The Project Pad

Guess it's time to migrate my project. I stopped paying attention to MG for a year or so, and when I came back most all of my favorite folks to watch and learn from had left town. Glad to have found you crazy lot of enablers again.

I don't do names for cars, so for me this has always been 'the coupe.'

The car was purchased new in NY, then sold to a follow in Massachusetts, then finally sold to me and driven cross-country to Portland, Oregon where I picked it up and drove it home up to Bellingham, WA. When I got it the car was bone stock, all-original, and the best condition CQ I have seen to date. From there I have attempted to keep the modifications tasteful and go for the OEM plus look. Here is how it started:

Shortly after getting my CQ, with the addition of a German front plate, H&R lowering springs, and some nice Bosch b3 E-code headlamps and clear corners.


Next, I made an aluminum snubber mount to use with the 034Motorsport bushing


From there it was time for a European three spoke 'sport' steering wheel and white 'plasma' glowing S2 gauge faces (no pics, sorry). After that came a 5-lug hub swap, brake upgrade, and suspension upgrade.
hubs
I bought Petar's old 4-pot Brembos, and he was nice enough to let me borrow his RS2 bracket to measure so I could machine my own.

Refinishing the brembos

Painted the Brembos and b5 S4 rear calipers, added a 'Quattro' script with high-temp vinyl



Assembled on the bench with new wheel bearings, stainless lines, 5-lug hubs, and my machined brackets



Rear brakes w/ b7 S4 rotors, 034 adapter brackets


Tight clearance with the new wheels...

Swapped out the original suspension with Koni adjustable dampers and 2Bennett coilovers at the same time as the hubs & brakes


All installed on the car w/ euro S8 front rotors, 17" Avus wheels

Next, started preparing for the 6-speed 01E swap, picked up a trans from a wrecked b5 S4 w/ a broken bellhousing for cheeeap!


Got a replacement bellhousing, and put it all back together with new seals after inspecting everything




New stubaxles

Sometime in there I also made some injector adapters and put together my own injector upgrade


And then at the beginning of September, it was time to start disassembling it in preparation for a heart transplant...


While I had the car up in the air, I took the opportunity to drop the subframes for blasting and painting. I replaced all the bushings, ball joints, and hardware while I was in there too.


I swapped the left and right front control arms with each other so I could mount them to the bottom of the ball joints and help correct some suspension geometry when the car is lowered. This turned out to not work with the front ARB, so the LCAs when back to their proper sides.

OK, so on to the ABZ and 01e swap. The A8 I pulled the ABZ from had a blown transmission, so i was able to simply cut out the section of the bellhousing with the crank position sensor out of it and take it with me as a locating guide for my trans. I then machined it into a round disk, cut a corresponding hole on my trans bellhousing, and welded it in.




I used the 034 aluminum V8 insert flywheel adapter, and a South Bend stage 2 enduro clutch. Here is the engine bolted up to the trans with flywheel and clutch installed for the first time. This portion of the build is happening at work for easy access to fab equipment.


And the CQ as she currently sits (quite dirty from the tow down to the shop where I work and desperately in need of a wash and wax). Note it is now sporting a b4 hood, and there is a Rieger RS2 bumper on the floor in the background..


Started working on wiring the bridge connectors from the ABZ harness...


And all finished and buttoned back up.


Here is the pile of parts awaiting the car: donor OEM b7 RS4 exhaust for parts, aluminum A4 1.8T radiator, 4000Q prop shaft w/ new u-joint and support bearing, SPAL fan controller and dual electric fans. I have my work cut out for me next week...

Got the lump in, wiring pulled through the firewall, connected, and some heater and fuel plumbing sorted. Amazingly, the ABZ hydraulic and coolant reservoir lines are *perfect* for use with the standard CQ reservoirs. Yay for consistent placement!

