While we were waiting for fuel line parts from Finish Line Factory to arrive, we started fishing around for other projects we thought we could accomplish. Because of this we found ourselves contemplating where to put the air filter. The factory cars had it on the cowl with a trick ovalized Kevlar tube feeding cold air to the turbo. While we don’t envisage utilizing that level of technology that area did seem intriguing, not the least because it is a high pressure area for cold outside air and there is a hood vent right above it. We could just stick a cone filter on the end of the intake tube but then it would sit right below the hood vent for the turbo and get rained on. We therefore put this here as a sort of placeholder:





Then we turned our attention to properly fixing the radiator. The works cars used a brace rod from one corner of the radiator to the metal work near the rear corner of the engine bay. We thought we’d do something similar and scrounged up some aluminum tube that looked like a suitable size. We wanted to tap each end but couldn’t access our tap holder so made do in true storage build style:



A couple of stainless steel bolts and washers later and this thing isn’t going anywhere:





With the radiator in we test fitted the shroud and fan. We had previously determined that the shroud needed clearancing to avoid the frame rail because we added the shroud as an afterthought at the last minute. We now realized that the fan would also hit the frame rail if we mounted it on the modified shroud. DOH! Perhaps a shroud isn’t necessary after all. We don’t think we’ll use those through the core plastic ties though; unless we can’t come up with something more mechanical.



Thwarted again we really needed a victory so we turned our attention to the brake lines. We already planned the system out and had purchased almost everything we thought we’d need.



We had started this project late last year but only got as far as installing the stainless steel flex lines from the calipers before the car got invited to Radwood Detroit and we scrambled to get the engine in and put it on the ground. Now we were excited to complete the process but just needed to source some bulkhead fittings. We are trying to keep this build as metric as possible but we couldn’t find metric bulkhead fittings nor SEA versions anywhere. Then Ryan from Thompson Racing Fabrication told us he uses 3AN fittings on his rally car builds and suddenly the way forward was clear: 3AN brake line system! Again, we were stopped waiting for parts. Still, these look pretty:

Storage Unit Rally Car Build: Week 3 - Fuel System Progress

Fortunately some fuel line parts came in from Finish Line Factory so we switched our attention back to the fuel system. We received some hose end barb adapters to transition from the fuel tank to the AN lines and brackets and a sleeve for the Walbro fuel pump so we scrambled under the car and installed those:







We attached the fuel pump using an existing stud but later we will remove that and use two threaded inserts and mount it level. We just don’t have access to our grinder right now because “storage unit rally car build”.

We also received a 90* bulkhead fitting from FLF for our 6AN return line. The hose end will probably need to be a 45 degree version but, guess what, we didn’t order any DOH!



Stuck again we decided to open up the coolant hose part of the project and got busy with or calipers and started measuring up hose barbs on the radiator, coolant manifold, thermostat housing etc.





Our plan was to cobble together various bits of silicone hose to create some of the convoluted hoses we’d need as we were quite far from adapting anything stock. Fortunately Pegasus Auto Racing Supplies carries everything we seem to need. New to this whole thing we thought the best plan was to wet our feet with the main hose from the thermostat housing to the bottom of the radiator as this stuff is quite expensive and we didn’t want to waste more money on an abortive plan. We’re waiting for parts again.

Ill Fitting Downpipe and More Brake Lines - Storage Unit Rally Car Build Week 4

While we were going through our boxes of parts we came across the AAN’s down pipe so thought we’d install that as it might impact the intake system we were thinking about. Of course it didn’t fit. It fouls the subframe as it descends below the axle. We need to cut and weld it anyway so now we will be doing that just a little closer to the turbo, or making one from scratch. No welding in the storage unit though. That would be a little ambitious, don’t you think?





Some 3AN brake fittings came in so we made a brake line, our first! It was complicated (for us) as it was metric at one end and 3AN at the other. It was also tricky because we don’t have a 37* AN flare die but Ryan at TRF told us, as we are using copper nickel hard line, we could just flare them 45* and once we synch them up they will magically become 37*! Who’d have thought?





