So im driving down the road and decide to get a little rough with the 7. I start out nice and easy and just decide to gas it. Well ok the engine does what I expect it to until I get around 3k rpms. Suddenly I hear this loud noise that I can only describe as electrical. All of the gagues in the car freak out then it shuts off. I pop the clutch in 2nd and everything starts up fine except my tach is dead. I take the car back home and find that one of the spark plug wires has been slightly disconnected from the trailing coil! This noise has happend three times since then, only one other time where I would have to make sure the wire ends are seated correctly.

I just bent the ends of the spark plug wires outward a little bit today and sanded them so hopefully they wont slide out as easily. Im just wondering if anyone else has experienced this. I asked a friend an opinion about the noise (I took him out for a ride and got the car to make the noise) and he tells me that if it was electrical, I probably would have blown a fuse. I dont know what else it could be though that has the power to shut down the car. I mean its just trailing plugs-- they are not needed to run the engine. Im probably lucky I havent fried my electrical system yet.

Could this be partway a grounding issue? I do have an FD alt (S4 GXL) and its wired correctly (it does read the voltage from the new battery I put in) but ive got all the symptoms of lights dimming when I break, slow starter crank, battery has about 12.35v after sitting overnight etc.

Ah well despite the issues the car is so much fun over 4k rpms.