The Project Pad

So I saw this on Audifans.com the day after I got my tax return. It was in Minnesota, I live in Maryland and the add said "runs but may leave you stranded." Perfect. I talked to the guy a couple times, and the leave you stranded part was a bad hall sensor that needed to cool off completely before it would restart along with a potential Megasquirt issue. I told him I would take it for the $500 asking price, I didn't even try to haggle.

So, Valentines Day morning, after getting 15" of snow the day before, I made it to BWI and hopped a plane to Minneapolis and a connector to LaCrosse Wisconsin, right across the WI/MN border. The kid next to me threw up all over himself on the first flight and then his grandmother acted indignant that I wanted to switch seats with her so I could actually sit down

The guy I bought it from was super nice, helpful, and very open and honest about the car. I think he had more reservations about the trip than I did! He actually wrote some code for the Megasquirt that allows the use of the factory throttle switch and ISV and it works really well, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to keep it because I need to update the firmware and possibly the whole processor. This is some OG MS stuff, like the tach in Megatune reads in increments of 50rpm

Anyway, that's the story, it drove 1000 miles back to Maryland without issue, but I didn't shut the car off except to crash in Chicago Friday night. Just found flat parking spots and gas pumps

The reasons I bought it:
QLCC Chipped ECU for ignition
Megasquirt EFI
1.8 bar wastegate spring
H&R springs
Koni adjustable shocks/struts +2 extra rears
Euro headlights
2 piece exhaust manifold

It has a stock exhaust, which is very quiet, and it rides incredibly well. The original plan was to take the goodies I need from this, put them on the 200, sell some extra stuff, and end up with a stockish 5k as a daily/beater/ridiclious project. Well, I love it too much. I'm going to change out the distributor today, fix up the exhaust and mess with the Megasquirt today, hopefully tag it and start dailying it Monday or Tuesday. From there... we will see. I'm going to try to keep it relatively stock and reliable as I would like to get rid of the Subaru and just have my 2 Audis. Anyway, thanks for reading along, stay tuned and enjoy the pics

Getting gas down the street from the PO



Stopped on the road for a photo-op... and maybe a quick quattro session



HOME!!





Oh, by the way, it has a tile mosaic on the hood... I've always wanted a car with a flat black hood, but felt a little poser in doing so to good paint. Perfect excuse! Getting it off will be interesting, but the expansion joints on the ride home helped a bit.



Definitely a second EFI 20v

Sweet!!!!

dat rusty door...

Woooohooo!! Epic story dude, will make an amazing DD - Don't get too nuts I know you will hahahahahha

Got down today to help fix a few things on the new 5k. Its pretty clean other than that door. Swapped the dizzy for a known good one, and had same hot start issue. Must be in the MS code.

When he said this thing is quiet, he wasn't kidding. You can hardly hear it when its running. Seems to run pretty well other than the hot start issue.

Keep an eye on thiamin one, should be interesting.

Should have stopped by in Ohio. I have rust-free doors and a mosaic-free hood or 2.

pilihp2 wrote:Sweet!!!!

dat rusty door...

Yeah it's bad, you can easily see the regulator inside the door Luckily, like Dave said, crippling rust is pretty limited to that door, I'm guessing it got damaged, paint came off and it was allowed to rust away

themagellan wrote:Woooohooo!! Epic story dude, will make an amazing DD - Don't get too nuts I know you will hahahahahha

I'm going to seriously try to keep this thing about where it is at. It is soooo sweet as a daily car, and over the course of what was a pretty epic trip I fell in love with the way it drives. But I do need to mess with the Megasquirt, which means I might as well add in boost control since I have the circuitry to do it on hand...

gtn116 wrote:Should have stopped by in Ohio. I have rust-free doors and a mosaic-free hood or 2.

DAMN! On the one hand, I already had 2x 016 trans and a full set of 20v 200 BBS wheels in the car, plus a tote of spare parts, myself and my "luggage" ie tools. On the other hand I probably could have squeezed at least the one door in haha


BIG THANKS to Dave for coming to lend a helping hand, as he said we tried a different distributor and no change so it's Megasquirt related. It's also the MOST annoying problem because the car seems to know exactly how long you're expecting it to take to restart, and it always waits until you give up until it's ready.

Also, got a flat on the Subaru from an accident across the street from my driveway and I don't have a spare so looks like I'm taking the 5k to work tomorrow!

Nice! That mosaic is freaking epic, wtf were they thinking lol

chaloux wrote:Nice! That mosaic is freaking epic, wtf were they thinking lol

lol came back just to show that to someone had to add to this, honestly what the fuck

hahahaha your guys' reactions to the hood is too funny. The best part is that he was really good about full disclosure, like the giant rust hole in the driver's door and the hot start issues, but didn't say anything about the hood until I was in his driveway and he was like "Oh... by the way... did I tell you about the hood?..." It wouldn't have affected my decision to buy the car obviously, just thought it was funny that was the one thing that didn't get disclosed

Well I woke up early this morning and hate my job so much I couldn't even bring myself to go log some OT so I took care of the hood. Didn't take all that long with a screwdriver and prybar as a hammer and then I just hit it with an old dish sponge and some hot water to wash away the dirt that had built up around them. There's still a few chunks of cement here and there but it looks a lot better!