So this is what we made:



And this is what it looked like once we’d made it fit:





We were so excited we had to stop and have a cup of tea! Oh, no kettle in the storage unit DOH! On a roll now we started laying out the under hood brake lines but immediately decided that this SAE tee had to be a 3AN so the job stopped again while we wait for parts.

Storage Unit Rally Car Build: Week 6 - Odds & Ends

We installed some jewelry this week. Always nice when you bolt on some freshly zinc plated bling:





We also dug the PVC system out of the boxes.



Then the last bits for the fuel filter came in from Finish Line factory so we mounted that.



Just sheet metal screws for now but when we strip the shell for paint we’ll drill holes for threaded inserts which we’ll install after the paint has cured. That way the holes will be protected.

Storage Unit Rally Build: Week 7 - Finishing Brake Lines

This week we were determined to finish the brake lines. We had so many projects open we were determined to finish anything to be honest, but brake lines seemed the most likely candidate for success so we jumped in. Our 90 degree 3AN bulkhead fittings had arrived so we started in the rear wheel wells and created hard lines to the flex pipes.





The next obvious step was the lines from the bulkheads to the tee at the end of the transmission tunnel but instead we moved to the engine bay and plumbed in the brake master cylinders and lines to the front brakes!









Then we focused on the lines inside the car starting with locating the line lock. We think we’ll dispense with a handbrake. We’ve never been keen on handbrake turns all wheel drive cars so just need something to act as a parking brake so this should do nicely:



Now we just need to get brake lines to it.











We’ll clamp everything as a separate project as we might have to move everything later anyway. We are very happy with how the brake lines turned out but there were a few casualties along the way. This got flung across the unit in fit of frustration...



...and next time we work in the rear of the car we’ll perhaps remove the seats and climb in rather than leaning in through the window aperture. Ouch!

Storage Unit Rally Car Build, Week 8 - Coolant/Heater Lines, Power Steering & More

More coolant hose parts from Pegasus arrived. Yes, those are Dzus fasteners. More on those later. This hose worked out a lot simpler than we thought it might with just two shortened elbows, one of them being a reducer.





We also got the heater valve and pipes in:





At this point we gave up on the coolant lines as we need to locate the electric power steering pump and lines before we know where we can run lines to the coolant reservoir. So we shifted our attention to the PVC system. Getting crowded in here now.





This section needs to find its way into the intake manifold via the PCV check valve, which we don’t seem to have. It also seems to want to go through our new radiator DOH! We are hoping we can bend the steel lines just enough.

Week 9 of the Storage Unit Rally Build

We ran out of things to do so now we can reveal what those quarter turn Dzus fasteners are for: The removable dash panels!



We have never played with these before so this might not go well. Our panels are not very thick so we ordered the fasteners for the thinnest material possible. Fortunately they seem to be the perfect size:



Our dash and removable panels cane pre-drilled for these fasteners but we still had to clearance the center hole to allow the fasteners to sit flush. Then we riveted them in place.







That went well but then we had to attach the springs to the back of the dash panel. In order for the removable panels to sit flush we needed to countersink the holes and to use countersunk rivets. But we couldn’t find any locally. Then an old-school bodywork guy told us how to make our own countersunk rivets. You place a regular river in a 45* flare die and chamfer the end or a short piece of steel brake line. Place this brake line chamfer “tool” over the stem of the river and tap it into the die with a light hammer until it forms a 45*. It worked great!





and enabled us to mount the springs without any frontal protrusions once we filed them flush:





Then we installed our first removable panel. May be time to order some fuse blocks:





The rally computer panel had us worried though as the top right faster was really close to the roll cage. In fact we had already filed it down to get the dash to fit. We went at it without a plan for that one fastener.



After attaching the other fasteners we riveted the top right one in place and filed it down a little to clear the cage but we were still missing one of the rivet holes for the spring. Still, one less countersunk rivet to make!



Then we thought “What the hell. Maybe It will work with half a spring!”



And what do you know; it did!







We decided to hold off on the gauge panel as we’d have to remove all the gauges and switches to install the fasteners. We’ll wait till we do that when we paint it.

