The Project Pad

turn the crank, recon the rods, new bearings, re-ring and put back together, enjoy.

I feel your pain. Same thing happened to my truck 3 weeks after doing a big cam and head work. $1000 is getting me a deep oil pan, HV oil pump, turned crank, new cam bearings, mains/rods, ARP hardware for mains and rods, rings for pistons, and whatever else is needed. Thats a hell of a lot cheaper than building the $10,000 stroker I have planned right now. Just my .02

Got a spare 7A crank to use, will most likely do that crank with upgraded rods, new pistons, and some machine work on the head. Should be plenty for what I want to get out of the car.
Doing some "while I'm in there" work for now just to kill time until I can afford the parts.
Built engine would be awesome but just doesn't seem worth it at this time. As soon as I put down any more power than what I am now ill be into finding a better trans anyways.
I can't afford to have two audis that are "built" But.... they are both super rare unicorn cars to me so I cant bring myself to get rid of one either

Starting the tear down process of the engine.
At this point I know I am doing upgraded rods, new main/rod bearings, rings, all associated gaskets and seals.
Pistons are about $860 so if I don't need those I will probably re-use.




Not sure what this is...

Love the last pic.

Keep fighting the good fight!

Lots of money on that table, looks like I'm about to continue digging the hole deeper.

on the plastic bitty in your water jacket, I've seen that before. some nissen plastic radiators use that stuff as some kind of baffle in the endtank. I've seen it on occasion break up and wind up in the cooling system.

Marc wrote:on the plastic bitty in your water jacket, I've seen that before. some nissen plastic radiators use that stuff as some kind of baffle in the endtank. I've seen it on occasion break up and wind up in the cooling system.

^this

Gross

Yeah, needs red sauce and parmesan

well looks like I need to take a look in there and see what It looks like. It was a brand new radiator about 1500 miles ago. Only found one piece.

Dropped the engine off today at the local machine shop which has a really good reputation. They are going to check the bores and let me know if I need to bore out and go with new pistons or can re-use and just re-ring it.
Will also have them do a leak-down test on the head, and do at a minimum valve guides and stem seals. From there, Get the new Rods, and bring in the new crank, harmonic balancer, flywheel and have them balance the full rotating assembly.
Also cleaned up one of my 7A valve covers and going to have that powder coated since paint never seems to stick well. While I was there I realized they do Cerakote Ceramic coating so I'm going to have the down pipe done in that as well.

Ordered some parts from Marc
-Forged I-Beam Connecting Rods
-Bottom End gasket kit
-Top end gasket kit
-Extra oil pan gasket
-Coated Rod bearings
-Coated main bearings

Still need to get the timing belt kit, proper ARP main stud kit, and either rings or pistons. Will just do rings unless the block needs bored.

have all the stuff on your list so just let me know what you need beyond what you've ordered so far.

Nice parts list.

I think you'll be really happy with the service you get from Marc.

PRY4SNO wrote:Nice parts list.

I think you'll be really happy with the service you get from Marc.

Marc has been extremely helpful in giving me a lot of advice and help, getting my car running, and helping me with the tuning, and this is why I'm getting all my parts from him. So if you're reading this thanks a ton Marc, the help is invaluable.

As far as the parts I am happy with the list but In a perfect world I would be doing some oversize valves, and upgraded springs in the head but I don't have alot of funds for it now and this type of thing can get out of hand quick. I am into this coupe now over $17K on my parts list, not including the purchase of the car. So at this point its invaluable to me.

One thing I've been wanting to do is make a higher flow intake manifold out of a stock AAN. Milled this one down in preparation to clean it up and weld a larger plenum of some sort. Anyone have any recommendations on how to shape it and what's ideal volume wise ? I'm no fluid dynamics engineer...


One piece back from the powder coater.


And got a sandblast cabinet to clean up the rest and I can do most of the work myself

What a despicable state of affairs

Little progress but hopefully Ill be able to pick up the block, head, and crank/rods etc in the next couple of days.
Started blasting and cleaning up parts. For the aluminum parts I am just going to do parts washer, then sandblast, and clearcoat.
This is how they're coming out before clear, aluminum looks good when clean.

Why do they look white?

loxxrider wrote:Why do they look white?

I guess thats how aluminum actually looks when its clean. Those are fresh out of the sandblaster, using a glass bead. Also probably partially the quality of light in my shop. I only have a few high bay lights currently so there isn't much in there.
I Think it will turn out really good, having a fresh block and fresh head, with some of the parts being aluminum, just having everything look new. Just to balance out all of the black that's in the engine bay- with the intake manifold, exhaust header, down pipe and everything that is already black.

Must just be the picture or something. AL usually doesn't look white lol. Silver or gray, yes. Anyway, I agree. Having everything so clean will be really nice! You should clear coat the head too haha.

Got some parts back from the coater, excited about how they turned out.
These are coated in Cerakote in satin black. Gurateed by these guys to be good for any amount of heat that I can throw at it.

Oo very nice!

Heard a lot of good things about the Cerakote, looks great.

Oh my... That coating looks beautiful! Must learn more about it... Googling...