[lorge1989]

Hello all, kind of new to the site. I've been registered for a while now, but really haven't contributed too much, until now.
My name is George, and I live right near Buffalo, NY. Winters are fun here so have an AWD Audi is a must. But that's not where I started. VWs came first and I am gradually turning over to Audi's only.

As of 6 months ago I had a B5 A4 with a build motor, GT30R and supporting mods. Problem was that I was dailying it. This was my first big turbo car, and I had a lot to learn about how some seemingly simple things could be so crucially important. Needless to say I had some troubles and in the end decided to swap my motor into something else. That happened to be an 88' Audi 90 that I got from a friend. He had already put a stock AEB motor in there, which was a lot of fun, but bigger is better and so it began.

I'll post pictures in chronological order….

The day after it came home:

I was impressed with how clean the interior was for a car that had been rumored to have near 300K on it.

At this point I was dailying the 90 and the A4 was sitting in my garage, in pieces. I came up with this general list:

Comp 5858 Billet Compressor
SPA manifold
Chris Tapp 870cc file
Treadstone TR10
Southbend Segmented Ceramic Pucked Clutch with HD Pressure Plate

Motor (already built)
2L stroker
IE Rods
JE Pistons 83mm 8:5:1
ABA Forged Crank

Full Supertech valvetrain + all the goodies

The motor ran well in my A4 but with the help of a freind of mine we went through it before swapping it. This was my first time using Plastigauge and really getting into a modernish motor so I was pumped. All the clearances looked great, as well as the bearings. The inside of the motor was absolutely spotless.

I'm keeping the stock trans for now, but I picked up a 01E from a B6 A4 3.0 for when the time comes. It needs a bit of attention but I will cross that bridge when I get there.

 

[lorge1989]

I ordered most of the parts, injectors, manifold turbo, intercooler, piping, various braided lines, fluids, clutch etc. That stuff really added up quick.

Motor coming out:

This is a random vid of accel with the chipped AEB engine for comparisons later

Hard to shift with a phone, ha.

 

[WOMBAT]

I like where this is going 8) looking forward to the updates!

 

[lorge1989]

Thanks dude. I should have been more clear, I have had this car up and running with the new setup, I just haven't had a chance to upload all the pictures. Its currently down again though for some suspension upgrades and a new exhaust. I'm uploading some more now.

Here we go...

I pulled the motor out of the 90 and put in right in my A4. I got that all sorted and then I was able to really start on the 90.

At this stage, it wasn't an all out build. I wasn't going to be painting the whole car, so everything might not be up to the standard of some of your projects. :slap:

But I plan on doing that down the road. I would like to just get most things sorted first. Engine bay pre clean:



Mid process:



And then after a good wash. I used degreaser from the dollar store, (I read somewhere it worked great) and it was awesome.



Parts began to funnel in.

Then some time when in to giving the bay a coat of black paint and taking care of any rust that I found in there as well.



And then:







Downpipe shot, that was fun, NOT!



I was able to make it to the gas station on the first test run!



And then my first 'show' up in Rochester. With a few of my friends cars. You can see in comparison I ain't got shit. :curses:

Me:


And the others.






^This one has a bullseye S372.

At this point the car was running well. I was very happy with the tune for what it was. The only thing I really needed was to fix a leak at the turbo. The vband flange was the wrong one because when I bought the turbo comp did not send me all of the stuff I ordered. When I finally did get their clamp, I was in the process of putting it on and:



Called em up and then shipped another one out for me. This one worked much better. The exhaust leak was nearly gone, but not all the way.

Another issue I kept running into was the wastegate bolts backing out. Because of the downpipe location the easiest was to route the wastegate was a right angle recirculating into the downpipe with NO flex joint. Not ideal I know but I did not have much room to do anything else. So after some tries with lock washers, nord lock washers etc, my friend came over and made it a bit more permanent secure.



This worked well, until one day I lost boost. I figured something go loose AGAIN on the wastegate. I was right about that....

No pics, but I seemed like the vibrations had no where else to go but to the wastegate itself, causing the bolts holding the mushroom cap on to back out eventually down to one bolt, which snapped. This was annoying but I bought a cheapie wastegate off of ebay just to see how it worked. It did work very well, but my incompetance got the better of it. With the car needed a new wastegate, I figured I may as well make a new downpipe setup to try to fix these re occuring issues. Upon further investigation, after my weekly routines of removing and putting the wastegate back on, I forgot to put the metal valve seat ring back on.

The wastegate therefore was never sealing, probably pretty hot and of course vibrating more than necessary all of the time. Oh yeah my spool was garbage too. That brings us up to about a month ago....

 

[pkw]

I'm keeping the stock trans for now, but I picked up a 01E from a B6 A4 3.0 for when the time comes. It needs a bit of attention but I will cross that bridge when I get there.

i doubt that trans has the same final gear ratio as your rear diff.

 

[death 4kqt]

not sure that trans is an 01e either?

 

[Golden91CQ]

I spy the crow (red CQ). You're car is awesome too George, nice work!

