Shawn's thread: #LegalStatus

[pilihp2]

I had spent probably 6 months trying to figure out trigger error problems with my car. I missed one car show, and almost missed BBQ. We managed to get it figured out not even a week before BBQ was supposed to happen. We had about 2 days to get an exhaust made, get a proper tune on it, get seats in the car, axles, driveshaft, and linkage attached, as well as swap out injectors and FPR's.

You got this.

[vt10vt]

Phil, seriously, thank you so much, you put a grin on my face and it looks like you just might be right after all I borrowed a laptop from my roommate and spent a couple hours sorting the remaining exterior stuff with said roommate, got all the lights working and almost all the trim back on. And then I got to tuning. And oh what a few pounds of boost can do for the soul I have it running better than I would have ever hope for this afternoon. Around the block my AFR's look awesome, been working below 3.5k rpm's at light to medium throttle getting my basic acceleration nice and smooth and oh what a difference! It took me about 20min of tuning and I had basic accel smoothed out sooo much it feels like a different car and I felt like a new man!

I need to hook up my boost gauge and throw the cluster in so I can start seeing in front of me what's going on. Oh... and the Holset sounds just lovely. it seems to come on relatively quick, you can feel it's got more behind it than the K26 but I would say that so far spool seems to be pretty similar from what I remember. I'm going back out for a little longer drive and then I'll post some maps for you guys to check out and maybe give pointers on. Sorry for being kind of a whiner sometimes, this whole laptop thing was just the worst timing. Looks like Carlisle is a go, assuming I get the exhaust built and nothing catastrophic happens!

Thanks for reading and following along everybody

[pilihp2]

I better see pictures of this at Carlisle!

[themagellan]

Hurry up and get it finished, run an open DP out the side if you have to!

[vt10vt]

Thanks guys!

This concludes my pre Carlisle bender, the 200 is pretty much ready to rock, shitty but driveable tune and we built the exhaust tonight, best one I've ever built! So PA tomorrow, been awake for 65/68 hrs since Tuesday morning so I'm going to get some sleep.

WOOHOO!

[vt10vt]

So last weekend pretty much couldn't have gone better! I had a great time, got to meet a ton of great, friendly people which really made the trip. My girlfriend and dog made the trip up with me and the three of us had a lot of fun, Gromit was in a comatose state last night, as were we. Friday morning I had work off but skipped out on a caravan, went and got a license as mine was a month expired, and finished up a few things on the car and got a few extra hours of needed sleep. The car made it up without issue except that I had a bad tune and zero boost control as the wastegate wasn't opening. But I babied her and before long I was at the show field and stalling it out in front of a tent full of people, not a bad first impression hahahaha

During the week I scrambled to get as many loose ends tied up as possible. The interior went back together, lots of little engine things, bumpers, a wet sand etc. I really wanted all four windows working for the trip, and had two bum pass rear regulators so I broke one down on my bench, cleaned the crap out of it, reflowed the wire connections and BAM, all four windows work which I LOVE, this specific one hasn't opened since I bought the car.


Pic of just a few pieces but I scrubbed/degreased all the bumper and door trim before reassembly


Exhaust got finished up Thursday about 1:30AM, 3" vband on the DP, short flex section and straight through Summit 'glasspack.' I think I'm going to keep the glasspack and add another muffler when I can, it's too loud and it sounds too close to an open header as you get that bap-bap-bap-bap Huge thanks to my roommate Chris, he really stepped up the few days before the show, wouldn't have made it nearly as completed as I did without him!



It looks a little ricey but it was fast


First in line at the MVA Friday hahaha


I also got my BOV installed, temporarily patched an oil pan leak, and made a bunch of very conservative tuning changes before we left and made the trip without issue! Breakfast Saturday morning:


Camping both nights, one tarp, a blanket and two pillows and viola! Chateau de Avant Next time I'm doing like the guy in the range rover and getting a mattress pad of some sort, length was good but I am still sore from the floor. Starting to feel old for sure






Nick (Amdisthebest) even came out with me and did some tuning which was awesome because not only does the car run unbelievably better but I learned a ton asking questions and hearing him explain what/why/when he was changing things. In general I learned a ton this weekend, but that was definitely a treat. In a crazy coincidence situation a boost hose popped our first pull and limited boost to like 8psi for the first time so it allowed us to get some actual tuning done!

