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66K views 934 replies 80 participants last post by  LT1M21Stingray 
#1 · (Edited)
TO DO LIST:


  • [*] New Starter install
    [*] Repair rear seat-heater plug
    [*] Upholster bottom of seats
    [*] Re-upholster wheel well to black
    [*] Undo the modded cluster
    [*] install undertray
    [*] Install new air box
    [*] Determine what the random wire is in the door

    [*]Metal diverter valve (PSH PSH PSHHHHH)
  • right hatch light is out
  • windshield wiper hoses+wiring
    [*]mfts sensor plug wiring
    [*]fuel system clean+flush
    [*]only one speaker functions (front passenger)
    [*]034 Fuel battery relay install
    [*]wheel well repair + install
    [*]sound deadening in rear (wheel well and floor)
  • stromung exhaust
  • complete bushing replacement on everything
  • ceramic+powder coating of turbo+downpipe
  • wiring cleanup + heat shielding
  • wheels (ENKEI RPF1 looks like it is the ticket)
  • Possibly an IR to RF conversion
    [*]Clean and repaint intercooler (not black enough)
  • patch hole in passenger side fender -- possibly find replacements
  • find and bolt on an injector cover
    [*]relocate/shield the LS2 coils
  • find a rubber boot for hatch wiring
    [*]fix all temperature/pressure gauges
    [*]replace clock with boost gauge (in cluster) - booooo this sucks
    [*]re-mount ECU (it's not bolted in)
  • Windshield replacement
  • register the car
  • drive car


So I am finally delving into the project car realm. I'm not too scared of things breaking, more concerned with buying a 1995 Audi in general. SoldOverSticker was a complete gentleman and went and looked at the car for me and I decided to pull the trigger. I know 2Bennet is the go-to for parts for these things, and the guy I am buying it from is heavily involved in the California racing scene so it's got all kinds of goodies coming with it.

Any of you ever own a URS6/4? Teach me about them. Enjoy the ride.




 
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#219 ·
Update:

Still no hvac valve for the heater core (from Lithuania) but that doesn't matter much, the car will run without it.

Plans for the day include attempting to remove the broken stem of the MFTS sensor and putting in the new one without destroying the threads, the putting everything mostly back together (sans-thermostat) as I wait for the thermostat housing. Coming on the 18th. I need to sand down the grille because I am a terrible painter and left some paint runs on it. Boo.

Random guy on Facebook ghosted me and I never received the airbox, so I am buying another one and a new front Audi emblem.

By the way, I go through paint very quickly, and the sky is currently orange from smoke.
 
#227 · (Edited)


Came in today. Might even be able to get the car started today!

I've got to find two crossbeam bolts that I may have lost on the garage floor....

Purchased:

* A few more bolts of black carpet/fabric as I was a bit short for the original plan

* Hog clip pliers

* Hog clips


Starter maaaaaaaaaaay get here today. I don't need one, but it's more of a luxury and peace of mind knowing it's a new one.

After that I need to swap out the two door cards with the spare ones as they droop down past the window sill and it's annoying. I'll get pics of that later.

Updated to-do list on page 1
 
#228 ·
So I put it back together. And well... now there's a new leak. After getting the whole front end back together and all the piping back on, there pressure tester is not building any pressure in the system. Sigh. I added some water and the car is leaking from above the oil pan, which would seem to be the water pump.

Guess I am biting the bullet and taking the whole thing apart again to replace the waterpump and timing belt. Better now than later, I guess. I think what someone said earlier may have been true. A mixture of "leak-stop" and green coolant led to both sediment and other gunk in the system. When the flush was run through, it likely dislodged the stop-leak stuff.




 
#229 · (Edited)
UPDATE:

It's been a while... well, for me at least.

  • Radiator is done and installed
  • Coolant is bled
  • Heater core is removed


That's right, I tackled the heater core box. Ripped that sucker right out. It's not really as bad as some people make it seem, but maybe that's just because I was in a good mood. I definitely found the problem.





Wiper assembly out

box out. It was full of rusted water and leaked from every orifice.

