So, I went to my VW/Audi dealers here in Tampa and purchased the stock RS7 spark plugs and RS3 ignition coils. The exhaust smelled slightly worse at startup after the change, but still went away shortly after startup. The idle was smoother but I attribute that to old stock coils and spark plugs.
The only thing I have are the R8 coils, other than that stock everything. The car drives mint
The Audi bolt-down ones are good. I replaced the push-down coils that had a failure about every year or two with the bolt-downs just a week or so befor VW announced the recall. Zero, zero, zero problems ever since.
I also ordered four (4) new ignition coils from Hitachi, installed them 60 miles ago and it's been smooth since the installation. My car is quieter, more responsive, and idles better. No, check engine lights at all.
Did this conversion on my 2001 Audi A4 with a standalone. I ran it with stock (3ms) dwell and up to 5ms dwell and didnt notice any difference. I was running Hitatchi coils before and would notice slight bumps in idle. Now all I hear is smooth butter at idle.
So far I've replaced all ignition coils (1 died while I was test driving the car, the other 2 years after in the winter, of course). I decided to replace them all with non-faulty Audi parts instead of doing it every year.
The old AWD hitachi coils are far more reliable in my experience. I would not change to the awp style from the bolt downs. I have had ~8 failed AWP coils over the years on my 2001 audi/2002 gti and I have 8 hitachis now in my 2 1.8t's for a few years now and no hitachi failures. This is with track days on the gti. They also bolt down so you won't have them popping up on you whack a mole style like the awp ones sometimes do
Don't replace ignition coils until one or more gives out, then I would look into replacing them all with Hitachi E ignition coils (bolt-downs).
To make a story short, and have a happy ending like me , just buy the 1.8 T coilpack (coil-on-plug x 4) manufactured by Hitachi (Japan). They have the top of the plug filled with some ceramic epoxy-like stuff that seems really sturdy and heatproof. I bought them at ECSTuning.com over a year ago, and they haven't failed not even once.
Car always kills them. I was the most surprised when it killed the Hitachi coils.
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