The Project Pad

a4kquattro wrote:No blue pills involved though!

Better to keep it "natural" <snip tasteless comment> :bump:

Toxcheap wrote:Marc in it's final resting place did the subframe clear ok with just the removal of the fins? I didn't actually look I just rememer it was close.

Not quite, but VERY close. I just need to trim a bit more of the fins (I left about 1/4" worth of fins off the back of the bell housing on the bottom). It catches on one of them in the final resting place.

Stick some sand paper on the subframe and let it trim do its own trimming as you drive?

Okay... so I spent the day over at the shop today with the hope of making some mounts. I didn't make the progress I wanted to, mostly because I didn't think about the fact that the 3.6 mounts would be _totally_ different than the 4.2 mounts. By that I mean I was hoping to be able to make new mounts on the body and bolt them up to the factory 4.2 engine mount brackets. Not gonna happen, the 4.2 mounts would basically put the mounts into the subframe which is where the A8 has em :-/

So now the question: Will the 3.6 brackets bolt onto the 4.2 block?

here's the 4.2 mounts:

Hmm, what about making a cross member to go underneath the motor, and rest in the factory motor mountings, think you could make something like that fit? You could integrate the mounts in the factory locations, and just hard mount the engine to the cross member.

i've seen pictures of something like so for mounting 5 cylinder engines in vanagons. it's on the internet somewhere.

Well I've already cut the factory engine mounts off the body so I think the path of least resistance at this point is to bolt the 3.6 or perhaps early 4.2 mounts onto the engine and make mounts for the body.

a4kquattro wrote:So now the question: Will the 3.6 brackets bolt onto the 4.2 block?

The drivers side looks right to me, can't tell with the pass. side. You probably have them already but if not I gots a pair from my 3.6 you can use if you want 'em.

Alloutofdonuts wrote:

a4kquattro wrote:So now the question: Will the 3.6 brackets bolt onto the 4.2 block?

The drivers side looks right to me, can't tell with the pass. side. You probably have them already but if not I gots a pair from my 3.6 you can use if you want 'em.

Nope, dont got em yet. YGM!

:bump:

Not much progress yet on the mounts (I spent part of the weekend getting the shop setup to run my 50A 220 TIG welder), but I did pull the engine (I have a feeling I'll get quite good at R&Ring the motor) to trim some more metal off the bottom of the bell housing and remove the water/oil heat exchanger.

Since I hadn't seen detailed pics of this setup, here they are:














And wow, these motors have big ass serp. belts!



Its a shame I wont be using the heat exchanger, but it really does take up a LOT of room.

So the next question is what to run for a remote filter setup? I definitely want thermostatically controlled oil cooling too, I'm sure there are probably plenty of bits in the summit catalog that will do the job.

marc, what tranny are you using? i forget at the moment....

stock CQ

:bump:

Didn't have much time to work on the car this weekend but I at least got one of the mounts tacked in there.

The current plan of attack is to weld in mounts for the energy suspension poly mounts and then fab up an intermediary piece of heavy gauge steel to go from the stock ABZ mount to the engine mount.

:pics:





I'll be taking them back off the body to powdercoat them so they certainly aren't finish welded to the body yet!

Looking good! You are going about the swap much the same way I did with the mount construction and oil cooler delete. You should see what is left of the oil cooler casting! I of course kept the alternator mount and spent about 30 minutes on the mill and another 2 hours with a file to make it shaped like it came that way.

About the oil cooler delete - its actually a good thing its gone - the plastic water nipple towards the front of the block is a very common failure item and its a time consuming, inconvenient repair. Very expensive for the A8 owners who always go to the dealer for service.

I got a variety of parts from Summit to facilitate the remote filter, cooler, and thermostatic control. I personally chose an RX7 oil cooler unit which is quite huge. It has a thermostatic control built in, but it is a very small passage so I blocked it to use an external thermostat.

billzcat1 wrote:Looking good! You are going about the swap much the same way I did with the mount construction and oil cooler delete. You should see what is left of the oil cooler casting! I of course kept the alternator mount and spent about 30 minutes on the mill and another 2 hours with a file to make it shaped like it came that way.

You and your fancy tooling

I'll settle for 'functional'

Thats a very good poing though, at first I was going to look at using a different alternator mount but there is no good reason not to just hack off the cooler bits so I can keep the same basic alternator layout.

About the oil cooler delete - its actually a good thing its gone - the plastic water nipple towards the front of the block is a very common failure item and its a time consuming, inconvenient repair. Very expensive for the A8 owners who always go to the dealer for service.

Hmm, good to know! I like the simplicity of an oil to air cooler anyway.

I got a variety of parts from Summit to facilitate the remote filter, cooler, and thermostatic control. I personally chose an RX7 oil cooler unit which is quite huge. It has a thermostatic control built in, but it is a very small passage so I blocked it to use an external thermostat.

Here's my current parts plan, click pics for links to summit:

filter mount ($21):



OR, if I think that I need a bit more filter capacity there's always the dual setup ($30)



oil cooler thermostatic control (why dont they sell them built into the filter mounts??) ($40)



and whatever oil cooler I go with (I've mostly been watching ebay, but something like this would do nicely $140):

here's some reasonably priced oil coolers:
http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/cooler1.htm

Whaddya know I have the same exact 2-filter mount and thermostat I picked the 2 filter mount because the V8s traditionally have a large/long filter and this will allow using 2 of the shorter/cheaper standard filters and still have the same flow across the element as the tallboy the PT/ABH come with.

billzcat1 wrote:Whaddya know I have the same exact 2-filter mount and thermostat I picked the 2 filter mount because the V8s traditionally have a large/long filter and this will allow using 2 of the shorter/cheaper standard filters and still have the same flow across the element as the tallboy the PT/ABH come with.

My thoughts _exactly_

great minds think alike?

I think we're soulmates

this is probably a good time to ask.. which hole in the block is in/out??

billzcat1 wrote:I think we're soulmates

Oh Richard :heart:

I used to know. Then I forgot. :? :bashtard: :slap:

billzcat1 wrote:Whaddya know I have the same exact 2-filter mount and thermostat I picked the 2 filter mount because the V8s traditionally have a large/long filter and this will allow using 2 of the shorter/cheaper standard filters and still have the same flow across the element as the tallboy the PT/ABH come with.

man, ya know the PT filters are like $14 if ya look in the right places

yeah and the standard filters are $3 if you look in the right places

AFTER you spend $30+ on a filter base and lines!!!!! :bashtard: