The Project Pad

scubadave wrote:" Dear Santa....I want a Stick"

Dave what's going on? Havent talked to you in a long while. How is your build coming along?

ahh, its going just fine. the coupe is on hold till I can gain momentum with motivation. the cold pretty much kills it. I do have plans, but with the hollidays, and eveything happening around now, its not high on the priorities. I hope once I do get going, I dont overshadow your build with my plans with the front end. However, I'm not holding back, so stay tuned...or come give a hand if you want to hang for a few.

I did just attempt the o2's on the 90 last night and got pummled by the passenger side stripping its threads on its way out. So, this morning I'm grabbing an o2 thread chaser from o'rielys for a last ditch effort to save it. If it fails, I have a spare o2 bung, and will drill out the threads to 1 inch, and weld it in. It sucks, but at least it was the passenger side and not the drivers. the 90 has been dropping gas mileage for a while and the cel keeps popping on for system too rich codes. It was time.

By the way, my brother is out in Afghanistan for another 3 1/2 months (contractor) and described to me how dangerous them Blackhawks are to work around. he told me they hit the walls with the rotor blades while parking and they tear the shit out of everything in the way with shrapnel.


FYI, I have skills to replace your high mount brake light bulbs with LEDs and have done so on both my coupe and 90. the coupe is tricky as it has 16 bulbs, but I have some cool ideas to make it work out nicely. the 90 is pretty straight forward. Darrin has expressed interest in me converting his car, and now im sure, both. I just odered 100 LEDs to take care of anybody who wants the conversion, but I have yet to post in the members products yet. I wanted to fine tune the final product on the coupe. let me know if never having to replace those damn bulbs again interests you.

Great I have been meaning to call you any way. So expect a call in the next couple of days.

Got the methanol tank installed. Hoping this pic will post. Ok been inactive for a while due to not being able to post any pics. Looks like its working again.

To bring my posting up to speed, I have got the car running and starting consistently. Turns out my timing was off. Later it was discovered that I did not have the timing unit fully seated and when I tightened the nut the cap rotated about 20 degrees which caused a no start condition. Small details. Since then I have run the car through its paces and it runs ok in the higher RPM's but the low RPM's it really stumbles, definitely in need of tuning for transit enrichment values. Also I discovered a different issue that I have been sorting for the past few weeks.

Their is a large amount of oil leaking around the compressor housing of the turbo, so much so, after being run rather spiritedly, oil leaks out of the oil filter. My attention was turned to the breather system. I did some research on S2 Forums and decided to scrap the OEM system and install a catch can. I welded a -10AN fitting to the valve cover and attached a -10AN fitting to the crank case that is routed to the catch can. Also I welded a -10 fitting to the bottom of the oil can and routed that line back in the oil pan, the other line is vented to the Atmosphere inside my wheel well to keep the nasty crank fumes out of my interior.

Second, I talked to the support team at AEM and discovered my air filter was about half the size it needed to be based on certain performance data, so some cutting was in order to fit the new much larger Air filter in place. After cutting, the entire area was sanded and coated with POR-15 for corrosion.

Lastly, I was doing some reading online and discovered my buddies web site where he talked about shady machine work on the head. On the I5 the intake valves sit about .030 above the deck surface and how he had come across some freshly machined audi head that had the intake valves shaved while being decked. I had my head decked and the machine shop did the same to my head! Oh Shit! went through my mind and rather than hope everything was going to be ok I decided to pull the head and have the entire head reworked with new Ferrea intake valves, decked again, three angle valve job, new guides if needed and new seals. They also heli coiled some of the bolt holes that were less than perfect. It cost me another $550 but the peace of mind is worth it.

I have yet to start the car after all the modifications and rework, but I am hopeful that this will solve the issues I have. I took off the IM and soda blasted it and the valve cover, I am just waiting on powder coating then I will be able to run her again. Barring everything working I will be driving the car down to Hank's shop to finally get it tuned properly.

Some other shots of the Methanol tank and supports

nice work Nate. looks great! I gotta ask you where you got that lid, cause I need one too.

Nice and tidy under the spare wheel cover

scubadave wrote:nice work Nate. looks great! I gotta ask you where you got that lid, cause I need one too.

Are you referring to the methanol cover?

yup

Looks good Nate. Keep pluggin away.

Hank wrote:Looks good Nate. Keep pluggin away.

Thanks Hank looks like I will be down there shortly

scubadave wrote:yup

The Cap I don't remember where I got that but I just looked online for stainless steel aviation style cap. I think you can get some very similar things on Ebay.

Got my head back from the machine shop, again, Ferrea exhaust and intake valves, fully built this time no second guessing things .

Piece of mind

Here is a shot with it back together. Just waiting on the valve cover to get powder coating done then it's back on the road again!!

Getting close! Glad to see the progress!

Dave wrote:Getting close! Glad to see the progress!

Thanks Dave

great that it went very quick. I assume it will be running quite soon, especially with a little tweak of the distributor....

mine is about to come apart. I got the I/M handled and even before I paid the bill, either my clutch master or slave went queer. I got to drive it home synchronizing the gears at shift points. soo much fun that way. the only saving grace is that it was coming apart anyway for the upgrade in clutch and bottom end parts. I'm looking forward to a ride in this car brother.

So much awesome in this thread. Love where you hid the w/m setup, OEM+ ftw.

Really looking forward to vids confirming the expected results.

After a weekend of work I finally got the valve cover and I/M powdercoated. I have since sent the ECU off to Marc to see if there is any damage that was done due to a grounding issue. My #1 is failing to fire, all the wires have been checked and all is ok.

PRY4SNO wrote:So much awesome in this thread. Love where you hid the w/m setup, OEM+ ftw.

Really looking forward to vids confirming the expected results.

Thanks brother, how's your project coming along

I wonder if that is my old 7A valve cover! Looks great!

Audilard wrote:I wonder if that is my old 7A valve cover! Looks great!

Thanks Darin. Hopefully I will have the car running well enough to drive it down to Vegas and finally get it tuned!

I want to lick that engine bay. Where did you get the carbon fiber style silicone couplers?

You deserve to be enjoying this car after all the hard work, Hope you get there soon!