The Project Pad

Hey, im not knocking it. I love my audis, and would rather drive them over a new shitbox any day, i dont care if I loose 100% of the money I put in. :-D

I'm not sure I can agree with ya there, Paul. Depending on how we do it, the UrQ will be worth more than what we paid for it, but I highly HIGHLY doubt we'll ever get the $$ back that we'll put into it. I"m guessing we're going to be in for about $30k by the time that car is completed, but that's OK in my book b/c that's why we bought it, and it will take a few years before we even get close to dumping that $$, so I still have time to find my million dollar idea or that big ticket job... lol.

As for my 4000, I think my 20vt raised the value as much as the 20vt would have, for only a fraction of the cost. Hell, I had a buddy tell me he had someone tell him that he'd give me $10k for my 4000... and I wasn't even looking to sell it lol. If the guy would have approached me w/ that check, it would have been gone before you blinked an eye

Update time!

At the end of April I had taken the 'ol 4000 out to VIR to stretch her proverbial legs. Had a great outting at the track minus a few near misses, including a tangle w/ a tire wall and barely missing the rear end of an M3 after a 911 broke down infront of him and stopped on line coming over the crest of the hill on turn 10.

But overall, was a great time. Got some great pix from a buddy from the NoVA area who was taking pictures for donations to the Mount Washington Observatory Fund (Goes by Bluedog on Audiworld/Quattroworld).

Here are the pix:











And here is a video of the close call from T10...

From my camera (Go-Pro Hero): http://www.vimeo.com/4305273

From my buddy following me: http://www.vimeo.com/4295828

And one of the sessions during the day: http://www.vimeo.com/4422755

Thankfully, the only damage I suffered from sliding into the tire wall was a broken reflector (:() and a broken adjuster for the headlight (hence the red duct tape). Now, as you can see in a few of the pictures, my driver's headlight is also missing, and that was done b/c my oil temps were getting WAY too high. When I built the car, I installed the oil cooler infront of the radiator, and even w/ the shrouding that proved to be insufficient in regards to air flow. Even w/ the headlight removed, the oil temps were getting way too high, so my first and foremost issue to be handled was to relocate the cooler before my next event (possibly in July).

When I had the car apart to fix a broken coolant line mid May, I decided it was time to start planning to fit the oil cooler in a more air friendly area. After removing the bumper and doing some head scratching, I found where I wanted to put it!

Before angle grinder!



And after the angle grinder w/ a mock-up oil cooler:



Now as you can tell, the box that is suppose to be my oil cooler is falling down at a slight angle. That is because of this piece of the frame rail:



After some cleaning up and love from the angle grinder, I made some more room:



Once I got that cleaned up, I then welded the seam so nothing comes apart and added a bit of strength back into the joint. It might not have the crush abilities that it used to (was spot welded, not fully), but if I end up hitting something hard enough where that becomes an issue, I'm sure I'll have other things to be concerned about!!

With everything welded up, I was able to position the cooler to where I wanted it. Unfortunately, I found that the main coolant hose from the radiator to the motor was contacting the cooler. This was due to the hose being long enough at the bottom of the radiator to clear the A/C Condensor, but since I no longer have that in the car, I had some room to work!

So I drained the system and popped the hose off:



And then trimmed and reassembled:



Here's the newfound clearance (before the hose was hard up against the back of the cooler):



In that picture you can also see the one mount I made to hold the cooler in place. And here is the other mount:



This mount basically bolts under the bumper shock and holds everything good and strong. Def not going to move!

Mounts off and painted:



and cooler fully mounted:



Once it was all mounted, then came the fun of plumbing everything. Since I was now having to go over the frame rail, it wasn't going to be so easy to get the existing hoses to bend and flex like I wanted them to. After doing some measuring and visiting my local hydraulic shop (and $90 later), I was able to come up w/ this custom stainless steel pipe and 150* Aeroquip fitting (which cost a friggen arm and leg!!!!):



And here's the custom pipe installed:



Worked like a charm This gave me plenty of clearance on the frame rail, and saved me from having to buy all new braided hose to make it all fit... so it was def worth the $$ spent.

and here's a pic of everything all buttoned down and tightened:



I also added a support for the end of the pipe where the 45* AN fitting screwed onto the male end of the custom pipe so that there was no pressure what so ever on the oil cooler. Also, I added some fire sleeving over the headlight and alternator wires so I didn't melt anything



Since that pipe will get upwards of 250*, I figured better safe than sorry w/ the wires. Last thing I need to do is melt something in the headlight/alternator setup.