I also shortened the jacket on the CQ throttle cable to make it the proper length for the ABZ and hook that up. Before leaving for the day I got the shift linkage cut, flipped, and re-welded. Some pics of the progress:

Engine and trans in place:


for some reason (probably related to the squishy stock motor mounts) the pan and the front subframe experience a time/space conflict which I resolved with some Delrin bushings to space the engine up a bit.


Fore/aft clearance looks good.


Put it up in the air to do the shift linkage and trans mounts. Started looking at exhaust routing and I think I have a good idea of what I will end up doing.

I modified the linkage to replace the weak ball & socket w/ a spherical, as well as add adjustment to the distance between gates.


Got the linkage installed and and combined with the JHM b3 "solid" short shifter it is TITS!! And since the car now has a six speed, it was time for the ceremonious installation of the six speed shift knob.


Driver view is looking better...


I stopped into a hydraulic shop and got the last power steering hose made up, which I then installed. With that, the engine is now completely plumbed with the exception of the radiator.


A close-up of my solution for deleting A/C and keeping the serp. belt happy.


A little early Christmas present from the UK: a pair of replacement OEM RS2 lenses for the new headlamps.

I started off this morning by tackling the oil filter relocation and oil cooler placement. I ended up mounting both off of the lower radiator support bracket with some aluminum brackets I made. This oil cooler is for mock-up purposes only, need to order one with -10 ports in the same size. For now the oil is plumbed to the filter w/ out the cooler. My oil changes are about to get really expensive... spent $120 on Mobil 1 to fill this thing up today



Brackets & filter installed


Installed w/ cooler in place


With the oil sorted I turned to getting ready for exhaust. Got the 4000Q driveline installed, and the heat shield back in place. I must have spent an hour scrubbing that heat shield to get it clean after it came out... lol.


With the driveline installed I spent some time replacing some rear suspension hardware I had to order in. Filled the power steering reservoir, then turned to brakes. I swapped in an S2 master cylinder when I put the vacuum booster in, so everything on the top side of the system is new and dry. I took the opportunity to flush out the lines and fill everything (including the clutch circuit) with fresh Motul RBF 600. The brakes feel nice and firm, but the clutch effort seems surprisingly low.. it seems to be doing its job (since the car will only shift into reverse when its in) but I expected more pedal effort for a stage 2 clutch. I guess we will see..

That done, it was exhaust time. After hours of dinking around with different manifolds and moving studs around, I finally came to the conclusion that the ABH manifold wont work for me, and the standard ABZ manifolds will be the ones to use. This will require almost a 90* bend just after the manifold which isn't ideal, but those double-wall manifolds give me a woody so I'm not too heartbroken about it. Clearance is VERY tight in spots though.


Tight clearance to the chassis seen from underneath:


Realllllly close to the tie rod at full droop:




I'm going to get the drivers side manifold installed then go home to get some sleep! :-)

Today started out with what was supposed to be a quick replacement of a bad passenger front tie rod end (which is only 1.5 years old....) and turned into a two hour battle with a frozen adjuster, still unresolved. I gave up on that for now and focused the rest of the day on exhaust. Never goes as quick as I think it will...

Being a parts hoarder is paying off a bit. Started with two old CQ downpipes


Using the bolted flange from the ABZ manifolds, had to neck down the size to fit the downpipes


flipped upside down from the coupe application they work pretty well for this




By the end of the day I have the start of the collector tacked together. Tomorrow I'll weld the collector up and run some tube back.




I test-fit the RS4 mufflers today after cutting up that exhaust and it looks like they are perfectly wrong. The muffler will fit in the space at the rear of the car, but the inlet for it is facing toward the rear instead of forward. I may end up throwing the stock CQ muffler in there just until I can design a better system later on down the road :(

OK, progress update for Friday! This ended up being a long push straight through the night into this morning in an attempt to get as much done as possible before I get completely dominated by family commitments for the holidays.