Week 10 of the Storage Unit Rally Car Build

Inspired by our success with the dash fasteners we moved on to something that has been troubling us for a while, the PCV system. We’d like to keep the engine as stock as possible for now as we don’t want to complicate getting an engine we are unfamiliar with running well after it has been idle for who knows how many years. So we think we’d like to keep the PCV system intact as it came from the factory. This was complicated by the fact that we know nothing of the mysteries of PCV and that part of it connects into the intake manifold; the stock intake manifold. Undaunted we dug through our 300 boxes and pulled out anything that looked like it might be part of a PCV system.



We thought it good insurance to replace all the weird bits that weren’t just pipe so we went to our friends at Pelican Parts.



We offered up the bits that went around the back of the engine but it was clear that our radiator was in the way of a straight shot forward. So out with the pipe cutter!





And added a length of flexible hose. It fits now.



Once passed the radiator we aimed it at the intake manifold behind the throttle body like the stock maniold and used a piece of clear hose for now. We will need to take the manifold off to either weld on a bung or tap it for a fitting of some sort. Next time the engine’s out perhaps.

I actually did the same cut and just capped it and copied the S2/RS2 setup with tube (6A).
Works great.

Storage Unit Rally Build Week 11 - Diverter Valve & Door Handles

Diverter Valve

Our new diverter valve arrived while we were playing with the PCV system so we slapped that in too, upside down at first!



Fortunately, it sits directly over the turbo pipe into the intercooler



But we will need to weld on a bung to attach it. No welding in the storage unit though.



Door Handles

We were told to get a handle on things so we pulled these out of a big blue box.



They go on the doors. Might not seem like a big deal But it’s been a real PITA to constantly reach in through the window aperture to pull the interior door handle. This will make storage unit life much more palatable. If we can fit them.

We again went to the parts diagrams to see what was needed.



Initially it didn’t look promising as we seemed to be missing some actuator rods. Specifically, #8 and #9 but when we looked inside the doors we found both #8s still attached to the lock mechanisms.



Also, it turns out the missing #9 operates the lock so we’ll get one of those later as we won’t be needing to lock it for quite a while. The handles themselves cleaned up very nice and we had all the bits. The driver’s side lock did give us a scare as it appeared it may have been re-keyed at some point because we could not get it to turn. A bit of WD40 freed it up though so we slapped them on.



The actuator rods were a bit fiddly but they are now on and the doors work. Nice!

Storage Unit Rally Build - Week 12: Clutching Straws

We spent this week clutching at straws, curly straws at that! No, actually, we made a curly clutch line that goes between the slave and master cylinder. We have no idea why it’s this shape but Audi went to a lot of trouble to make it so we thought we should too! We were going to use the original one but it’s in really good shape and will make a great spare for our '85 road car so we decided to get bending. Hope it doesn’t drive is round the bend.



According to math this thing is enormous before you bend it. Nearly 3 foot long!



We needed to find something suitable to form it round. The jack handle will do.





It was actually easier than we thought it would be.







And it added up fitting pretty well. Don’t worry, we have a new master cylinder, somewhere. Pat on the back!

Storage Unit Rally Car Build - Week 13: Axels & Heater Lines

AXLES

One day we are going to find a new building and will have to push this thing back out and into the trailer. With the axles out the wheel bearings flop about so we didn’t want to struggle with it again like we did, pushing it in. We decided now was a good time to reinstall the axles, even though we haven’t refurbished them yet.



Don’t worry, we cleaned them up a bit. We’re not peasants.

When we dug them out of hiding it soon became apparent that there were two long ones and two shorter ones. But where did they go, front and rear, left and right, where? It turns out, opposite corners!



We’re sure there’s a good reason but just for giggles we did try to install one in the wrong place, just because, well, we’re idiots to be honest. It was too long.



HEATER PIPES

The 45* bends we were waiting for from Pegasus Racing came in so we got to finish heater pipe installation.



We’ve also located a brand new double grommet for the bulkhead!

