710 HPAND AWD CAN’T CURE
2011 STASIS ENGINEERING CHALLENGE EXTREME AUDI R8 V10
ELECTRONICALLY REPRINTED FROM FEBRUARY 7, 2011
AUTOWEEK—LIVING THE AUTOMOTIVE LIFE
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Posted with permission from the February 12, 2011 issue of Autoweek ® www.autoweek.com, Copyright 2011. All rights reserved.For more information on the use of this content, contact Wright’s Media at 877-652-5295.
2011 Stasis Engineering Challenge Extreme Audi R8 V10ON SALE: Late spring
PRICE: $200,000-$250,000
DRIVETRAIN: 5.2-liter, 710-hp, 523-lb-ft, superchargedV10; RWD, six-speed automatic
0-60 MPH: 3.1 sec
888-9-STASIS
