The Project Pad

Wow... um been a while since I checked in on this... you've been busy! Good work.

You can use a freeze plug to stuff into the locker arm hole. It's looks even less ghetto than the non functioning arm.

excellent photos and write-up on the torsen install, J.

The one on my shelf is getting excited about being able to play now.... 8)

quattrofrog wrote:Wow... um been a while since I checked in on this... you've been busy! Good work.

haha, you could say that... hopefully will have a final chapter (for now) shortly.

scottmandu wrote:You can use a freeze plug to stuff into the locker arm hole. It's looks even less ghetto than the non functioning arm.

Really? I didn't even pop the boot off to look. You don't know the size off the top of your head, do you Scott? Thanks for the tip. Might go that route just to de-ghetto it

WAUG0806 wrote:excellent photos and write-up on the torsen install, J.

The one on my shelf is getting excited about being able to play now....

Thanks! Now time to dust the parts off and get on it, Doug

Jretal wrote: de-ghetto it

I'm gonna put the torsen 2010 list ... but near the bottom unless my economy gets real stimulated real soon... want to do that when I finally tear into the taller gearing :(

Got a new baby cryin' for attention, then the pick'-um-up body, then the Ax'er suspension tweak, then 4kq suspension/brake upgrade.... all my other bought and paid for parts that need to get in the game... then I hope to be playing so hard (May>Oct '09) I won't have time for non-critical wrenching...

So final update of this series... the 6 point racing harness mounts.

Ever since I got the car, the end goal was to make this into a real fun track toy that I could use on the street as well. Unfortunately, I don't feel exactly safe when using the 24 yr old OEM seat belts when on the track, and 4 point harnesses (though I have them and use them) scare me slightly b/c the lap belt rides up above my hip area into my stomach region when really sinching down the shoulder harnesses.

With that said, while I had the car torn down to do all the rewiring, coolant cleanup, torsen swap, etc I figured it was time to get a little more serious and set the car up for the racing harnesses. I won't be running them until I get a rear roll hoop into the car, but at least I have them there and won't have to do nearly as much work when that time comes (currently searching for a roll cage/rear hoop for the 4000 as I type).

So first things first, I realized that if I was doing any welding in the car, I should probably give in and strip out the majority of the sound deadening in the car.

I've seen/read people going at this in many ways, namely dry ice, torch or heat gun. I went the propane torch route b/c I didn't know where to find dry ice locally, and the heat gun just didn't seem like it'd be hot enough

I went at it w/ my respirator on, torch in hand and my trusty 5-in-1 tool, and after about 2 hrs or so I had this:


Pass side


driver's side

And the aftermath from only ONE side!!


I'd say this was about 15 or so lbs worth of stuff once removed. I didn't strip all of it out, just the stuff on the floorboards. Since I still daily drive this puppy, I wanted to keep it on the tranny tunnel and firewall for heat/sound purposes.

With all the sound deadening removed on the floors, it was time to start on mounting points for the 6 points. I'm going to make these things fully clip in, so I bought eye-bolts from Summit Racing and then cut my own backing plates out of some 1/8" plate I had laying around the garage.

Here's how they started life:



Since the tranny and center drive shaft were out and down when doing the swap, I took this opportunity to mount the inner lap belt mounting points in the tranny tunnel. Def couldn't have done this w/o the center drive shaft dropped, at least with where I located the mounts.

I decided to put them on the same plain and line as the OEM bolt hole for the regular seat belts. This unfortunately put the plates in slightly akwardly shaped areas. This was easily fixed though w/ a lil persuasion from the 2lb sledge and my trusty "break" system of c-channel, vice grips, and c-clamp



after a bit of persuation and prep, this is what the final location looked like:



then after a bit of welding (yeah the welds are ugly... def interesting to try to weld in tight areas when laying on your back under a car on jackstands... and burning the hell outta yourself w/ weld splatter :( )



Driver's side interior:



And passenger's side interior:



In this last pic, you can see a bit of a burn area... apparently they put a lil bit of mastic around the e-brake insert, as it lit on fire!!!