 

[lorge1989]

i doubt that trans has the same final gear ratio as your rear diff.

Its basically a B5 S4 01E with slightly different ratios for 3-6. Here are the ratios:

This is a O1E trans, only came in the B6 for one year I believe and only with the 3.0. It used the same rear diff as the S4, which is 4.11 and I believe thats what my 90 has, although I could be wrong about that part. I'll have to do a little digging.

I spy the crow (red CQ). You're car is awesome too George, nice work!

Thanks!

 

[death 4kqt]

nice! i learned something today.

 

[my2000apb DrBeastCar]

your 90 is 4.11

 

[meh.]

Wow, didn't know you had jumped ship. Great progress.

What are you going to do with the B5?

 

[lorge1989]

Wow, didn't know you had jumped ship. Great progress.

What are you going to do with the B5?

Made more sense to, I loved my B5 with that setup. Lighter, no inspection, still AWD and a decent deal of aftermarket makes this chassis all the better.

Right now I'm DD'ing my B5. Its okay, but not the same. I've been thinking of selling it but I'm really not sure yet.

 

[lorge1989]

This brings up the progress almost up to date. Here is a list of parts.....

-Blilstien shocks with H & R springs all around
-Front and rear ball joints
-Front control arms and bushings
-Front and rear tie rods
-G60 front brakes w/some gnarly pads
-New 40mm wg
-New down pipe with open dump
-An actual exhaust, probably dumping out the side in front of rear tire
-Updated coil packs (to get rid of the ICM)
-Drivers door latch (mines busted)
-Temporary set of wheels and tires so I can re-do my OZs

other than that I have...

-stripped a good portion of the underside of the chassis and undercoated/painted it, lots of attention was given to the front wheel wells
-removed more bullshit that isn't being used in the bay
-fixing the locking rear diff
-tiding up all wires and sheilding them properly
-random heatshields

I also have a fuel pump that would let me really push these injectors, but honestly I don't feel like putting a new trans in yet, so I will hold off.

I don't have all the pictures with my but heres some.

I started by throwing the car up on jack stands and removing the old front suspension. It went pretty smoothly, the old hardware on the lower control arm/sway bar end links was the worst part.

As you can see, old rusty and sketchy.



Out:



The ball joints were absolutely destroyed, and everything else was in OK shape although very rusty.

New stuff thats going in:



Over the course of this process, I have been on the fence about being super anal about everything, stripping painting and cleaning up everything I take off, or just putting it back together as is knowing it will probably be apart again soon.

I decided to meet half way. The stuff that was small enough and easy enough to do, I did. For example this bracket that comes off of the ps rack.







The two studs that feed through that bracket and then through the tie rods have a tendency of loosening up, so I stipped that assembly, tacked em in place and again gave it a quick spray.

I also blasted the tie rods and gave them a quick coat of paint.

Speaking of those bastards, dissassembly wasn't easy. I didn't have a torch handy so I relied on PB blaster mainly. I was able to get all of the hardware off of the one except for one last jam nut. After some massaging with the impact the threads had seen better days, so that piece was toast. Luckily I had a spare.

On the previous ^ stud I had backed a nut up to the unthreaded portion in the middle in order to have something for my wrench to grab onto. That worked fine until I had to remove the nut -> stripped threads. Instead of doing that this time I decided because I had an extra nut and some extra space on the stud I would just weld the nut in the center. That went well, and now I just had to get the tie rod end off..... That didn't end well.



Proabably a good thing, considering there was a decent chance that would have happened while I was driving.

Shittiest part is that the only way to get this stud was to order the whole tie rod assembly. $75 + shipping from GAP. I wanted no part of that because I already had nearly everything I needed.

Luckily I found someone with a little free time on lunch....





So purty.

On another note, my exhaust painted the underside of my car for me which was cool:



NOT.

I figured this would help fix that problem



But decided I'm too big of a girl. So a new fullish length one is in works.

The downpipe space is limited, so I decide to relocated the wastegate for some more room. Bascially I made a tube that put it further down and towards the front of the car. With the V-band flange I am able to rotate it where ever I want which is really nice.

Found the perfect sided pipe for my dump tube:



Some pics of the new gate:





My new front brakes:



Struts are in:



Down pipe is getting there. I have to add a 90 on the bottom then put a vband flange on there.

 

[lorge1989]

Uploading the last few pictures....

Edit, here they are.

I'm pretty new at fabrication and I'm pretty much teaching myself, any pointers are awesome because it seems you guys know what is up.

Making my downpipe consisted of a lot of test fitting with tape and many many cuts. I had an old chop saw and a bench grinder as my cutting/shaping tools neither of which are super precise, but I made due.

Taping:


Tacked:


test fit again, and decided it was good. Vband tacked:



Test fitted again. And began welding.

I only have a Hobart Handler 140, which works well for me. That is after I corrected a stupid mistake I made when setting it up 6 months ago. I never pushed the gun hose into the machine all the way so the gas wasn't getting to the weld area. Basically I was welding with litle to no sheilding gas, with solid wire. :curses:

But now I'm getting a bit better.





