I’ve been a long time fan of Burger Tuning, dating back to my 2011 BMW 335D, and their JBD tuner.
I’ll be posting a full review of the performance enhancements and results of the install, but I did want to provide some guidance for the installation, as their guide isn’t ready yet.
Objectives:
During this installation, you’ll do the following:
– Unplug two plugs, and plug in alternative data-paths (ie: unplug something and put something else in between it)
– Run a wire from the OBDII port inside the car through the firewall
– Use some zip-ties
I give this a difficulty of ‘easy’ – The hardest part for me was tracking down where the wire fed through the firewall. If you can do that, you can do the rest.
So – Let’s get started:
Special note – you won’t use one of the connectors – this goes to the fuel rail. Per George @ Burger, this is a terribly inconvenient plug to get to on the RS3, so they are working up a better solution. Zip tie it back into a nice location and out of the way at the end of the installation, you won’t use it for the Alpha version of the JB4.
1. On the left side of the car (Drivers side in US), locate the grommet above the dead-pedal where some wires feed through. You’ll need to punch a hole in this to feed the OBDII through the firewall.
I found the location by opening the left front (drivers) door, and sitting down on the ground outside of the car, with my legs facing forward – I was then able to lean into the car, and reach above the dead-pedal to find the wire loom and feel forward to the grommet. Once I found it, I used the ball point pen to push through.
On the engine side, I was able to locate the pen length, however if you reach around behind the positive jump terminal, you should be able to find the pen/cable/etc easily enough. Once you’ve found it, return to the car, plug in the OBDII connector and fish the wire through.
For now, I did not route the OBDII cable behind the trim – I do plan to do that, and I will update this review when I do. I know that I’ll be taking this back off of the car soon to get some updates done, so I did a quick and dirty install for now.
So – Why did I use a ball point pen to punch through the grommet? Some guides use a screw-driver, however as I don’t know how stiff the cables that are already being fed through are, I didn’t want to risk poking through with something metal. I figured that a ball-point pen would push through the rubber (it did!), and would give a low risk of puncturing any other insulation. Furthermore, as you can see in the pictures, it’s white, which makes it a bit easier to see from the firewall side, given that I wasn’t 100% sure where it was going to pop through. (Furthermore, this was all I had at my disposal… so let’s just run with it!)
2. Remove your engine cover, and find the two connectors circled in the photo below.
3. Remove the connector nearest your intake filter box, or aftermarket cone filter. Splice in the cable from the JB4 that is PURPLE in color.
4. Remove the connector toward the top of the engine. There is another connector near it, but don’t worry about confusing them – they only fit one way! Splice in the cable from the JB4 that has multiple colors – NOT THE GREEN ONE!
5. Route the wires in a manner that makes sense to you, and plug in the OBDII connector to the JB4.
6. Finally, put the engine cover back on, zip tie everything out of the way, nice and secure.
And you’re done! It really doesn’t get much easier.
The only caveats are that you may not make full boost right off the bat, and you may see a traction control or check engine light initially – this is expected and it will go away. Contact Burger for more information or details on what maps to use, etc.
Robspace 