The underbody coating had a habit of lighting up as I was welding around it, but it generally patted out pretty easily. Well after I had patted out the underside a few times on the pass side I realized I still heard sizzling. I shot out from under the car to find a 3" flame that was slowly burning the e-brake boot!!! OOPSIE!! Thankfully no real damage occurred, but I def made sure to keep a fire extinguisher handy just in case.

So once everything was buttoned up, I gave it a quick shot of some 3m underbody coating and called it done:



and this is w/ the bolts installed (no carpet yet, obviously)


Next on the list was to install the submarine strap mounts. Unfortunately, I really didn't want to install these w/o a proper set of racing seats on hand. As luck would have it, a buddy in up DC ended up picking up a pair of Recaros similar to what I'd like to run local to me. He asked me to run them up to him next time I was in the area, but for the meantime I used them to my own advantage

too bad I had to give them back to him, cuz I really liked these:



So with seats in hand, I went to "fitting" them into the car. First task was to make myself a "mount" to install the seat


WARNING: Def not even close to being street safe

Then I plopped the seat down and positioned it to where I'd normally have it when driving:



At this point, I was able to find exactly where I needed to put the sub strap mounts... which coincidentally turned out to be in line with the rest of the mounts for the seatbelt. This made shooting the line a little bit easier...

So out came the laser level to help strike the line:



Not sure I can tell you how much I love this friggen thing btw:



It has saved me so much work b/n the car and house, I can't even tell you! Def worth the money, though my brother was kind enough to give it to me for xmas last year

Once everything was marked out, out came the center punch and drill, and we have mocked up mounts!


driver's side


Passenger's side

Note: Though the mounts look crooked in the pictures, that's only because of the tunnels for the fuel/brake lines. The tunnels go back at an angle, and kind of throws the picture off if you don't know exactly what you're looking at.

After a bit of prepping, out came the welder:



Inorder to protect the fuel and brake lines from the splatter I put a layer of AL tape over them. This worked great for the splatter, but not so much for the heat! Things def got hot, even just spot welding the plates in place. Not much I could do about it, but things seem to have worked out find, and no ill effects.

At this point I then filled all the open gaps w/ some painters caulk and coated them w/ some more 3m underbody coating and called it Done!

With all the mounts welded in, it was finally time for me to start putting the interior back together. Since all the OEM padding was toasted, i picked up some new stuff from Home Depot. I just used regular carpet padding instead of Automotive. Figured it'd work out fine.

Thankfully though, it gets covered b/c it REALLY brightens up the interior :tard:





Once the padding was down and holes were cut for the mounts, it was time to get the carpet in. I can't even tell you how happy I was to see this happen... car was finally starting to shape up!





And this is what the mount situation looks like w/ the seats removed:



On the driver's side I ended up having to bend the washer a little bit so it sat flat on the floor. Inorder to keep these mount locations at their recommended spacing, I had to put the hole a lot closer to that little tunnel than I wanted, but it worked out in the end, so that's a good thing.

Once the carpet was installed, in went the center console w/ the nice new 3 gauge pod to fill the spot where the no-longer-needed diff lock panel used to live



And after a bit of finagling w/ the remainder of the interior, the old girl was finally able to roll out of the garage in one piece again!!!!



:woowoo:

Was great to see the 'ol girl out and on her own feet again. I finished all this work up on monday, and have now been using it all week. Everything seems to be working great. I'm now boosting about 16psi instead of the former 13ish. Think fixing the leaking lower wastegate tube helped a bit but I still think I'm getting a leak so I need to pressure test the system and check it out.