And the finished downpipe:



I didn't fit the pipes as well as I should for a few of the joints, I was moving a bit too fast and the small gap I had between the pipes made the weld look like crap. Oh well, live and learn.

So I began making the rest of the exhaust and have all the parts. I just have to figure what type of hanger to use. I was thinking about welding a rod to the top the exhaust pipe in a couple spots and then welding a hook to the bottom of the car and using those rubber loop type things to attach the two. Any other simple exhaust hanger ideas?

I think I might be able to use a factory one near the rear diff. The car will have a side exit exhaust, so I will be keeping a big muffler in what looks to be the stock location, passenger side under the rear bench.

 

[my2000apb DrBeastCar]

if you clean off the mill finish a bit, so its raw fresh steel, the welds will be nicer

 

[lorge1989]

Thanks for the tip, I am realizing now that its ALL in the prep work, like anything else. The longer I took to really clean up and smooth the edges the easier it was to produce a good looking weld. Also chamfering the two edges to be welded helped a lot as well.

I finished up the exhaust last night, gave the car a rough alignment and started putting on my new front brakes. That was cut short though, because the hardware I had picked up wasn't the perfect size. I am going to try to get the new brakes on and get the car up and running for some 1/8 mile runs next week.

I used some DEI Silicone Hi Temp Paint to give me some corrosion resistance. The car won't really see rain, but I'd like to make this stuff last. The hangers were made out of some thick walled stainless tubing, using a hand bender. I think they came out well!!

 

[lorge1989]

Progess has been rather slow but I'm still trying to drive down to H2O in this guy. :bullshits:

I was driving the car around for a while and then I started to have some issues with my Ziextronix gauge, and my downpipe was ever so slightly hitting the tie rod when the motor moved. So I parked it and begain working on that stuff.

So I messed with the tie rod to make sure I have enough clearance on the downpipe, then completely rewired my Zeitronix gauge and added an EGT probe and fuel pressure sensor, cleaned up the bay, remounted a few things etc.

After that I decided to order new rear diff mounts from 034 because mine were shot. Those took a few weeks to get here so I decided to take out the rear suspension and replace it. Getting the old ball joints out the strut housing was awful and so were all the other bolt that looked like they hadn't been touched in about 20 years.

With everything apart I realized I needed some new rear tie rod ends, and I wasn't going to spend $200+ on them. The inside part of the stockers were in great shape so I am going to make the other side of them with some steel tubing, M14 bolts and some front tie rods ends off a MK3 Golf. I had some spare in my garage of the tie rod ends so all I needed to buy was the tubing and the bolts which cost like $20. I am going to get those in tonight hopefully.

The last few nights, the few hours I had, consisted of getting the rear diff mount off. That wasn't going well so I decided to pull out the whole thing, considering I'm replacing all the mounts anyway. Driveshaft came off easy, compared to all the other hardware. God I hate salt.

Here are some pictures of what I had to do to get the rear diff mount off.

With the allen fully seated and the bolt soaking in PB for a while this happened:



I had some bolt extractors. Basically the inside of the socket has teeth that as you loosen bite into the fastener.

Used a larger one first to break all the rust off.





Then hammered the smaller one on and used leverage:



And ta ** none were broke... I have no idea how I pulled that off.



So today on lunch I was able to get the old bushing out, get the sleeve out, sand blast and clean up the mount, press the new one in and give it some paint quickly.

Heres the old bushing, the sleeve in the middle just fell out....



And my 80 durometer 034 one that replaced it.



I hope to swap the other two side mounts in and put the rear diff back in, put the rear suspension back on and then make the tie rod ends tonight.

I doubt I'll get all of that done, but one can dream. After that's done I have to replace the line between the tank and pump because its kinked. Then, I'm just going to put miles on the car before H2O.

Few questions though. I don't have the bolts with me at work but can anyone tell me which ones I need for the rear mounts? Two smaller, I believe M8 that go through the subframe and one that goes through the acutal mount, M10 I believe. I'm just looking for the lengths of them.

Also the bolt that runs through the big mount in the back, also M10 I believe I just once again don't know the length.

My diff lock button will light up when pressed but nothing happens. There are two lines running back to the plastic box in the back, one with a yellow stripe and the other with a blue, and I'm pretty certain I DO NOT have the vacuum line connected in the bay for this. The plastic box thing, with the plunger on it can be operated by hand and it does lock the diff. Has anyone just made it so you manually pull a cable to lock it? The plastic component is showing its age and I don't want to have to rely on it if I don't have to.

 

[lorge1989]

Well I figured out the bolts when I got home, of course.

But the diff question still remains, I'll do some more searching I guess.

 

[Joshdub]

I am interested in these rear tie rods. Do you have a rear sway bar? I to don't want to spend 200 on them.

 

[lorge1989]

I was thinking about making a few extra sets. We will see how they turn out.

I'm finishing them up tonight and I'll throw up some pics.