Week 14 of the Storage Unit Rally Car Build

IACV (Idle Air Control Valve)

Yep, we’re now struggling to find things we can install while working in the storage unit. Picking at straws so to speak. Next on our list is therefore the idle air control valve. IACV. If you don’t already know, this ECU controlled valve bypasses the throttle at idle to allow it to, well, idle. Of course, with our fancy aftermarket intake manifold it won’t just bolt back in place. There is a connector for it at the back of the manifold be we’ll still have to tee into the intake tract before the throttle at some place. Here’s the valve with its rubber mounting ring and the nifty bracket that it sits on.





It is quite heavy so we think we should try to mount it using the OE bracket if possible. The inlet to the manifold is towards the back directly underneath, but whatever the IACV mounted off before is no longer apparent. So, we contrived a bracket extension off the engine mount arm as there were already three threaded holes in that. Engage CAD design mode.





We’re not really setup to make this in our storage unit so we’ll either make it later or outsource it. The inlet is a straight-ish shot to the back of the intercooler end tank but we’ll need to weld a bung on for it so, job stopped!

SEALS

Our searching through various boxes for various parts revealed the window and aperture seals so we decided to take inventory and install some because, well, we’re running out of things we can do and we have to keep moving forward somehow.

Door seals



Windshield seal



Under hood cowl seal





Trunk seal



The rest of the window seals are already on the respective windows hidden away, somewhere. These pieces seem to be still in good shape and were surprisingly satisfying to install.

Storage Unit Rally Build - Week 15 (Quick Update)

I'm back to working on the fan mount. You may remember that our beautiful afterthought of a fan shroud would not allow us to fit the actual fan as it interfered with the frame rails because we didn’t think it through. So, we ordered up six of these fan mounting brackets and went to town.





The fan is quite weighty so we thought some vertical hanging type mount would be a good idea. We cobbled one together.



That’s better.



Fits too!

That fan is nice and slim. Keep up the good progress!

Week 16 of the Storage Unit Rally Build

It's been cold so we felt inspired to hook up the heater controls. This week we learned all about “Bowden Cables”! These clips are hard to find new but we found some.



And dug out the rest of the system.





The control sliders went in easily but hooking up the cables and clamps was a bit fiddly. Surprisingly satisfying once done though.











Now we just have to figure out how to direct the air from the heater box to various body parts and bits of glass.

Week 17 of the Storage Unit Rally Build: A Sharp Intake of Breath

We’ve been back and forth on what to do about an intake system for the car for ages. We’d like to have our cake and eat it too but we just can’t see a way to get there. This is what we’d like to have:





As used on the works rally cars. It looks iconic and sucks air from the high pressure cowl area where, conveniently, there are louvers in the hood above for that very purpose. There are a few problems with this. Firstly we have a MAF sensor to incorporate in the intake track, ideally in the stock location as we have an aftermarket U shaped intake tube that houses connections for all kinds of other bits and pieces that we need. This really doesn’t mate up to that.



Secondly, if we did this it really would have to be made of carbon Kevlar to pass muster and making one from scratch would be very expensive and time consuming. You can, in theory, buy one but we’ve heard it’s of dubious quality and it still wouldn’t mate to our MAF sensor.

We tried prototyping an alternative route to the cowl that goes down the bulkhead to an existing 3” hole before doing a 180 into the passenger compartment and back up through another existing hole in the cowl. We think we could terminate this into an oval shaped pancake filter with a lid. It would probably work and we think we could make it look half decent but our fear is that it would just look like a poor substitute for the original.









We could just whack a bloody great cone filter on the end of the MAF sensor and declare “job done” but there are a few problems with that too. It would be sucking air from right next to the turbo and also be right under the hood louver that lets hot air out of the engine bay and, not great, water in. So we dismissed this too. Here it is mocked up with a small filter.







We looked at modifying some OE intake boxes but they don’t seem to be suitable either.



So we’ve settled. Settled on another U bend with a cone filter behind the headlight. This is not under the louver so should stay dry and it gets a good cold air feed from the grill and light surround. We also think we can shield it from the engine bay quite easily and, although it is a bit rigged it will hardly be visible so it doesn’t matter if it looks it.







If nothing else it will do to get the car running. Maybe we will revisit this later, or not.