So Sunday morning I woke up and had a boost-piphany. My lower wastegate port was fed from the original port on the intake manifold, which I didn't realize was actually on its own runner that goes to the front of the intake manifold, which I didn't realize until Corey pointed it out on his 5K. Well, my throttle body plate blocks that port, my TB wouldn't have allowed for flow to it anyway, and thus no boost control! I stopped at advance on our way out of town, grabbed a vacuum T and some clamps and BOOST!

The trip home was a lot faster, but we made it without issue and with a healthy dose of boost


Of course I ragged it the whole way home and then once I got into town it was time for some launching. Apparently, even without launch control, I can spin HARD all the way through first. After a couple of those, my friend and I ran to the store for oil and new plugs as it was starting to break up at higher RPM's and these had been in for startup, base tuning, and uber rich barely tuned drive to Carlisle. Stupidly, I didn't put them in, and then proceeded to catch up to an EVO IX in traffic, got along side him, asked him if he wanted to run and he was up for it so we took a little drive to Mexico. It really wasn't a race, I'll post videos if I get the second one from my friend, but I couldn't even get a good launch, instead of full boost and four wheels spinning like before I was bogging bad and coming onto boost much slower. About an hour later, said friend was at my house in his '07 Mustang GT with long tubes, exhaust, intake, tuner-thing, etc. pretty basic bolt on car but on a dyno it put down 299whp so I was curious. Went pretty much as we expected, but unfortunately the 200 was still breaking up occasionally. So we headed to Mexico again, and what we expected was confirmed, I walked him early and he started to come back pretty hard later. The second run I got a jump on him but I also had a totally clean and misfire free pull and he didn't start gaining on me until mid way through fourth. I think at the track with the 200 100% sorted it would be REAL close.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqLodmaobu4[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VDYThi-QQ4[/youtube]

Launching, you can hear the misfire pretty bad in the first which was actually the second video chronologically
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeeoDKVYOgQ[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCg1y9CZX_Y[/youtube]

Anyways, thanks again to everyone I met, I had too much fun this weekend! After swearing up and down I wasn't going to touch the car for a week after my pre Carlisle bender... I'm setting aside time wednesday to fix the oil leaks and track down this misfire which I think is plug gap, the knock sensor pulling timing. It was an inspiration meeting everyone, thank you again Phil and themagellan and boost on!

[vt10vt]

Oh and turbo impressions; this thing is an animal! I'm just on spring pressure but am seeing full boost (~13psi) by 3300rpm in most gears and situations. Seems to actually spool faster than the k26 but was making 20+psi by ~3.5k in any gear. I gotta go do some logs on a flat road but I will be sure to post then soon. I am really happy with my turbo frankensteining and hope to show empirical results soon!

Also drag strip Friday night!

[loxxrider]

damn, doin work!

[themagellan]

Make sure your boost line is not broken to where the ecu is (if you are running that still) I was running what I thought was 13 psi but was really 26 because of a leak

[vt10vt]

damn, doin work!

Trying to, it's hard as I don't have any budget for the car right now but trying to make progress where I can!

Make sure your boost line is not broken to where the ecu is (if you are running that still) I was running what I thought was 13 psi but was really 26 because of a leak

Yeah factory boost line is good, the MAC-11 doesn't do anything except timing, which it appears to be doing quite well!