I've driven it to work every day this week and out to my friends shop yesterday after work and I think I'll take it again today, maybe even take the long way in

That is awesome! I'm glad it came off for you. Also nice to hear it is so reliable.

Thanks Dave! Reliable when cold haha

I haven't even touched the boost and I'm already blowing shit up. This was a stock, un clamped/banded 20v dual pass without a BPV and that's really all it probably needs to run the stock intercooler out of the 200 but... damn this slippery slope!

Hey I have a 20vt intercooler I'd probably sell...

Okay so there has been a little bit going on with this. After I blew the end tank off the intercooler I replaced it with my spare factory 20vt 200 unit which I recrimped with a pair of vice grips. It also had the plugged port that works perfect for a DV, so as of right now it's a plastic JB welded junkyard bosch unit that isn't recirculated although I think I will in the near future. After fixing the intercooler, I started hitting what was determined to be the factory fuel cut. I forgot that the MAC11 actually turns off the fuel pump, and the PO never set up MS to control the fuel pump so the MAC11 was shutting down the fun.

This was weird though, because it's a matched chip/spring so it shouldn't be hitting fuel cut. It wasn't doing it at all previously, but it only ever boosted up to 1.7bar dash gauge pressure and after just changing the intercooler and adding the DV I was maxing out the dash gauge at 1.9bar. I need a real gauge, but after changing the pump wiring I verified via MS that I am now hitting the 20psi overboost protection in Megasuqirt which likely means torn wastegate diaphragm. Awesome. Based on my req fuel setting the injectors should be ~28lb/hr so AAN size. What I did was to set the fuel cut in MS to 20psi and max my injectors from 3500rpm on above 15psi or so. The car only has a narrow band and it seems to like it well enough. The factory K26 spools SO much slower than my hybrid, I forgot what they were really like! It takes 4500rpms for me to hit 20psi in third gear, I only get 14psi in first and 16psi in second WOT without boost control. 80's built-in-lag-for-boost-control! Tell you what, at 20lbs it is not slow. Not fast mind you, but definitely not slow, more than enough to be fun for a daily driver.

Dave DE80Q and I took the 5K down to Richmond, VA to retrieve his new beater 200 Saturday morning. I pulled an all nighter Wednesday on my 200, slept almost normal hours Thursday night, and 3hrs Friday night before heading to the shop to get get the 5k running on the updated MS firmware so it would actually hot start consistently. SUCCESS on that front, the car has fired right up every single time since. So it's 2AM, I'm supposed to be leaving now to go get Dave from PA, I walk around the other side of the car where i haven't been working and there is a huge puddle of... GAS. FUCK. The fuel accumulator itself had actually rusted through and was pissing fuel at a slow/medium pace. It's 2:05AM, I have no spare fuel line, I'm at the shop with no way home, and I really didn't want to drive the Subaru all that ways. Ok, the 200 has 2' of fuel line in the tank. Rip that all apart, steal the clamps and line from the pump to the sender, and used a grinder to cut the accumulator off the car. I cut the metal barbs as far back as I could so that the hose clamps would be clamping down on plastic hose with metal inside at least, looped the line, clamped it and no leaks! I tucked it up under the gas tank skid plate and zip tied it to keep it in place and the car proceeded to make a 9hr trip straight without any issue and restarting the whole way to boot.

The garage queen/attention whore meeting it's much more civilized kin.



Gave her 5qt of the good stuff to make sure she's ready for some fun in the snow these next couple days.



Fuel Accumulator delete



Here you can see how I cut the lines off.

Nice, you told me about the repair, but I never looked. Im glad it is holding up. As for the diaphram, I have the spare one sitting here at my place if you want to throw that in.

By the wat, the 5k rides extrmely nice, Maybe some day my avant wont feel like a ship rolling over the waves

Thanks again for taking that jurney with me.

Always up for an adventure Dave.

I know you guys like videos so here's a couple for your enjoyment

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owUFgdQV1Vs[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2N0DjEI4-A[/youtube]

Looks like you were having a little fun there. Did you get it to go into 3rd arfter the vid? Or is it time to do a trans swap on the beast?

I love how Ben(i think that was him) is standing there going "pick me up...PICK ME UP!!!"

makes me want a 20v to drive into the wall with >:|

Dave, it just did this the once, one other time since. It feels more like a linkage or mount issue than a trans issue. Every other gear is there and you can still get it into 3rd when it happens but it just doesn't feel right and you definitely can't quick shift into it when it's happening, but 99% of the time it's fine.

themagellan wrote:makes me want a 20v to drive into the wall with >:|

Hahaha I wasn't that close, really, but I also do not care too much about this car besides crashing it to the point of it being undrivable.