Also haven't had a chance to really test out the dual torsen, but it def takes a bit more to break the 'ol girl's tires free! Took a few hard turns and really tromped on it at places where I knew the front tires used to spin once boost hit just to see how it behaved. Now the car just bucks a lil and takes off like a scalded cat VERY happy with everything at this point. Going to drive it daily to see if any ugly bugs show their heads, and probably mid march will try to put it on the dyno again..... and pray it doesn't end like last time

That's about it for me! This concludes phase 3 for the car. Next phase will be interesting to say the least, but won't be happening anytime soon.

Nice work, good to see this on the road again. Now I need to see it in person some time.

Lookin good!!!

Looks good!

Hope I can chase you around Summit Point or VIR sometime!

Wiley... you too...

Justin, just curious; If you don't mind me asking, how much did that radiator shop charged you to get the radiator cleaned. About 2 years ago I also had a radiator shop clean, for $60, the radiator on my VW QSW (which is essentially the same as the 4KQ minus the couple of small water necks for the aux little radiator) but the work done was so-so. The monkey lad who did the job only R&R the top portion of the radiator to stick in a flat dip-stick followed by some acid flushing and re-welding top. I asked him why he did not R&R the bottom as well to remove most likely hardened deposits as were found on the top and instead replied, with an attitude, that it was not necessary.

Also regarding the tranny swap; I now the Audi 200 016CODE has a taller 5th gear than the 4KQ's, which lowers your cruising speed by about 800RPMs, thus, better fuel efficiency. Besides this, any other advantages. Furthermore, would such tranny swap work if you leave the 4KQ's rear diff. stock or you also had to swap the V8's rear diff. torsen? What are the advantages of having the V8' rear diff.
torsen.

Nice, nice work on everything BTW!!

:bump:

Cheers,

LDC

Looks really nice. Tell your buddy someone stole his seats, problem solved. They looked great in your 4kq.

Thanks, guys! I def look forward to meeting up with you at whatever times and wherever that might be! Would be cool to compare it w/ your car, Wiley, but not sure I want to touch the 20vt car as it'll just add bad bad bad bad temptations

And Doug, i'll be going to VIR in April... sign up!!!

LDC007 - Cost me $100 to have it cleaned by this shop. I didn't bother shopping around as I was really impressed with the owner/operator of the shop. He was extremely straight forward, and even took the thing apart infront of me to show me how it looked inside. I believe he took both tanks off and cleaned it top and bottom, then did the ultrosonic cleaning acid dip, etc. Then painted it up pretty. It seems to be holding great! And technically, you could get away w/ just opening up the top and using the flat metal bar, but after seeing a pile of desposits in another radiator that he pulled apart, that's def not a good thing! You can't be certain that you cleaned out all the deposit w/o totally taking it apart IMHO.

Bonuses of this trans for me was the taller 3-5 gears (though i'm only seeing around a 300rpm difference, not 800 while cruising), and the torsen. I kept breaking my tires loose w/ the locker center diff set to open, and when I locked it I got funny wheel hop in certain corners. This was a best of both worlds for me. And it would work flawlessly w/ the stock 4000 rear diff. I just swapped in the rear torsen as I wanted to get away from all the locker stuff. I've heard great things about having dual torsen (and a few bad), and for the price I got the rear diff, it was a real easy decision for me.

I can def tell you the car doesn't spin the tires at all anymore. I might get a slight chirp and then it takes off like no other. I'm def a happy camper

As for the seats, I got a line on some that are a little more w/in my price range. Will post up when that goes down, but it won't be anytime soon.

I was under the assumption that the Torsen tranny would drop the rpms by more then 300 in 5th, I for some reason also was thinking the number was 800 or so :?

What size tire are you running?

It doesn't make a drastic difference but does make a difference.

Here is a spreadsheet you can plug your tire size into and see theoretical speed per rpm.

It also depends on what your cruising speed is.

:bashtard:

I forgot I was running tires sized for my A4, which are obviously a lil bit taller than the stock 4000 setup. It will probably drop it about 800 rpm from the 4000 trans w/ stock 4000 wheels/tires. It only dropped it about 300 or so rpm from the 4k tranny w/ the bigger A4 wheel/tire combo.