Once again there's a hole in this car

Here's the problem.







So, I ordered a new heater core box from Ebay. $70. Good deal I think. It's like $700 "new". We'll see if it works... Now I need to find replacements for the v68 and v70 motors. I actually have a spare in the "spares box" but I do not know if it is good.


On another note, I ordered a new boost gauge and will be re-doing my gauge cluster to fit it. It should be much better, and it gets rid of the vacuum crap because nobody needs that. I was pretty pumped because I asked Quattro4Life how he did his, and he ended up making an entire video on it. Turns out, we did the same thing! He just did it slightly... better. So i'll be re-doing that here in the future.

Finally (that I can think of right now), I am not sure what to do for exhaust. The exhaust I have currently isn't garbage, it just needs to be re-welded and cleaned up. The exhaust leaks are obviously from all of the pinholes in the welds. I also need to get a cat on it, because the smell is unbearable. We don't have emissions tests here in Washington State anymore, but I'd much rather not smell that crap... plus it'd help with resale.

So -- i'm not sure if I want to order the Stromung and have the best exhaust possible for this car for $1150 (they no longer sell the downpipe so it's cheaper), or get my current exhaust repaired locally.

---

To come:
  • steering wheel reupholstery
  • rear floor color change (tan to black)
  • stripping the grille trim back to chrome
  • fix radiator electric fan which no longer comes on after taking it off and slightly dropping it on the ground
  • gauge cluster fix
  • temp gauges fix
  • heater core fix
  • new exhaust???

https://womp.dev/2020/09/29/heater-core-removal/
 
#232 ·
Yeah, good purchase. My Volvo had a broken heatercore box because the *******s who installed my blower motor broke it swapping it and they had to replace the entire interior and then they ****ed up the install and the blower motor blew up 2 years later and I had to do it again.
 
#234 ·
Current spend on project:

$2,312.27

oh boy.

Ordered some left and right floor vents to replace mine. Turns out the reason the light did not go into the "slot" is because the slot was not the correct slot. The replacements fix that, so now I have floor lights in the correct place.

also listed a bunch of parts on ebay. Hopefully something sells to extend my addiction.
 
#236 ·
Update:

Tested some of the motor servos over the weekend and it turns out they're all bad. No surprise there. Ordered some used ones from Lithuania and I really hope they work because they're extremely expensive. Here are some pics and progress of the rebuilt heater core. I've got the transmission out and just about ready to put the new one in but I might just pull the engine due to ease of access. If I pull the engine I will be very tempted to rebuild it or swap the head onto the other engine, but im going to show some restraint. I'm not too sure what I want to do.

I also spent a weekend with a powerwasher and wire wheel to clean up the underside. It's looking much better now. There is only a single rust spot on the rear crossmember which I ground down and covered up. Then I went over the whole thing with an undercoating. It was messy and I have to say painting is probably my least favorite thing to do -- even moreso than electrics...

The gauge cluster is also done and ready to be tested. I re-did the whole thing with a new gauge and the spare (actually the original) cluster I had. I did as much tracing as I could and soldering to link up the traces on the board, but I won't know if it'll work until I get it into the car and test it. Just been lazy lately.

Without further adieu, pics.






holes enbiggened



Ground down the outter ring


rough fitment. This changed multiple times as I got it to sit just about perfect.






As you can see in this pic, when trying to clean off some leftover glue from gluing on the surround (to block excess light), I rubbed too hard and went through the printed part of "BOOST". God dammit. Now I need another one.

I'll probably test today at lunch time to see if the thing even works. I found out with the last cluster I did that the lights weren't working as intended, so this time I did it a little different.

Now heater core













 
#239 ·
Yuck, good thing you pulled it apart. That would plug up the new heater core really fast!
 
#241 ·
Wow. That motor is wretched.
 
#245 ·


Couple things

- Great job on heatercore blower motor. My blower started chirping, have a new one in a box here, will get to it eventually. Want to make the bearing oilable so if it starts squaking I can get some lube on it in the future. How bad is it to get to the heater core? I honestly haven't looked, but I"m assuming it's near the blower, maybe I should just do both at once?