Finished fitting the exhaust, welded it up, and installed it. Due to the spacial problems with fitting the RS4 mufflers, I ended up using the stock muffler for now. Used fiberglass header wrap on the downpipes to try and keep some heat away from the trans.



the stock muffler pipe required some repair work in the usual spot where they always rub through on the axle from broken/sagging exhaust hangers.


Downpipes all wrapped up


Final installed:










After finishing the exhaust I installed the front axles, one of which needed a new outboard boot.


I ended up swapping the front control arms back to their original orientations at that point as well since I discovered my cunning plan to help correct suspension geometry when lowered by flipping them would not work with the swaybar.

I finally won my battle with a frozen tie-rod end on the adjuster. I had to put it in the lathe and cut off all the material I could from the tie rod end before it broke free- somehow it managed to take out two threads in the middle of the adjuster without hurting those before or after them. Very strange.... but the new end is now installed and suspension & drivetrain is completely back together.


After that I welded up an aluminum snub mount, but forgot to get pictures so I'll do that in a later post.

Next up was cooling. I found an old aluminum metric ORB to -8 AN fitting which fits the tapped sensor bung in the radiator I have. I will just drill and tap this to 1/2" NPT to fit my coolant temp sensor for the fan controller I'm using.


Then mounted the SPAL electric fan controller with some rivnuts on the battery box firewall


Figuring out radiator placement/hose routing is proving the most difficult so far. I discovered what I'm sure many before me have faced and which has led to the many goofy cooling hose assemblies I have seen in other similar projects: the space is rather limited in front of the engine, and the core support uprights obstruct the stock ABZ coolant hose routing. I removed the center vertical support from the b3 core supports, and spaced out the front cross member by about 1.25" to buy me some more room for coolant routing between the rad. and accessory drive. I suspect I will end up welding something up from aluminum tube to satisfy my vision.. need to think more about this one.

Here is a picture of the snub mount I made. I used the original A8 rubber mount and part of the aluminum arm, which I cut off and welded to my own aluminum bracket to get around the core support. It bolts in between the chassis and the front cross-member (in my pic you also see the white nylon spacers I made to move the cross-member out).

Progress update for the day:

Started by mocking up the radiator and figuring out where it would fit best


It *barely* fits between the headlights after some trimming of support ribs


Here are the radiator bracket mounts I made from thin aluminum angle


With the radiator mounted, it looked like the best way to sort our hoses would be with an extension up to the lower hose




got my coolant temp sensor adapter made for the fan controller and installed




Tomorrow I will get hoses on and coolant filled, then hopefully mount the bumper. More to come tomorrow!

Startup Video

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGMIN4OcyTM[/youtube]

Here are some pictures of the progress for today:

Finished mounting the radiator, installed and wired the fans


Got all the hoses installed, and coolant filled


I also mounted the battery. With that I was able to actually let the car run for a bit, which gave me some time to explore that running rough issue I mentioned above. As another note, I noticed there is a fair bit or racket coming from the front of the engine, either the accessory drive or the timing belt. That will definitely require some further investigation.

Here are some pics of how low the exhaust hangs at the collector

Ran into an issue right off the bat with the motor running rough and not sputtering with throttle. I went over all the vacuum lines and couldn't find a thing. It starts and idles perfectly, but tried to die as soon as throttle is applied. After replacing plugs and some other ignition parts, I finally hooked up the OBDII port and connected my VAG-COM which instantly told me what was wrong: I had forgotten to give power to the MAF. Problem solved!

Most of today was spent at/driving to and from the local Audi junkyard. The radiator came out again, and I fixed the noise issue from the front of the engine- turns out the fan idler pulley had a bad bearing. Replaced that and its nice and quiet again. Also replaced the faulty radiator hose and the split intake boot with good ones from the yard.

Just for fun, I threw the covers on to see how it looks and I have to say I really like it... now I just need to find an airbox to clean it all up.

Started out the day by installing the oil cooler which arrived last week, as well as a shorter oil filter to allow for the undertray.


