Tuesday, December 9, 2008

DTM: Audi Mugen MF308 Controversy

You might be wondering what on earth is going on over on the Audi RS4 / Audi A4 / Honda V8 Wikipedia pages & Audi/Honda Forums across the globe. Honestly when I originally put up information up with references, Audiphiles were quick to display their cognitive dissonance by deleting my entries and covering up the truth. Well I am the original Wiki poster for the controversy. I'm here to confirm what was written almost a year ago because I grow tired of the Childlike tendencies so rampant on Wikipedia which in all honesty has no use in society other than being a big Blog of truths & half-truths. So I will post it here for all to see and either accept it or not, So here are the main bits of information for you to digest.

Audi needed a reliable V8 engine for their new DTM program at the time. Neil Brown Engineering is the confirmed enginebuilder/rebuilder for AudiSport which tuning was done inhouse by Audisport using a DTM mandated Bosch Motorsport ECU. Apparently Audi contacted Honda for a solution because of their performance, reliability and dominance in IRL (Sound familiar now). Also Audi was able to reduce center of gravity in the R11/R12 chassis since the IRL platform derived V8 sat so low in the Dallara & Panoz chassis's used. Unconfirmed is if Audi took the Mugen design further for the R13 platform DTM car. Interestingly enough is Audis 4.2 litre engine in the B7 RS4 was designed with 4 valves per cylinder much like Hondas V8, which replaced the older 4.2 litre 5 valve per cylinder design from the V8 in the B6 Audi S4 (similiar in design to Ferrari's V8 used in the F355 and funny enough Both the S4 & F355 were plagued by similiar transmission troubles and were made by ZF Engineering).
Considering Audis recent use of the Lamborghini V10 in Audi vehicles this information unconfirmed goes along with a timeline of development & use in road cars by Audi.

This is the original Honda/Mugen MF308 in 3.5 litre form:












Here is the Audi Sport 4.0 Litre version and Article:

Audi pulls the plug on American LeMans Series


While Audi had originally stated it would wait to pull their involvement from ALMS, its offical.
Audi Sport North America will drop all motorsports activites,
"The decision to withdraw was a very difficult one for these reasons. Furthermore, with the
Champion racing team we had a partner that operates at the highest level. The extraordinary dedication and precision of Team Champion was the key to Audi's victories over the last few years in America," said Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich, the head of Audi Motorsport.
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