- Wow. Pulled it. Why did it come off the road? My thermostat area looked pretty gross, not that bad, but still gross when I did my car. Head was clean tho. It's an iron block so if someone didn't change the coolant or put the wrong stuff in it maybe it just gelled? Hard to see what I'm looking at, what is that gunk made out of?

- Paint!? dude. Painting these cars are a HUGE pita. There are so many individual pieces.... you gotta pull all the glass, the doors need to come apart, the window frames come off the door skins/frames, then drill out all the rivets holdong on the chrome trim, you have to get the C pillar trim off, and then on EACH DOOR you have two painted piece for each handle, and then the mid trim is another 8 pieces. Then on the bumpers, instead of just one piece, you have 4, plus the headlight under panels, PLUS the windshield squirters.... oh and the place between the plates. It's obnoxious. You sure you wanna do that? You could just shoot over all the trim and leave the handles in but it will look like **** very quickly when it all starts cracking on the seams. To do it right it all needs to come apart.
 
#246 ·
Tonight I got the header, turbo, and wastegate disassembled from one unit into three. What I learned:

The header is heavy as hell. The header is restrictive as hell.

The wastegate is heavy as hell. The wastegate is massive.

The dump pipe is restrictive as hell.

Everything is rusted. I do not know the mechanism behind it, but apparently turbos rust easily? Someone explain that to me.

---

News:

Ebay stainless steel headers are on the way. Audi purists say to go with RS2 headers but I am not comfortable putting something on that is only slightly better than stock and weighs the same. The stock header also allows for essentially 0 room to bolt/unbolt the header to the block. I have no idea how they actually put these cars together in the past. It took hours to even get it apart due to the clearances. Almost every single bolt can only get a box end wrench to it and give it about 1/16th of a turn before hitting something else. The rust on this assembly was also incredible. The entire exhaust side of this engine will need new bolts.

I am now wondering about the dump pipe situation. I think I can probably find something aftermarket, but it'll need to be stock fitment. It's basically just an 8 inch flexpipe to a bung on the turbo downpipe, but inside of this flex-pipe is about a 1.5" tube IF that. It's tiny. I'm not making 1000 HP, but I am also not making 200 anymore, so this is going to have to be remedied.

Finally, while taking apart both engines I found out that the flywheel on the engine that was IN the car is about 30 lbs. The flywheel on the spare engine is maybe 10. I need to determine what the difference is, because that might be a skookum upgrade for me.

Tomorrow I will likely get to taking the head and block apart on the engine that I will be using. Basically the donor engine was "rebuilt" and had "600 miles" on it. I'm going to go with "no" on that. The entire thing is crusty, has clumps of rust inside of it, and all of the rubber seals are shot. I don't know what I will do with it. Bummer.


And last (post finally) -- I am wondering about color schemes. If I am going to be taking the whole thing apart I want to get it pretty as well. I've pondered everything from black to black/silver to black/chrome to hot pink. I kind of want to do a black/polished aluminum look on most of it and then perhaps do german colors on the lettering or something. I'll also be getting new bolts for a lot of the engine most likely and then metal plating it all. What metal plating works best with an engine? I know copper is pretty common for high-heat areas.
 
#247 ·
I’d have to assume the turbo stuff is all rusty from the constant super heating and cooling. Though that’s something I haven’t seen before.

I replaced turbos on 20 year old 7.3L powerstroke diesels with 350,000 miles on them that were absolutely spotless. Besides blown oil seals, of course.

Granted the car is old and has been sitting for a while.

Love what you’re doing with it though, keep up the good work man.
 
#248 · (Edited)
Soooo. Wish I knew you were shopping for engine parts. Are you on quattroworld yet? If not you should join a few weeks ago. That tubular eBay header you bought is a piece of ****.

I’m not an Audi purist but I’ve owned my s6 for over 10 years now and was intrigued by the low price and perf potential of going tubular.

