The Project Pad

Brutal!
Now with registration even

Road ready for Audi Expo?

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alxdgr8 wrote:Road ready for Audi Expo?

Getting aligned on Friday, then it will be!

Woot!

Nice work there. I put the picture of your Coupe with the lights on in my screen saver shuffle. Looking forward to the picture showing you catching air with it.
Chris

A1QSHIP wrote:Nice work there. I put the picture of your Coupe with the lights on in my screen saver shuffle. Looking forward to the picture showing you catching air with it.
Chris

Ha! Maybe we will get there at some point.

Ok- a bit of a status update:

1. Took the car to a local AUDI tuning shop for an alignment, and every single person there stopped what they were doing to take pictures. The comment from the tech after test driving it was "that's drives surprisingly straight. Pretty much just feels like an SUV". And it does! Cruises comfortably on the freeway.

2. 26 year old rubber bits are failing. After driving it about 60 miles on Friday I have a torn FR inner cv boot and a failed center driveshaft bearing. Teething issues.

Are there any decent replacement axles available for these? And what's the word on center bearings? I found that there was a BMW part that supposedly works. Is that the best option?

What I used. There may be less expensive options.
https://www.powertrainindustries.com/ca ... al=2580-10
HTH, Chris

A1QSHIP wrote:What I used. There may be less expensive options.
https://www.powertrainindustries.com/ca ... al=2580-10
HTH, Chris

Thanks! I'll give them a call.

Jeff Gerner sells one for the c4, it may cross to the small chassis.

Parts showed up Friday so I got the center support bearing and both front inner axle boots replaced. While I was in there I re-greased the CV's and u-joint on the drive-line, and installed a stock shift linkage I found in my boxes of coupe parts. It's has way better feel that the solid one I made previously and no issues getting into any of the gears.

Dead center support bearing:


I'm super impressed with the quality of the new front boots:


Saturday morning I met up with a bunch of the local euro car crowd at the meet up before the Leavenworth Cruise. My car stood out like a sore thumb which was pretty hilarious to me. Alex took these great pictures of it next to a bagged A5:









After the meet I went and met up with a friend at his shop, in took the opportunity to give this thing it's first little test off road. It does donuts!

Looks good out in the scrub!

Damn! Very nice!

Thanks guys!

Time for this week's progress update.

I got tires of the duct tape upholstery and adjusters on the original driver's seat getting frozen in a position where my head touched the headliner while driving, so I broke down and installed the *mint* original driver's seat from my red CQ in the lifted car. It is quite possibly the nicest factory Audi piece of this car. LOL

Also, I need to stop taking pictures with my cell phone- they are pretty terrible.





In driving the car around last week I discovered that I had a stuck thermostat and a faulty G62 coolant temp sensor, so I replaced both of those.



And then finally I got started on the front bumper. After spending way too much time looking for ideas on Subaru forums, I convinced myself that a winch was a good idea..... you know.... just in case....

So I bought a 5000 lb winch, went and bent some tubes at my buddies shop, and got to work.



I tried mocking up a bunch of different ideas for the winch/bumper combo so try and find the best one. Ultimately I decided I didn't like anything I could mock up with zip ties and tubes and decided to mount the winch first then work around it.

Here are some of the concepts I tried but didn't much like:





I liked this one the best...



To mount the winch I built a new cross-support out of A series structural steel angle which is tied in to the original bumper shock bases to give a solid anchor to the frame rails. 100% of this fabrication work was done with 3 tools in my garage: a 4.5" angle grinder, a drill press, and my TIG welder. I'm amazed how much can be done with those simple tools (though it does take a lot longer...).















And finally, here it is on the car:







I welded the original bumper mount/shock solid and plan to mount the new tube bumper/brush guard to them in the same way that the orignal bumper center section mounted. This will keep it all easily removable for servicing the car, but still very stout and secure.

I trimmed up the bumper cover for the winch opening and set a tube on top, close to where it will be mounted. I plan to do a hoop of tube coming down from this which goes around the bottom of the winch fairlead. This will also serve as the forward mounting for the front skid plate when I get to that point.





I'm pretty happy how it's coming along so far!

I definitively love your car ! Looks amazing ... even more with the winch !

Nice!! When is a brush guard going on??