So after we took that deep breath in the last update we stood back and assessed where we are in the project and found a great way to shrink our to do list: put it on a photocopier and hit REDUCE.



Kidding aside, we have got it down rather a lot but it’s still quite daunting to think about what’s still in front of us. And this is just the dry build phase! Still, Press On Regardless, as they say.

We have moved the car out of the storage unit now so that is a good thing. It was fun seeing what we could achieve in there but towards the end we were getting frustrated and running out of worthwhile things to do. Here it is looking resplendent in its new surroundings.







We didn’t waste much time cracking on once we got it in the new building. Admittedly we did start with some trivial jobs. First order of business, get the hood prop installed. Because we could.



Then we made a bracket for the idle air control valve and installed that.









We also managed a couple of other trivial but satisfying installs this week. The right turn signal lens and dip stick are now in!





Next we went through the car and installed p-clips on all the brake lines and fuel lines we’d put in it. These were temporarily secured with self-tapping screws but will later be replaced with threaded inserts, after paint. Remember, many of these lines are temporary as well.







We told you it wasn’t going to be very exciting. We saved that stuff for the next update, we promise.

Looks Awesome! Keep Crackin !

This week we turned our attention back to the heater control panel which we hadn’t installed because it needed refurbishing. The plastic was faded and the legends needed a good clean.



So we split it in two, gave it a good scrub, re-made the legends, hit it with some plastic paint, slapped it back together and installed it.











With that looking spiffy we thought we’d tackle the vents. The works cars used some OE vents mounted either side of the center console. We couldn’t fit ours because we still have the ignition key barrel and the inlets on ours are on the sides and we needed them to come out of the rear.





Fortunately you can buy generic ones on the interweb that are the right width and are fed from the rear.



The only way we could come up with to mount them was to use some low profile allen screws up through the dash panel above but in order to do that we had to disassemble them first.





Then file the mounting tangs flat so they would fit flush.





And then just a little more fettling before they fit perfectly and look like they belong there.









Of course now we needed to feed some air to them. They’re no good just looking pretty. They need to function too. We ordered a few feet of flexible ducting from Pegasus in the size we thought would fit. One end fit inside the outlets in the air box and the other, with a bit of padding with some tape, fit on the inlet to the vent. Looks very professional in our opinion.





We also wrangled the convoluted plastic tube for the side vents into place but we don’t know if we will be able to retain it as it passes right behind the dash where, ultimately, hundreds of wires need to go. For this reason we didn’t bother terminating them yet but did offer up a piece of silicon hose to mimic he orientation.

It’s been an interesting and satisfying couple of weeks with the car. We checked off a few smaller things from the list and opened up some big things.

Right after our last update we received this package from Rennline. Based in Vermont, Rennline manufacture and sell specialized parts for mostly European cars. They are very well known for the Porsche parts, many of which we have on our 911 rally car, but also have parts for Audi, BMW and other marks. And clearly they have pars for our Quattro rally car.





The first item that grabbed our attention was a shiny tow hook. How could you miss it?



We had to modify it to mount it on the rear of our Quattro by bending it at about 45 degrees and, of course, that cracked the powder coating but, luckily, we had a can of Rustoleum that was an exact match.









The front might be a bit more of a challenge however.





We also got excited by the battery and mount Rennline supplied. We assembled it and played around with a couple of potential locations.





Trunk:



And back seat area.



Not sure yet. What do you think?

Brake Bias, Period Correct USB Ports & Throttle Cable Mounting

Distractions over we turned to our last remaining issue to solve on the center console: where and how to mount the brake bias knob and the period correct USB ports. So we can sync our Walkman of course! Time for a bracket.











Then we thought the next logical project would be the throttle cable because, well, we felt we could finish it. You may remember that we had previously rotated the AAN throttle body through 90 degrees to clear the hood but we now realized that would put the linkage in a difficult place to reach with the throttle cable so we put it back where it should be and made some room for it with a Dremmel.





This allowed us to use the bracket supplied with the intake manifold and the intended threaded holes but it then seemed that the outer cable was too short so we rigged up a temporary “outer cable lengthener thingy” at the bulkhead to see if that would help.





