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Brendan's 1983 Audi quattro Project Thread

13K views 36 replies 12 participants last post by  DaveDoolittle 
#1 ·
Hey folks of Motorgeek...

My name is Brendan and I am the owner of DA900269, an Alpine White 1983 UrQ with more than 240k on the clock. The car found me in December of 2011 from a local who had owned it from very nearly new, whom had traded his 911SC for the car when both were much younger. To my knowledge, I am owner number 3.

The Car: In my 5 years with the car, it has asked very little of me. I have given it oil, gas, insurance and a few minor touchups, i.e. a radio head unit to match all my other cars, a body colored spoiler, a fuel pump, fuel filter, injectors and accumulator trying to chase the hot starts (I am convinced you can't win with the WX) and a seat dye job to touch up. I can still start it up and drive it just about anywhere today, which has been awesome. The car currently shares daily driver duty with a 1987.5 Audi Coupe GT, a 1981 DeLorean DMC-12, a 1991 Nissan Skyline GT-R, and my Mk-7 Golf GTI.



























A certain proprieter of the B2 Resource was kind enough to provide my dealer info from Audi (Thanks Mike!);

Vehicle Data Basic Data
Make: A
VIN: WAUDC0859DA900269
Model Year: 1983
Description: Description not found
Sales Type: 857422
Delivery date: Dec 23, 1982
Leasing: No
Engine Code: WX
Transmission Code:
Colors TYPE COLOR CODE
LACQUER NUMBER (LACQUER BODY/ROOF NO.)
DESCRIPTION
Exterior (Body/roof)
P1/P1 ALPINWEISS/ALPINWEISS
Interior TK Description not found
PR-Numbers
CON. NO. NO. ORIGIN FAMILY DESCRIPTION
1 253 O Description not found
2 425 O Description not found
3 560 O STAHLKURBELHEBEDACH HERAUSNEHMBAR
4 749 O Description not found
5 R82 O Description not found


The car does have some foibles and I am looking to correct these as best as I can as I go through my project;
-I have a rust spot on my passenger side fender at the mating surface with the inner fender that is starting to make me nervous.
-The WX occasionally stumbles. It will be towards the end of a 1 hr or more drive under load, such as pulling away from a stoplight, the car will cut for maybe half a second and then resume as though nothing was wrong. Plugs are new and the fuel work aforementioned was performed chasing this idiosyncracy.
-The Power steering is leaky. It appears to be the bomb, and the leak is getting worse as time goes on.
-The diffs have a mind of their own. They were repaired from a completely inop state, but have a tendency to engage when the car gets on boost.
-The clearcoat is blowing off my paint in places, the current paintjob is showing signs of a few small spots of scale rust etc that need to be corrected.

This will be a long post and I am still not sure its the right time to post, but I need to start getting my plan down on paper. I am pursuing a pretty grandiose plan and I don't know how it is going to turn out/things are still flexible as I am trying to get a plan of attack solidified, but I would love feedback from you all, the folks in the know.

The Plan: This is the fun part, but also the part that I am the weakest on. I have a set of goals and general thoughts on how I want to get there, but the details in many cases are not fully hashed out. My goal is to make a nice street car with decent but not crazy power to continue putting miles on with occasional autocross and maybe a track day in it. I'd like to do the body work to a degree in which I am not afraid to take it out in snow for fear of the rust monster (I currently still do, I just feel bad afterwards). All in all, a fun quick UrQ with some nice updates.

