The Project Pad

So I got this idea the other day. It's sort of like an mg-sounding thread tho lol. Here in erie, the majprity of people don't give a damn about Audis (only American muscle or otherwise). I always put my hood up and people walk right past on their way to the blown novas section at the shows. So many a project under my hood is done and keeps in mind the fact that I won't be opening my hood for gawkers.

*****In this thread I'd ask that anyone who has done something questionable, aesthetically speaking, to their car, to post a shot. HOWEVER, it should really only be done if it's not visible to the public. That's really key here I guess.*****

I guess I will start

On the 200, I was in search of ambient IAT's so I took some old flexible ducting and made a heat shield of it. This was supposed to be a temporary solution but has been on for 2 weeks so far haha! I may improve on it with a new iteration or make it look better. Who knows? Included in this example are my experimental brake MC heat shield, weather-stripping-delete hood vents, and the very subtle hood scoop (note - my 200's is cracked on the driver's side and breaking off anyway):





Now, you guys might be cursing my very soul but if you look here you can see I am within one degree of ambient temps running 27 lbs of boost on a measly k24 with meth injection. I've been getting the hang of drifting lately on this setup

This second example is, however, visible but I can't take that ticking disaster car (5k) anywhere anyway! Cracked exhaust manifolds ruine everything :( This was done during my first years of ownership of the car when I wired everything just so it would work. I didn't car much at the time about its appearance since it looks like the car has been hauling Xmas trees on its bare roof for centuries.


The car is externally quite rough and I poured all my funds into it while working during college as I earned my MET degree. It's more of POS than the 200 FOR SURE lol.

Finally, I'd like to thank the few upstanding m3forums members (highly regarded members) for recently telling me to kill myself and harm other people for monetary gain on their behalves. They really are good guys and I want to send a shout out to them.

Now it's all your guys' turns! Get out there and wow me!!

Will you settle for verbal descriptions? Both of these are true but happened so long ago I don't have photos.

First: I actually turbocharged a Saab once (that was n/a from the factory) for $150.00, so as you can imagine it was "just a little" bit of a kluge. Although getting the turbocharger for $20.00 helped!

Anywho I got all the exhaust bits fabbed up and the turbo mounted to them, and figured out oil & drain plumbing (no water on this turbo that came from a 1966 Corvair). Was incredibly impatient to drive the thing so I took the route of least resistance and left the turbo inlet open and plumbed the turbo outlet to the air filter housing (CIS car). With... a piece of shop-vac hose. The kind made of thin vinyl molded over a spiraling steel wire. It of course looked pretty stupid but held ~2-1/2 PSI of boost. Not much of course but enough to make the car noticeably faster. Just as long as you used your right foot carefully to avoid letting the boost hit 3 PSI at which time the hose would burst. Needless to say I didn't run that setup for long!

The other galactic-scale-kluge was one I helped a friend with, and technically doesn't meet one of the requirements of this thread because it was externally visible but is still funny IMHO.

This was on another Saab we'd transplanted a factory turbo motor into and we were trying to get "moah powah" from it (this is Boston, after all). Hit upon the idea of an intercooler and after a trip to the junkyard had one in hand. But where to put it?

The best idea we could come up with was to mount it horizontally just under the hood on the passenger's side, cut a hole in the hood, and install a hood scoop to catch air and direct it downward over the intercooler. Not a bad idea all around, but we didn't have the money, source, or skills (or patience) to get and install a "real" hood scoop. So what could we do instead... hmmm... what might be found at the local hardware store? A-ha! A dryer vent! And even better, a bright white dryer vent in the middle of the hood on a dark brown car. It was the stupidest-looking thing you'll ever see, but actually worked fairly well.

Oh lord that's good stuff. It's funny you mention the dryer vent lol. I passed over that idea recently
I had thought about using other things as well like the round vents on outdoor grills that I could close during the winter. Another member put this idea in my head as well


Thanks for stopping in and kicking this catastrophe thread off!

I had an UrS6 avant project that had a dryer vent in the PS fender to help cool the turbo area.

IMG_7490 by ringbearer93, on Flickr

Here is how handy it was with the vent removed!

Zip ties zip ties zip ties.

ringbearer wrote:I had an UrS6 avant project that had a dryer vent in the PS fender to help cool the turbo area.

IMG_7490 by ringbearer93, on Flickr

Here is how handy it was with the vent removed!

You just gave me an excellent idea
my front fenders will soon be scrap anyway. My intake sits exactly where you have that vent situated. Is there any pics missing from your post?

I have something like 2 LARGE packs of the multi-multi-line zip ties "installed" in my 200. Minimum of 5 in every picture I've posted.

I don't have a pic with the vent installed.