It kinda worked but seemed like a very inelegant solution. Then we realized that our 10V throttle cable was mounted way further from the throttle body on that engine than on ours and our problem was the location of the throttle cable bracket. So we moved it. Of course we mocked it up rally-style with some big-arse cable ties first but it seemed to work so we got the drill and taps out; metric of course.

Prepping for Custom Stainless Exhaust and Skid Plat Design

We are honored to have a friend of ours agree to build us an exhaust. It’s going to be 3” stainless steel with one muffler at the rear and as similar looking to the works cars as possible. Of course, that meant we had to build a skid plate! Well, not exactly but we did need to see how much room we would have around it so we mocked one up.

First the rear support bar which spans the chassis rails behind the gearbox. We used some rather flimsy aluminum tube we had lying around which made it really easy to flatten the ends.





Our surrogate 3” exhaust tubing fit through but it might need to be lower.



Next, we turned our attention to the front support. We thought we would see if we could mock up a reasonable facsimile of the works support using PVC conduit, even though that would be a little larger diameter than the steel tube we’d ultimately be using. How hard could it be?













Not bad eh?





Next, we need an actual plate. Fortunately, we are a Corbeau seats dealer and their seat boxes are perfect for mocking up skid plates. Our plan was to try to replicate the molded Kevlar are whatever exotic material this one was made from, but in aluminum plate. This might be a three or even four Hobnob project!



Well, you don’t know until you try so we put the kettle and our thinking caps on and had a Hobnob. First, we made a masking tape mold off of our 1:18 model. Then we put that on the photocopier and hit x18! (no, we didn’t)



As convoluted as the works plate appears, if you study the it carefully you can make out many flat looking facets to it. Most obvious is the center section that is about two feet wide. We realized that if we took a long piece of box this wide and put two bends in it we would have the essential structure down. Moreover, if we weld some 2” wide rims on it might look quite similar. So that’s the plan.









We were pretty happy with this so far and decided that maybe this idea had some legs. We pushed on with mounting the cardboard plate to the PVC support bars so we could remove the box and axles stands. To do this we made some clips out of some thin aluminum sheet and bent them around the bars. They worked rather well unless there’s a slight breeze or somebody sneezes too closely!









So that was the basic structure sorted. Now we just needed to widen it; and form the upturned sides! A bit more Corbeau cardboard and loads of Hobnobs and Yorkshire tea later we had this:













Lovely. Right; what shall we work on next? Mud flaps? First, we’ll have to put the kettle on!

Coming along nicely!!! I love the reusing of Corbeau seat boxes

The car took a big leap forward recently and, as a result, we are now exhausted.



We asked our friend Scott Banes if he’d like to build us an exhaust and we were honored that he said yes. Scott is a local rallycross and rally competitor who has owned about a gazillion Subarus and we’ve always been impressed with the work he’s done on them. We thought it would be good for him to glue metal together on something else for a change. Plus, his shop is only about 30 minutes from ours so it was an easy tow. He only had the car for the weekend too which was great.

Beforehand we talked bout trying to mimic the Group B cars exhaust as much as practical without going nuts. This meant a 3” stainless with one back box but we also wanted to try and incorporate a catalytic converter. After showing Scott all the pictures we had he liked the idea of keeping the down pipe and wastegate dump separate till under the car and thought he could even incorporate the removable plate some of the works cars had and the muffler support bracket, like these:



We left him too it.

It was a tight squeeze but he nailed it. The works cars had an enlarged transmission tunnel so their exhaust could go over the axle instead of under it. We gave Scott permission to BFH a bit more room for the cat if he needed to be we didn’t want to have to refabricate the tunnel. As you can see he managed to get both the cat and the extra pipe in, though we have no idea what we’ll do with that hole in the dump pipe.



He would have pulled off the muffler bracket to but didn’t have any suitable rubber bushings to hand so rigged something up for now. We’ll come up with something later, hopefully.



We were very pleased with the attention to detail Scott took with the way the exhaust exits the back of the car. Both the location and angle of the tip are perfect.





Now, if we could just get him to help with the rest of the car!