I found a few more issues:

1) the bottom of the b3 JHM solid shifter is hitting the prop-shaft when the drivetrain moves under transition loads

2) there appears to be a significant oil leak from one of the cam seals. There was evidence of it when I pulled the motor from the donor car, but I had no idea just how bad it was till now.

I attacked the cam-seal problem first, which of course meant the radiator had to come out. Again.


I also got a start on fabricating some proper mounts for the front bumper. More on that tomorrow.

Today was mostly housekeeping and a little bit of fab work. This morning after pulling the cam gear and rear timing belt cover it was pretty obvious the oil leak is not coming from there, so I put the engine all back together again. I'll deal with that more later... so I put the radiator back in and re-filled with coolant.

Seeking some gratification, I started on building my bumper mounts. The bumper has an aluminum bumper support bonded into it, so it was just a matter of interfacing to that. I used half of a stock bumper shock, then welded on C-shaped mount from flat steel bar. They wont absorb a low-speed impact like the shocks would, but they should do the job in a crash.

Bumper mounted w/ new mounts:


passenger side bumper mount, installed:


While I was waiting for the paint to dry on the bumper mounts, I did a little wiring re-work on the VSS and reverse light switch pigtails to get those finished up. This was just de-pinning the 4-pin connector for reverse light from the 01A and swapping in a 2-pin connector for the 01E switch, as well as lengthening the pigtails a bit to reach both spots. With that, reverse lights and VSS are both operable.

At this point I'm getting pretty excited- just a few more little housekeeping items before it's ready to go the the body shop and get the bumper and hood fixed up and painted. Then I get to enjoy it!

Short update

Started off the day by doing some repair work on the front bumper to get it ready for the body shop, then got the car racked up for a quick alignment.


While I was at it, I threw it on the scales to see what my total weight difference was after the swap. The last time I weighed the car it was 3240 lbs. with the stock 15" Speedline wheels, 4 lug, stock brakes, stock 7a and (I think) ~1/4 tank of gas. At this weighing, it has ~1/2 tank of gas. Here is the result:




I'm pretty happy with that :-)

The first order of business today is re-doing my intake. I had a cone filter on the end of the MAF, using the A8 intake tube, but it made a ridiculous whistling noise while driving which was really annoying/embarrassing. My goal is to make this whole thing look as 'OEM' as possible, so I'm making one to use a v6 B4 90 airbox.

The A8 intake tube does not line up with the airbox and leaves no room for the MAF.


I took a trip to the local VW/Audi junk yard and scored this guy from a bin full of intake hoses. No idea what the original application is. I cut it to fit the size/shape I need..


Then some careful heating with a torch to slip one of the metal compression rings from the A8 intake tube in where it will be clamped into the rubber TB boot..


Some more careful heating to expand the other end for the MAF and Boom! got something that should work:

Here is what it looks like installed:


I also grabbed a v6 MAF to modify into an adapter for the airbox- here is the finished product:


And finally, noticed this while I was poking around the junkyard: a spare 'donut' that is 17" and 5x112- exactly what I needed!

I determined that the leak I originally thought was a cam seal was actually a head gasket..... so I spent yesterday on a journey to the center of the engine and back replacing those. The ones that came out were aftermarket, so clearly someone has done them on this motor before...



Today I spent a few hours taking apart the RS2 headlights (which were filthy), cleaning them thoroughly, and re-assembling them with the new lenses I got to replace the broken ones. Muuuuch better now! :-)

Time for a long overdue update. I am finally getting some time to get the coupe finished up... well, ok driving... doubt it will ever be 'done.'

First, I didn't really like the lower coolant hose which kissed the serpentine belt pulley any time the engine moved slightly, so I decided to make an aluminum one. I just bought a little Everlast inverter TIG machine for my garage so this was a first test of it's AC capability. Worked out nicely! I also took some time and figured out why my coolant temp sensor wasn't working- ended up being a single ground wire that got missed when I did the harness earlier. Fixed that and it works perfectly now, which also allowed me to set the SPAL fan controller.