Oh I got ya. At least the shot makes the ducting look pretty well executed. I have a dremel so I may just cut some sits and bend them out to "scoop" lol. I'm not into making my cars look crazy dramatic. my style is functionality. I don't give any shits about flash or show, only GO GO GO!!

Come on people keep posting...

Oh I'm going to regret this...

16yo and my first car, a $300 Ford Escort. Decided to turbo it on my fast food cook budget. Kept it over at a friends house as I didn't want to tell my parents I was making it faster, I said I was swapping the head or something. My dad came over one day and asked "what's that centrifuge thing? You better not tell your mother." Made about 10psi smoking the entire way as the turbo I bought for $75 off ebay was shot. Drove it back to my house and parted it out.
Lots of junkyard parts, dual side-exhaust, PVC intake piping, and a homemade wannabe STI hood scoop. Printed my own gauges and glued them over the stock ones (and got dirty fingerprints on them in the process).







Gotta start and learn somewhere though! I went from only having helped my dad change some brake pads to doing an engine swap thanks to the wisdom of the internet.

Awesome!

in a 16 year old kinda way

I like this thread a lot. Thanks for the good stories guys! I will have to see if I can dig any of my own up.

I feel like any of my cars would fit into this thread without any questioning at all....

Theres the time I had coil-over issues in the rear(wait which time?) and had to run stock 200 20v rear shocks and springs in the rear with coils in the front. Man that drove weird.


Can't find pictures of it but I had some underbody factory heat shielding being used as a turbo heat shield for a long time on my 5k as well.

Yeah I was hoping I wasn't alone on this one. Come on guys let's give this thread "craiglist find of the day" status lol

This is a great thread! These are just a few of the questionable "fixes" to my old red 86' CGT which I drove daily during college and for some years after:

1. Backed into my brothers subaru and put a dent/crease in the rear quarter. Fixed it by pushing it out by hand and jamming a wooden stick between the unibody frame and the sheet metal.

2. Hit a curb hard soon after aquriing the car. Tweaked the frame, bent the subrame and passenger side A-arm, bent wheel, etc. Fixed it by replacing the A arm only. JB welded the big gouge and painted the wheel and drove it for like 100K miles that way. A new set of tires would fix the 65 mph wheel shake (for a while).

3. After about 100K miles the shake got really bad, even after replacing the wheel. this was diagnosed as the encapsulated nut for passenger side rear subframe mounting point cracking out of the frame rail. So the subframe was flexing when driving down the road causing one hell of a shimmy. Fixed it by removing the subframe and having my father in law stick weld the mounting point back in place. He subsequently warned me not to drive down any rough roads because the weld was probably brittle. The mounting surface on the frame was extremely rough after welding so I smeared some JB weld on it and smoothed it out with a grinder. In addition I took some time to straighten the subframe by bolting it to my workbench and using a bottle jack to bend it back. I also replaced the subframe bushings. You will be glad to hear that I used the last available OEM bushings in the country (According to the Audi Dealer) on this beauty.

4. Had to "fix" the seat back frame multiple times. One time I got it brased up pretty well but that lasted only so long. Another time I cut the top half of the seat frame off of an 84' passenger seat and welded it to the bottom part of the 86' drivers seat. Used some bicycle cables to fix the broken tilt cables.

5. I used a zip tie to replace the rubber bushing that attaches the throttle cable to the gas pedal after it disintegrated. Drove it that way for like 150k miles.

Well I didn't do it but I bought it!

Previous owner says the Driver regulator needs to be replaced... no kidding!

Jeff those were highly amusing. This thread is 35% better with your addition of content

That regulator "fix" is even more archaic than the same regulator in my deceased parts car. I didn't even get a title but there was a permanent vice grip installed on the reguator's guide rail keeping the window up.

This is pretty awesome so far so I'm gonna butt out for awhile and let this evolve. I don't think anyone's feelings will be hurt if I don't greet all of your separately haha.

I trust Schwagen will add some stuff too soon

Drove one of my mkii jetta for an entire winter with no rear brakes. Had a line burst, it was cold snowy and I had no where I could safely put the car on Jack stands. My fix was blocking the rear outlets at the master with flywheel bolts. I've carried a couple of those bolts in all my older cars since then for emergency use.....
I couldn't believe how little the rear brakes did on that car....

Sent from my KFSOWI using Tapatalk

dalspaugh wrote:Previous owner says the Driver regulator needs to be replaced... no kidding!

Hey just a tip... for longer life, if you have a pine/fir regulator like that, replace it with cedar.

elaw wrote: Hey just a tip... for longer life, if you have a pine/fir regulator like that, replace it with cedar.

genius!

dalspaugh wrote:Well I didn't do it but I bought it!

Previous owner says the Driver regulator needs to be replaced... no kidding!

Had that happen on two different coupes I got. One with wood, the other with self tapping screws holding it up.

My coupe had a hose clamp on the slides