Sorry for the confusion!

I'd say it dropped my rpm's at 80ish about 500 revs. Enough to calm my car down on the freeway.

WRC wrote:I'd say it dropped my rpm's at 80ish about 500 revs. Enough to calm my car down on the freeway.

...and I'd think that the rpm drop would be close to same with any given tire OD before and after.

After a few days cruising in a 5ktq I'm amazed at how much more relaxed it is with the 016 locker mit 3:89

I was thinking @ $300 the car would pay for itself if I yanked the trans for my 4ktq... just too nice for that...

maybe next year....

No, the RPM will drop more b/c the bigger OD means you need less RPMs to go as fast as you were before, so the bigger tires + taller gearing = double the savings in RPMs.

I haven't gotten the 'ol girl up to 80mph yet since there aren't too many places around here to stretch the legs that far w/o getting a ticket I'll get it next time I'm heading up to DC though

And Doug: You could also find a 200 20vt trans w/ the proper gearing (4:11) for <$300. After a bit of shopping, I got mine for $250 delivered. That way you can leave pearly all in one piece, and keep the Mrs. happy!

That's the plan (again)... 200 20V 4:11 with V8 Torsen in the back.... just waiting till budget improves before I pull 4ktq apart that far... always unexpected expenses and no $$ for that this year... gonna stick to suspension and brakes which are bought and paid for, except for brake lines.

Thanks 4 your reply Justin.

You mentioned that one could find a "200 20vt trans w/the proper gearing (4:11)". That would mean just plug and play if swapped into a 4KQ or VW QSW for that matter, correct?

Also does such tranny has a taller 5th gear as in the 5KTQ, would you happen to know?

Also the 200 20vt tranny does not have a center-locking diff. like in the 5kTQ, 4KQ and VW QSW, do you guys know why audi did away with it? Any cons vs pros by having such feature deleted?

Doug, I hear you about how much relaxed the 5KTQ cruises at 75=80 MPH when compared to the 4KQ and QSW. I was cruising in the highway from Orlando to Ocala in my 5KTQ and engine was so quiet and effortless.

Having that taller 5th gear (vs. the 4KQ/ QSW tranny) makes a whole lot of difference!!

Doug, I don't know if you're familiar with this car, anyway, Chad from SCI
did a 5KTQ engine swap into a QSW. He also swapped the 5th gear in the stock QSW tranny for that of a 5KTQ tranny. If memory serves me well in some write-up I read about the build, by such swap the RPMs on 5th gear were reduce by 800 RPMs.

When I compared the RPMs on my QSW stock tranny vs. 5KTQ while crusing on 5th gear, the difference was about that; 800 RPMs lower in the latter.

Also, when Chad did the swap, I believe there was some discussion about whether or not such swap could cause the center or rear diff. or both to blow up and he said no way since......

I guess it worked because I believe the car is still running just fine.

The link below shows that car, which BTW looks super nice!!!!!!


-Regards,

-Louis

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=4067176&page=4

Louis: The only things you need to change on the 200 tranny to be plug and play I listed in the swap (for the 4000, not sure on the QSW). Basically move the ball for dogbone, swap linkage, replace pilot bearing, swap axle flanges/cups and speedo gear, and then use the 200 slave cylinder and you're good to go. Basically the only new part you'd NEED to buy to do this swap are 2 new axles seals, anew throw out bearing (to be safe), and the pilot bearing.

As for the locker 016, yes, the 5000 non-turbos had a 4.11 iirc. Check out cuatrokoop's V8 thread: http://www.motorgeek.com/phpBB2/viewtop ... 073#309394

That has the info on the 5000 locker you can use.

Also, I've def heard of people in the 4000 world swapping the 5th gear from a 5k tranny into a 4k tranny. Opening up a transmission honestly scares me, so I opted for the plug and play of the entire trans... lol.