Once I fired up the 'ol girl, I was welcomed with ZERO leaks, so I buttoned everything else up and was good. Only required a small bit of trimming on the lower lip of the bumper b/c the cooler was interfering by ~1/8". I didn't want to do that, but I also didn't want any pressure on the cooler from the bumper. All the cutting is completely invisible from the top side of the car, so it's really not that big of a deal.

So that's about it for now. Been driving the car around and it seems to be working, but the temps still got a bit over 200* when driving home in traffic at 90* heat. Hopefully it'll keep everything cool once on track. I need to add in some extra shrouding to the side and bottom, but otherwise I think this will work out quite nicely in the grand scheme of things.

With this done though, I'm now ready for my next event, which might be as soon as July at Summit Point w/ the porsche club, or Watkins Glen 2 in August w/ NEQ. We'll see how my time goes.

What's up Justin?

Anymore updates?

-Peace,

-Louis

Funny you should ask... tackled 3 things recently on the 'ol girl over the past month. It all started b/c I was getting a audible knock from my suspension over bumps in the road. It only used to do it on sharp bumps, but it got to the point it was doing it over even slight heaves, which got me worried.

I started by tearing apart the front suspension to see if something in the coilover kits went bad. Everything was tight as tight could be. Only thing bad I found was that I managed to pinch/cut the rubber isolators that Mance had provided w/ the kit. So after a few emails, he sent me a new set, and I was off to the races. Unfortunately, those weren't the cause of my noise.... but what I found was that the control arm bolts on the driver's side had worked themselves loose!!! So after tightening them up, all was good in the world...

but while I had the car apart, I addressed 3 projects that I had been prepping to do over the past 3 months.

First: Address the slop b/n the bolts in the B4 uprights and the B3 hub assembly. The B4 uprights use a 14mm bolt vs the 12mm bolts in the B3 assemblies. While all was fine when the bolts were tight, it made getting a decent camber alignment really difficult b/c the guys at the shop wouldn't go through the effort of playing w/ the setup. So with the help of a buddy and his dad's mini-machine shop, I had these made:



Basically a reducer washer to remove the slop. Here is one installed for mock-up:





Once I confirmed everything fit, a quick coat of paint and I was ready to roll:



I installed them on the bottom hole only to allow camber adjustment to be made. W/ just the 14mm hole at the top, I was able to get a substantial amount of neg camber with the ball joint extended fully out, so no extra slotting was required of the upright:




This pic was before everything was torqued down. But, one mistake I made was that I had my buddy's dad make them too thick. I had them 4mm thick each, by using 2, it didn't give me a lot of threads to engage with. I ended up grinidng them down to about half the previous width to give me the necessary clearance to clear my brake caliper bracket as well as give more thread engagement so the locknut was engaged. Regardless, they DID make the alignment a lot easier and I was actually able to get what I asked for this time, which was refreshing.

Next thing on the list was finally installing my H1/H4 Euro lights!

A few months back I had bought these from Dan McBoost... they showed up well packaged w/ about a 13 gallon bag full of packing peanuts Needless to say, he did an amazing job packing them and nothing was damaged on the inside.



unpacking:



and unpacked!



These lights weren't pefect, but they were in great shape and had any issues pretty much fixed... i.e. the broken tabs were replaced w/ aluminum tabs by the owner before Dan. Reflectors were in great shape, lenses only had minor pitting, etc.

So being the eager, excitable one when I get a new toy, I had to see how they looked in the car!



I def liked the look! As you can see though, I have them sort of wedged in place. These lights didn't come w/ mounting brackets, but thanks to the help of a fellow MG'er and QW'er (jitsus303), I was able to fix that issue. More on that later.

First plan of attack for me was to pull the lenses and try to polish them up a little bit and remove the pitting. I went w/ the eastwood glass scratch removal kit (3 coarse pads + a polish). I can firmly say that I DO NOT recommend this kit for these lights. The pads don't remove enough material and don't hold up long enough to be worth the $6 each that they cost! If I'd do it again, I'd go the wet/dry sandpaper route and then use the polish. But anywho, I'll walk you through what I did.

First came the removal of the clips... they really are as easy to remove as they seem. With the flick of an awl or jewlers screwdriver (what I used), they just pop off:



and after 12 or so clips, you get this:



here's a pic of the eastwood kit... again, don't bother. Use wet/dry sandpaper and you'll be better off. Much cheaper to use, and probably better results b/c of it:



I started off using a 5" disk sanding attachment for my drill, but that quickly proved to be futile. It was near impossible to control and the attachment broke before I finished the first lens!!! Thankfully I had my 6" orbital air sander, so I just transferred the hook pad to that and finished off the one lens.

here's what it looked like after the first pad:



and the pad after finishing half the lens (like I said, didn't hold up well):



And the lens dry:



After going through the 3 stages, I decided to compare the lenses... honestly, it barely even made a dent in the chips!