-Engine/Driveline: I plan on going 20VT like many folks before me have. I have a donor 1991 200 20v with 140,000 on the clock. As a goal, I'd like to attempt to make 300-350 horsepower. I know I will need a turbo (had my eye on GT2871R from 034), and Rods, and would have the head redone while the engine is out of the donor. I am also considering rebuilding the bottom end when I do the rods just to have a completely solid starting point. In another thread, the board has pointed me towards using a 7A exhaust cam. Other supporting modifications people have suggested my way are an improved exhaust manifold and injectors/fuel pump. My biggest stumbling block is management currently; I know that the 3B ECU is not as versatile as an AAN ECU as far as putting tuneable management into the car. To manage the car properly, it seems like I will need to convert the engine to Coil on plug, using the distributor on the 3B for the Crank Position Sensor. VEMS is certainly an option I am considering now, I am just concerned about my lack of experience with tuning. Either way, getting it all to play nice and work right is a big question mark I am hoping some of you with experience may have a pointer or two on. I know there are other gotchas such as getting the tach signal to work from the 3B into the UrQ's binnacle.

I get alot of differing opinions on the transmission. The 016 in the car is still solid aside from the crazydiffs. Others have told me to go with a six-speed 01E to improve driveability. I am on the fence on this one because I think having a 6 speed would be cool and nice for road tripping, but I don't know if this would be a road trip car either.

-Body and Paint: I have been talked down by everyone I've suggested it to from painting the car Mars Red. It will stay alpine. My first errand once the WX is out of the car is to mask off the engine bay and get the engine bay cleaned up and painted at the body shop. I am currently in the process of ordering a Sport Quattro LWB body kit from ACM.SE (http://www.acm-ab.se/audi/sportquattro/sportquattro-kit/1071) pending a few more discussions with people who have fitted them (a few folks have been kind enough to walk me through what a splendid pain in the arse bonded panels are). Its probably sacrilege to some folks out there, but its the way I've always wanted the car to look. I was inspired by 2B's red car and how drop dead gorgeous it turned out. Hopefully I can come up with something half as attractive! I have experience working on fiberglass from my misadventures with my DeLorean, and I am looking forward to the hours of sanding and fitment ahead on this kit. I expect to encounter a lot of resistance with mounting for the front and rear bumpers and creating new core supports up front. I don't have the kit in front of me and haven't been able to start figuring it out, but in speaking with someone who has it sounds like it will be a thinker. When the kit is hung, I will get the car resprayed in Alpine white. I will also get rid of my sets of 8" Ronal R8s and 7" Ronal Basketweaves and hopefully pick up a set of the Compomotive Sport Quattro wheels that 2B has reproduced.

-Brakes: I will convert to vacuum brakes from a coupe GT, as the bomb is the culprit for my leak. I'd love for my e-brake to work again. I have considered trying to figure out the Porsche 17z calipers for this but will need to see how funds look as I go along on this.

-Interior: I always enjoy working on interiors the most, and I have something cool planned for this. I have sourced a set of period Recaro idealseats with heat and lumbar and power features in the thigh bolster, and am currently having them upholstered. I am doing white center inserts to match the paint contrasted with mocha bolsters to match the color of the original seats, with netted headrests.

A buddy put together a mockup for the upholsterer below;



I am having the inserts pleated to match the old seats coming out, and will mount to the car via Volkswagen mk.2 recaro trophy seat bases. I will have the rears upholstered to match. I also plan to get rid of my old style dash cap. I have a late style dash cap and supplies that I yanked from a junkyard car standing by, my plan is to dye the dash to match the brown centerstack/rest of the interior, and rewire to late style switchgear. I plan to clean the bejesus out of the HVAC hosing and old carpets to hopefully get the musty smell out.

This is my general plan and I am trying to develop my thoughts. Getting the engine parts list put together and how to get to where I'd like my power to be is my biggest point where I am missing direction. I intend to reach out to the folks at EFIExpress and hopefully find a solution, I emailed back and forth with Marc a few weeks ago and he really seems to know his stuff. I will post updates as they come, I am still in the phase of acquiring parts, building my engine components mentally etc but hope to drop the WX engine in February.