For the torsen vs locker, I think it's a personal preference. Some swear by lockers. There's no question that in the snow/gravel, a locker will more than likely outperform a torsen. With the torsen, it removes the need for the person to lock the trans in slippery weather and does the "thinking" for you. I'd venture to guess this is why Audi ditched the lockers in the cars.

Well, VIR is around the corner (April 20-21), and it was time for me to start buttoning up some loose ends on the 'ol girl so I had a safe and reliable car to take to the track.

First on the list was to fix my exhaust. Ever since I did the swap, I've been fighting w/ getting the exhaust to hang properly and not rub on the rear diff (it's tight up there for a 3" exhaust!!!).



I first started using the old rubber mounts, but those soon proved to be beyond dead. I then swapped over to chain link (yeah, ghetto I know). After that failed resulting in me losing the muffler out from under the car (twice!!!), I updated to a "newer" chainlink design. You can see that here:



Like I said, it was ghetto. On top of that, the round bar I used for mounts was WAY to thin to do the trick. I had to do some serious bracing on the other side, and it just looked like hell.

I finally bit the bullet and gave Joe@axismotorsport a call and ordered up 3 of the chain lined OEM mounts... and lets say they were infinitely better than anything I ever came up with... lol. I also upgraded to 5/16" round bar. This was MUCH more up to the task of supporting everything.





Next on the list was the front fenders. W/ the 235s on the track rims, I get some pretty decent rubbing under load on the front fenders. I had flared them out a little bit w/ a bat, but it just wasn't cutting it... so out came the grinder to make a little more room!



And before any hammering:



I then proceeded to start pounding out on the lip w/ a 2lb hammer. I then followed behind the neanderthal beating w/ some body dollies to smooth things out as best I could. End result was pretty promising:



With track wheel installed:





I now have LOTS of room for the wheels to tuck a little bit.

And since I didn't do a good before/after on the driver's side, here's the pass side:

Before:


After


Once the flaring was done, I started to do some prepping:



and some painting:





I didn't bother bondo-ing anything, so it's still a bit rough, and the paint doesn't match, but it'll work for now. The rest of the paint on the car is in rough rough shape, so I will be attending to that in the upcoming year. This is just to tide me over and keep the rust away.

And the final task was another trip to the dreaded dyno!!!! After what happened before, I was understandably gun-shy and nervous about strapping the 'ol girl to the rollers again. Unfortunately, the tune was far from optimal, so I knew it had to happen. With the help of Keith (karthurq here on MG), we were able to get the 'ol girl running where she belongs. The first run was at around 185whp at 14psi, and the car was running PIG rich. Multiple areas where we needed to pull out a lot of fuel. As the time went on, we got better and better. My APC light would go through fits here and there, but by the end we were able to tune pretty much all of it out but the final 300 rpm before redline. When comparing to what he has on his 20vt, Keith was thinking that the light might be a lil over sensitive, which is entirely possible w/o a doubt.

After about 10-15+ pulls (I lost count), we were able to squeeze a final 195whp and ~230 ftlb torque. Not bad for 14 psi! And that was ontop of doing consecutive pulls for about 40 min! I was stoked to say the least, and am still grinning about it. Car sounded and felt great, and I think we woke it up a bit to say the least. I'll fully test that out at VIR at the end of the month, though.

and for your viewing pleasure, here's a crappy vid from my camera of the last pull: http://vimeo.com/3966750

Car sounded amazing, and attracted the attention of a few guys in the shop. That turbo does really scream when you get it going, that's for sure

So all that's left for my VIR prep is track pads, track rims, and an oil change and I'm ready to roll.

Awesome man, looks good and sounds really sweet! Also, 200 hp should be plunty fun in a 4kq! :-D

Great news justin! I wish I had sound here so I could listen to the dyno vid :x

Nice TQ #!! NOW TURN UP THE BOOST!!!!!