New coolant pipe:


Next up, body work! Got the B4 hood, RS2 front bumper, and S2 rear bumper all painted to match the car. In the course of installing the rear bumper, I found a small spot under the left tail light where the body was rusted straight through at a seam. I ground out all the paint and had the body shop that did the paint work seal it all up. The ultimate plan is to sand the whole car down to bare and repaint it within the next few years, so I will do a proper sheet metal repair at that time.

For the RS bumper, I like the way the bumper it's self looks, but I really dislike mesh grilles on street cars. Even the stock RS2 bumper grilles I think just look..cheap! Instead, I wanted to find a way to get louvered grilles for the RS bumper that looked OEM. In the course of playing with different option, I discovered that a B4 hood grille is just a bit larger than the center opening of an RS bumper. That gave me an idea, so I bought two cheap Depo B4 badgeless grilled off Ebay. I cut one of the grilles in half to use for the side openings on the bumper.

Grilles:


It turns out even the curvature of the B4 grilles is almost perfectly the same as that of the bumper, so they can be rear mounted without any gaps that would look out of place.

Grilles set in place for mock-up:


I used strips of 1/8" and 3/16" thick ABS and a heat gun to make mounting tabs for the grilles, which I bonded to the bumpers with ABS cement (nice thing about having an ABS bumper).



Finally, got to install it all! I realllllllly like the way the bumper grilles came out





Can't wait to get out and drive it around! I'm sure I will find plenty of things to change/fix when I do.

Speechless, absolutely wonderful. Amazing skills man.

I finally got off my butt and registered to car last week so I can drive it! I don't have any good excuse for why that took so long.. it had just been sitting for month and months. I have been driving it around all week and holy sh** this thing is so much more fun than it ever was before (and I LOVED it before I did the conversion).

I did find one issue I need to resolve to get it at full strength: I get a low oil pressure warning above about 3,200 rpm so I have been keeping the revs under 3k. After some investigating, it turns out there are two oil pressure switches on the 7a, and I only gave the dash one signal. Grounded out the second input and the dash is happy.

As promise way too long ago, here are some shots of it outside (plus one with it and the latest addition to the fleet).

With a dismal snow situation here in Washington, I got a chance to spend today playing with the Coupe. At the time of the engine conversion I fabricated an exhaust using material from a cut up OEM RS4 system, coupled to a stock CQ muffler. This system was extremely light weigh (except for the muffler) and produced a very low, refined exhaust note: quite at idle, but plenty loud and burly when you gave it any gas. That said, I have wanted to try something larger and more free-flowing to see what kind of power I was losing on the top end.

When Peter (a_CQ) parted out his CQ racecar, I picked up his exhaust at a very good price.... a fraction of what I would have paid in materials alone. Anyway, I have had it sitting on a shelf in the garage for a long time, and finally got around to installing it today. Here are some pics:

Old exhaust- stock dual tips:


New exhaust system:


New exhaust - single tip:


Clearance underneath:


On the old system, I placed the O2 sensor bungs right after the manifolds like they were on the A8. On this exhaust, they are about 2.5 feet further back. A lot more accessible, but this meant I needed to cut off and extend the pigtail on my O2 sensors. I soldered in wires to extend them, and lucked out at my local electrical supply shop; I found some high-temp woven fiberglass loom infused with silicon resin to protect it from the heat.

Extension wires:


High-temp wire loom:


Finally, here is how it sounds: FU**ING LOUD!! LOL. This is in the garage with all the sound bouncing right off the back wall so the mic on this little camera was pretty overwhelmed and does not even begin to do it justice, but you can kind-of-sort-of tell what it sounds like. When you blip the throttle it shouts. Haven't driven it like this yet... gotta relocate the battery to the trunk before I can do that.

Video: http://youtu.be/VnoOW8oikaM

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnoOW8oikaM[/youtube]