Leftovers: If I pull off what I am aiming for, I will have a fair few leftovers from the car that will be available. I'll sell as much of it as I can to help offset the cost of the project. Here's what I see as likely to be out there/available if everything goes to plan;

-Front UrQ Fenders, passenger has a small rust spot
-Rear UrQ Fenders as removed from the car
-Front and Rear US UrQ Bumpers
-UrQ Mocha Leather front and back seats set in decent shape (7/10).
-Early Mocha Dash cap in 3/10 shape.
-UrQ "Turbo" script steering wheel in 8/10 shape
-Early style dash switches
-UrQ Quad Headlights setup
-Restored H1/H4 Cibie Flats
-Running WX, and associated CIS bits with K26 Turbo. Possibly 016 Transmission. Motor has a KH head likely due to a failure in 1991. My records show a rebuild by John Beckius of Sport Wheels in '91 at a cost of ~$10k.
-Ronal 15"x7" Basketweaves in serviceable shape with dead summer tires on them
-Ronal 15"x8" R8s in great shape in Bronze with blizzaks on them
-Several old OE Audi factory head units

Anyways, looking forward to your feedback and if anyone has advice I would love some guidance, especially as far as the motor goes.

Cheers and thanks for reading!
 
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#29 ·
Well,

I am past the point of no return now. Finally got to stepping and started stripping the front end of the car. Next day I get to work with it, the WX will be on the ground.





























Got to the point where I have drained the power steering system, removed the bomb, drained coolant, removed rad assembly and aux rad, disconnected coolant hoses and vacuum lines from the motor, removed the CIS and airbox on the passenger side, as well as the mess of Vacuum and coolant lines at the back of the engine bay. Removed the air temp sensor, oil pressure sensor, warm up regulator, tach cable, throttle cable, and a few other misc plugs. I think the engine is effectively unencumbered from up top. Disconnected the exhaust at the test pipe down below, and at that point ran out of daylight and had to call it an evening.

Feels really good to dig in! Made an unholy mess (could the bomb contain any more fluid than it does? That was an unbelievable amount of ATF). Its nice to know the majority of this stuff isn't going back on the car, after 250,000 miles alot of it is worse for the wear.

Also finally got to find out just how bad the rust monster under my passenger fender was; not too bad, but definitely rotting. I love Colorado's climate though, the nastiness was there when I bought the car a bit less than 5 years ago, and this is as far as it has advanced in that amount of time. I am trying to decide if it is worth tracking down a piece of CGT or 4kq inner fender to get welded in, or just have the body shop weld on flat plate.
 
#34 ·
My seats came in on Friday and it was a bit of a bummer;



The first box looked good!



The second box did not :/. The seats had punched the backrest brackets through the box, and mangled the mount link for the drivers side seat.







Luckily the side that bent badly was removeable. I got after it with my associates msrs. Vice and BFH.



And was able to get things straight enough to assemble properly!



I have them some heavy duty cleaning and soaked them with conditioner as they will wait for the car to be ready to receive them. My drug of choice is malco...



And here we are!



I was able to connect my jumper battery to them and test the power functions. Tilt and lumbar work well, I couldnt tell if the heaters were working but was wearing a few layers and not sure if they could draw the proper amperage off the jumper battery to warm up. Further testing is needed.
 
#35 ·
Well, more than half a year has gone by, and theres a bit to discuss to update this guy.

The motor came out of my 200 Donor without much of a fight. I have disassembled it and sent it out for machining. The head pressure tested, but the shop is asking for outsized valves. Will be ordering some .5mm over valves soon to get them.





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Otherwise have been spending time removing stuff from the engine bay of the UrQ and getting it ready to send off to get painted and have the rusty apron corrected. A small chassis Audi contributor on Facebook was nice enough to be cutting up a car and sold me some nice cut off aprons from a 4KQ.













On the toys Front, I received some great front turn signals and housings from Simon at quattrocorner. Also, Downpipe, exhaust header and some line hardware came in from Marc at EFI Express. I also played around with some powdercoat and paint ideas for my 7a valve covers/oil pan. Will probably coat more engine bay parts, but with paint just to cut down on turnaround time and logistics. Getting very excited to start bolting things together instead of taking them apart soon!



 
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