I've had a couple little issues I've been sorting, an intermittent oil pressure gauge warning (loose sensor wire), that terrible brake noise everyone at Carlisle probably heard from the right rear and... installing a boost controller

I've got an old compressor pressure regulator plumbed inline between the back of the intake manifold and the wastegate, just installing the it raised boost a little to 14psi and it seems a pretty finiky/sketchy form of boost control. Earlier today I went from 14psi to 26ish all at once and BLEW a boost hose off the compressor outlet. Quite a BAM sound and then soooo slow hahaha. I'm also having an intermitant misfire, it seems to be once the car warms up under sustained boost/RPM and I think it might be the MAC-11 retarding timing in response to knock. I threw some more fuel at it as my AFR's under boost were high and it seemed to help. I still need to throw more at it, logs are showing mid-high 12's under boost and I would like to see closer to mid 11's. I'm pretty sure I'm going to max out this set of injectors by 15psi or so, I'm already seeing 78% duty cycle with 12ish pounds and that's with high AFR's. Been injector shopping, but I will probably max these out and then wait until I get more other stuff done because injectors are just a lot of money and I can physically instal them whenever in the line of things.

Besides that I've just been beating the ever loving shit out of it Having an extra 016 in the shed means high-RPM-clutch-dropping-tire-smoking-schenanigans constantly. The track was closed this weekend for Memorial day but I'm going next Saturday, I'm predicting/hoping for a high 13sec slip @15psi if I can get the mis fire/possible knock sorted. Based on AngryTaco's 13.6 I think that's doable, plus if it isn't we'll just see what 18psi can do

As always, thanks for reading and hopefully I'll have something cool like logs or more videos or pictures or timeslips for you guys soon!

[loxxrider]

Very nice, so glad to see you enjoying the car. Its good that you have gone into everything knowing the consequences (extra 016 for clutch-dropping, etc.). Definitely keep an eye on that timing/knock issue. Good luck at the track!

[85oceanic]

Dang, looks like you had a great time man, keep the updates coming! Oh and good luck at the track x2!

[vt10vt]

So had a pretty good time Friday at the track. Redline and side stepping the clutch seemed to be fastest. Best run was 14.3 @ 89mph, ran consistent 14.5ish around 90mph but it was cutting out something terrible beginning about halfway through 3rd gear. 60ft's were like 1.8sec or so, I'm sure it's got 13's in it if I can get a clean run. Beat 3/4 cars I lined up against, lost to an old mopar running 13.5's but beat a mid-80's 6 series turbo by .02sec, a 00's Sentra SE-R, and (my favorite) a stanced MKIV GTI on sawblades. Best part was after every run I made I had people coming up to me saying 'that thing is BADASS' or 'What the hell is going on with that?!' It's pretty dramatic when it launches. Only other Audi running was a B5 A4 1.8T with a GT28RS, chip tune etc. that was running 15.1's, I don't think he was happy I was running almost a full second quicker

Then the bad; Driving to the shop last night, coming around the LAST turn to the shop the drivers side ball joint came out of the strut housing. I had all my tools and put it all back together in the road, just to have it drop 10ft later. WTF. There's been a clunking noise coming from the front end, had it before I did control arms/top mounts/subframe bushings, etc. and it's still been there, guessing this had something to do with it. I don't understand what could be wrong, everything is tight, nothing moves with/without load on it, but obviously something is very wrong. Besides that the car still leaks a frustrating amount of oil, seems to be coming from around the pan gasket, pretty sure I can't get the pan out without pulling the motor so... it's going to sit for at least a couple weeks because financially I'm at the point of eating vs. working on the car

[EDIGREG]

My guess is the ball joint bolt is the incorrect size

[vt10vt]

My guess is the ball joint bolt is the incorrect size

Ugh yeah at this point I would guess you're right, I appreciate the input even though it's not what I wanted to hear haha I'm dissapointed that I overlooked that, doesn't speak well of my work, I guess it fit and I assumed whatever play it had was what it was supposed have. It SHOUlD take an 18mm with it being an '89 with ABS but this car has proven itself an oddball of various 200 parts. Guess I should probably check both sides before ordering to make sure someone didn't just replace one side. Are there differences in the uprights besides BJ diameters?

[WOMBAT]

financially I'm at the point of eating vs. working on the car

Story of a vintage Audi owner's life...

My car is sort of in the backburner phase too... needs a new rear main seal. It's so frustrating to replace all the seals just to have the new ones leak 5k miles later and the 256k mile one didn't leak at all. Should have just left it alone.

Keep your chin up, the car will be there when you're ready! Unless chip foose or someone pranks you, be weary of that.