Foscora wrote:I definitively love your car ! Looks amazing ... even more with the winch !

Thanks!

heartlessnomad12 wrote:Nice!! When is a brush guard going on??

Building it now

You coming to the Audi Expo this year? I'm taking both coupes for some good juxtaposition.

Officially my favourite low hp/cost build. And it keeps getting better!

fantastic work per usual!

You know this car would wheel really well with a stock turbo TDI swapped in....with a smokestack.

dana wrote:fantastic work per usual!

You know this car would wheel really well with a stock turbo TDI swapped in....with a smokestack.

dana wrote:fantastic work per usual!

You know this car would wheel really well with a stock turbo TDI swapped in....with a smokestack.

and this is what they sound like with a straight pipe and that tiny little hairdryer.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny8LiAMVtXk[/youtube]

dana wrote:fantastic work per usual!

You know this car would wheel really well with a stock turbo TDI swapped in....with a smokestack.

you know, this is a really interesting idea... somehow a TDI swap hadn't occurred to me. I don't know the first thing about TDI swaps so I think it may be time to read through your project thread. A few questions for you:

1. what generation TDI would you suggest? What cars did it come in and what years?
2. If I get a donor car, what else do I need? The fabrication part I have covered, I'm thinking more purchased components. I'm thinking fueling system, power steering, etc.
3. Gearing. My plan for this thing was to drop in the shorter 1st and 2nd gear sets from a b5 1.8T 01a and keep the taller 3-5 for freeway cruising/comfort/mpg. If I went TDI I might still do at least the shorter 1st gear (and probably reverse if possible) to have a low speed + high torque gear, but the obvious question then becomes what to do with the other 4 gears. What are my options for transmissions? Are there any that don't cost me half a million dollars (in the relative budget of this project)?


Up to now I have been thinking of doing an AEB 1.8T swap due to simplicity, low cost, and a wide range of tuning options which look to give it a decent amount more torque down low and power up top. What does a dyno graph for the TDI look like?

I would use an ALH tdi, that is 99.5-2003 mk4 jetta and golf cars. I used an AHU which is the earlier generation (mk3), and similar, but the ALH is better is every way, and the tuning is way better and more modern. The ALH costs a fraction more, but there seems to be a lot more of them around.

I would want a complete engine with all accessories, a complete wiring harness and ECU. You would also want the DBW accelerator pedal. I made my motor mounts from random steel bits. I used an AEB oil pan and oil filter housing with associated AEB coolant hoses and a front mounted radiator from a 2.0 fwd audi 80.

The injection pump has an internal vane pump that will draw from the tank. I removed my fuel pump and gas filter under the car and mounted a TDI filter where the ignition coil used to be. I will be adding a low pressure delivery pump under the car, but for a less modified engine, its not needed. Mine runs fine without one, but I am having some fueling issues at the top end.

I am running all the TDI accessories and power steering pump. I deleted the AC. Not sure on the exact fitment of ALH accessories as they are a little different, but I think you could make them all work pretty easy.

I have a 6-speed 01e from TDI quattro car. Cost about $875 shipped via fedex to my door from Dutch Auto parts. The gearing is PERFECT for what I want, not sure how it would work with your setup. The transmission is a DQT I think. 4.11 final drive. First gear is pretty low, but I don't offroad my car too much. I had a link to the individual gear ratios somewhere, but cannot find it now.

As for clutch...the 01e does not seem to like a light steel flywheel. Some people are running special heavy solid steel flywheels, some running european 240 DMF setups that require a special starter and trans spacer. I have a 1.8t DMF with southbend clutch. The setup is GREAT to drive and translates no noise through the gears. However my engine is bottoming out the DMF springs under heavy torque in higher gears. This would not be a problem with a stock turbo. This is the setup I would use for a smaller turbo, but I need to upgrade mine to the 240mm DMF setup.

So I did some looking and it looks like a chipped ALH makes very similar power and torque to a chipped 1.8t, even down low. Here are the dyno graphs I found for the ALH, which is what I'm basing this off of:

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=157742

Then here is the 1.8t

https://www.goapr.com/products/ecu_upgrade_a418t.html

Does this seem right to you?

The diesel would be bad ass, but it's looking like an expensive endeavor.