But to bring the luster back, I then proceeded to polish. Take note: DO THIS OUTSIDE! Makes a HUGE mess as you will see... basically looked like a took a bottle of pepto and sprayed down my workbench

prepped:



and the aftermath:



did I mention it went EVERYWHERE?



Once polished, it confirmed my disappointment that there was zero difference b/n the freshly "polished" lens vs the other side that didn't get touched. NEedless to say, I didn't bother doing the other side!

I just tossed them in the dishwasher for a final cleaning and forgot about it:



can you tell i'm a bachelor in my own house?

Next up on the lights was the reflectors! I decided to black out the chrome on the reflectors b/c I really like the look, and think it'd look sharp against the dark car.

So I started off by scuffing all the chrome on the lights that didn't get used to throw light:



here's a comparison:



and both done:



I know some that have done this masked off the inner reflector and spray painted it, but I was a little skeptical about doing that b/c I was afraid that the reflective material was going to flake off. SO instead, I went the chicken $hit route and picked up a small can (non-rattle) of rustoleum and an art brush and went to town. Other than having to pick a few bristles from the brush off the lights, they came out really nicely!

Next came the mounts for the H1/H4s. As I said previously, jitsus303 was kind enough to sell me his extra driver's side euro mount, but didn't have the pass side. Simple enough, right? So since these mounts are basically mirror images of eachother, I basically stenciled the mount by taping printer paper to it and then cut it out and drew it on a piece of aluminum sheet metal w/ reference points of the bends:



and after some time w/ the angle grinder, this was the result:



Next came the fun part... bending it! So out came my ghetto break system (big c-channel, c-clamp, hammer, etc) and to town I went!

getting started:



still going:



and done!



After a bit of tweaking and drilling mounting holes, it worked like a charm! I was def happy w/ the result:



Another tricky step was the wiring harness. After talking w/ Dan and doing a little investigation, I was able to figure out a plan of attack. Per Dan's suggestion, I went to Autozone and picked up a pair of their generic H4 headlight plugs. The tricky part was finding the right plug for the H1s... but as luck would have it, it's actually the SAME plug as the red front diff plug on a 4000! So w/ the help of Bernie and my2000apb I was able to get the needed plugs.

Since the wiring to these plugs is a little wimpy, I pulled them apart and soldered on some 12 gauge wire:



and with a little more soldering, here's the finished harness:



Since I had already relayed the headlights way back when, this was a pretty simple job. I just unplugged the old plugs, snipped the ground and hooked these up! Only change was that I added an inline fuse to the relays from the alternator on both sides of the car as I forgot to do that when I initially relayed them.

Now even though I tried to get the lenses all smooth, etc, end goal was to cover them w/ a headlight protectant so that the glass could not get chipped/cracked from debri while driving. After looking through xpel's website, I came up with a different idea 8)



yup, tinted lights! I bought a generic rectangle from xpel and after about 1.5hrs of swearing, stretching, heating and burning myself this was the final result:



They're not perfect, but they look pretty trick. It was difficult to round the corners cleanly b/c of the contours of the lens, but I got them as best I could.

Looks good on the car though







I'm sure I'll get grief from some, but the light output of these lights is so much greater than the OEM lights, the tint has little to no negative impact for me. These still aren't as nice as projector lights like on my A4, but will still make life a LOT easier at night for me.

And the final thing I just completed was more track related. Last April (as you see above) I kissed a tire wall and broke my pass side light. This made me realize that I don't want these lights ever seeing track duty. Unfortunately, removed headlights just look ghetto to me... so I found an alternative, more madmax style

It started off like this:



and after a little measuring, some cutting, and some beating:



we got a driver's side:



a pass side:



and a full frontal



But I didn't stop there. I figured, since I had the blanks there, I might as well try to make them a little more functional. I had planned to just drill holes in them to allow air through, but as I started drawing it out on the pieces, and idea spawned...... keeping an 80s theme to the car of course!



razor stripes!

So I started by drilling some holes so everything lined up:



and then followed up w/ my angle grinder:



and both completed:



and of course a spy shot!



I have since painted them a glossy black so they're not so "blingy," but otherwise that's about it. They will be put to use next week at Watkins Glen! Hopefully there wont' be any rain or fog, otherwise I might have to toss the other lights in since I don't have running lights up front right now. That's in the works, but I don't have time for it b/n now and the event.

Nice work!!
Looking forward to seeing this monster again next week.

justin, do you have a list of new parts seals etc that you needed to do the v8 rear dif swap?