[vt10vt]

financially I'm at the point of eating vs. working on the car

Story of a vintage Audi owner's life...

My car is sort of in the backburner phase too... needs a new rear main seal. It's so frustrating to replace all the seals just to have the new ones leak 5k miles later and the 256k mile one didn't leak at all. Should have just left it alone.

Keep your chin up, the car will be there when you're ready! Unless chip foose or someone pranks you, be weary of that.

Thanks Casey, I know your pain on oil leaks for sure! I'm trying to just count my blessings and successes for now, the car made it up to Carlisle and back without issue, has survived quite a few floggings and even more launches, and made 5 passes down the dragstrip, all of which I couldn't be happier about. We've been slammed at work again and I've been stacking up overtime so hopefully I'll make some progress sooner than later!

[rallyfreak202]

Just caught back up on this thread. So glad that you are (or were) enjoying the car! You've put a lot of work in. Have you replaced the ball joint yet? I'll probably be in VT in August...I'll text ya soon to chat.

Keep up the good work!

[vt10vt]

Well it has been far too long since I've spent way too much money on the 200. I've been finding other things to spend the little cash I've had on, but a couple things are starting to come together and I've got some parts for sale/sold. Plus, H20 is only a month and a half away, figure I'm ahead of the game if I can get my ass in gear this week, I can be sitting pretty and not rushing about all crazy like. That said, the list for H20 is pretty large:

New front control arms/hardware
Paint/clean/tuck engine bay
Ignition control for Megasquirt/LAUNCH CONTROL
Boost control (hopefully via MS, maybe just a better manual setup)
Fix rear fenders
Respray entire car to fix color variations/rear fenders

DUMP it. I hate to say it, but if it financially comes to cut springs for the weekend... stock springs are cheap, looking dope is forever. Honestly it will depend what wheels I get on. If I get something aftermarket/alternate OEM, it will need to be 'stanced' for the show. I think the ride height looks okay rolling on stockers in a goofy kinda way. I think T44's in general and particular look TERRIBLE on aftermarket/alternate OEM wheels without an according drop.

Anyways, needed a little motivation as all I have been doing lately is stare at it sit... skip to 1:25 for fun noises. The blue smoke... I'm not sure, turbo was a core/hasn't been rebuilt, PCV system is clog free, but I've seen some oiling on the #5 plug (only the one) so I don't know if maybe there's something else going on or not. Either way it sounded healthy as soon as the lifters got some oil to them so I'm going to rock it

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I87n0b4XKAY[/youtube]

Plus, Carlisle was within 100miles AAA towing range... I do not think OC is so this will be a REAL test.

Thanks for reading, feels good to be back posting!

[WOMBAT]

YEESSSS!!! Love that 20v rumble! Dump it to hell!

[vt10vt]

Well I have officially gotten off my ass and back into this project. Multiple parts orders shipped today:
2x Moog front control arms
2x Outer tie rod ends
2x New OEM pinch bolts
2x New OEM Pinch bolt nuts
4x New subframe stretch bolts
1x 8' Megasquirt harness (eliminating stupid, shitty relay board
1x Bosch Ignition driver

Tentative plan is to wire up the MS harness to run points ignition off a 5 window distributor I have one question, which may be stupid, but I'm going to ask. I know with launch control you're sometimes asking for huge amounts of timing retard; with just a standard rotor dist firing through a single coil, will I have the range to be able to make appropriate timing adjustments? I do have most of what I need to go tooth wheel/COP, but my douche ex roommate took his/supposed to be my coils when he cleaned us out when he moved out, so between that and my time frame/fear of VR sensor schenanigans I'm thinking this is the quick and dirty way to get my feet wet in ignition control.

On the bad news front, I went out to start the car today and in addition to the battery being a little low again, I could not get the ECU to fire up. I'm determined to trouble shoot it myself this time; I'm an electronics tech now so I really should be able to So far I have found what I believe are a bad capacitor and a bad diode in the power circuit. I have had problems like this in the past and it always seemed to be a connection problem between the ECU and it's cable, but now I'm thinking it might have been the capacitor slowly dying and then the last two long charges managed to kill it and take out the diode in the process. Would make sense, but I still have some work to do.

Watch this space as I ramp up into 'Make H20' mode, should be lots of good stuff coming along soon

As always, thanks for reading, sorry for a lack of pics and real update!

[vt10vt]

Ok so my big parts order came in Only problem was (of course) with the Rockauto box. I ordered an RK9107 and an RK9109, a left and right front control arm respectively. Well the RK9109 came in as a straight arm with no ball joint offset... not sure what this actually is for but I don't think it isn't for my 200! I'm going to measure the joints in a little to make sure the correct one is at least an 18mm and not a 19. I'm also sending Austin a PM because looking at pictures is about worthless trying to tell which parts are offset or straight. I know the ones on my car now are offset and I'm 99% old ones were too, pretty sure I would have noticed if they weren't the same as I compared them side by side. Bright side is I can ship the arm back tomorrow and as soon as they receive fedex confirmation it has shipped a replacement will be on its way, already called and setup the return so assuming my front left arm IS correct like it seems to be I should have parts by Friday, Monday at the latest. Rock auto kinda sucks because stuff like this seems to happen a lot but damn, their prices, selection and this pretty good exchange policy have me as a return customer, and they're picking up shipping (as they should).

On to the pics!


One on the left is RK9107 and one on left is 'RK9190.' Another weird thing, they were in different kinds of bags, but both had correct part numbers. The correct arm was made in Turkey and the wrong arm was made in Taiwan... the wrong arm also is missing the blue on the boot like all the pics of real Moog stuff have.


Gonna distill the last two posts into a few questions as they're more likely to get read.

1.) Which T44s have/don't have offset ball joints?
2.) Will a points ignition setup via MS1 allow me enough range to set up launch control?
3.) Who else is going to H20?

[yodasfro]

That's what you get for oredering from rockauto make sure to e-mail/call and bitch at them they'll refund you n tell you to throw the parts away.
Both 20v(18mm) and 20v(19mm) have an offset. That straight one is likely a type 43 arm measure the stud I bet it's 17mm.

[vt10vt]

Well, both are 18mm so I'm going to send the wrong part back in hopes of getting the correct arm, if that doesn't work I'll just get a refund and try to find the front right one somewhere. Thanks Austin!

[vt10vt]

Ok, first off setup:
1989 Audi 200 20vt
MAC-11 (OEM) chipped ECU controlling ignition
MS1 V2.2 w/ 68HC908 and Extra code controlling FI, have been using relay board and necessary harness

Problem:
I got the car running great, took it to Carlisle and it ran almost flawlessly the whole time until it dropped a front ball joint/control arm. Since the problem worsened, I HAVE NOT CHANGED ANY OF THE EXTERNAL/INTERNAL WIRING.

But now not so good...
The car had an intermittent problem of the ECU not firing up. It seemed unplugging/plugging the ECU back in would help get it running again, and it only did it on occasion. Then the car dropped the joint, and has sat. I would start it up to move it, sometimes had the same issue, and the last time I ran it I needed to unplug/plug the ECU several times (always turning key off beforehand).

Now I can't get anything. Key on, no priming LED flashes, I have 12v where I should on the board, and my 5v circuit seems to be working as well; I have 12v in, 4.98v out of the regulator. I had my boss help me try to troubleshoot, and by pulling 12v through the board and grounding at the LED's he could get them all to light. However, now when I plug the ECU in, the injector pulse LED (D17) comes on and stays lit, and no other LEDs light up.

On a component level it seems everything is good, all my diodes and resistors check out, I don't have a cap tester but they flash resistance (best way I have of testing) and then blank out. At this point I am thinking I may have processor failure. I'm running the 68HC908 and am wondering if what I was seeing as connection problems were actually signs of it failing and needing to be reset (powered off/on) and the cable just helped with that.

So, after that long winded explanation, I was wondering if you had any other ideas on what to test, where to look, or whether you think it is in fact just a bad processor. If so, my next question is what could have caused it?

Thanks in advance,

-Shawn C.