You know how you also mentioned the wastegate and turbo are heavy as hell? That Chinese header you just bought fails because it can’t hold that much weight. Some people have had success rewelding all the worlds on it and adding support braces, but really it’s just a poorly made item w poor fitment. This isn’t Audi purists. It’s the hive mind telling you that the cast iron manifolds can support the weight, and the chinesium tubular ones cannot.

You should be looking for an STR log style Exhaust manifold, and rs2 or rs2 replica manifold, or do what I did, and get a Wagner tuning manifold. The Wagner manifold was designed recently and uses modern cfd to outflow the rs2 manifold by a large margin, which outflows the stock one by a large margin.

For high heat stuff I used cerakote in my build. Look up the VH series cerakote you oven fire it to cure it but it’s resistant to oils fuels and 1800-2000 deg somewhere.

For the wrenches, the manual tells you how to bend a wrench to access the turbo bolts. This is also available on quattroworld. I bent mine to spec and had no problem remove or installing the turbo to downpipe once I had the bent wrench.


Stock they came with dual mass flywheels. Sounds like your other engine just has a regular flywheel. Unless you’re going to track I’d do more research before picking one or the other. Pretty sure the dual mass flywheel is a better fit for the street.

Please join QW. There is just a wealth of information there that I think you would benefit from.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#249 ·
Soooo. Wish I knew you were shopping for engine parts. Are you on quattroworld yet? If not you should join a few weeks ago. That tubular eBay header you bought is a piece of ****.

I’m not an Audi purist but I’ve owned my s6 for over 10 years now and was intrigued by the low price and perf potential of going tubular.

You know how you also mentioned the wastegate and turbo are heavy as hell? That Chinese header you just bought fails because it can’t hold that much weight. Some people have had success rewelding all the worlds on it and adding support braces, but really it’s just a poorly made item w poor fitment. This isn’t Audi purists. It’s the hive mind telling you that the cast iron manifolds can support the weight, and the chinesium tubular ones cannot.

You should be looking for an STR log style Exhaust manifold, and rs2 or rs2 replica manifold, or do what I did, and get a Wagner tuning manifold. The Wagner manifold was designed recently and uses modern cfd to outflow the rs2 manifold by a large margin, which outflows the stock one by a large margin.

For high heat stuff I used cerakote in my build. Look up the VH series cerakote you oven fire it to cure it but it’s resistant to oils fuels and 1800-2000 deg somewhere.

Please join QW. There is just a wealth of information there that I think you would benefit from.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks for the info!

I am on QW but the lack of activity means I rarely check it. The classifieds section had one of my posts up there as the top post for about 2 months with a single comment on it.

The Wagner has been recommended by many people as being the best but it is also $1000. The ebay header is probably ****, it was more of an impulse buy after dealing with that garbage bolt design on the stock header.

And yeah, I've been planning on cerakoting it all. I've got a guy that does that type of stuff. The only downside is that there are very few colors to choose from and actual professional grade stuff is about twice as effective.
 
#250 ·
There a lot of colors of cerakote? Go to their website.

Post in the UrS section of QW. Super knowledgeable and active whenever anyone is building something.

Here are the flow numbers of a stock bs rs2 vs sport quattro vs Wagner manifold.

https://forums.quattroworld.com/s4s6/msgs/80650.phtml

You can find deals on them. I paid $450 for mine. Worth every penny. Super durable.

I’m firmly in the camp of tubular headers for race cars and cast iron for street cars; too many bad experiences w failing welds and leaks and obnoxiousness w headers for me to want to daily them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#253 ·
I'm in most of those groups. I'll have to post something up there. That's how I've gotten a lot of the things so far. I've got a bead on a clean windshield for $300 but can't get over there to get it due to Snoqualmie snow and lack of funding...


Do you know anything about a replica Wagner manifold? I'm not trying to put $10,000 into this car in parts but I am also not trying to use cheap ebay crap. I returned that manifold.
 
#254 ·
So it's not really related to your thread, but a cheap '96 A6 quattro Avant with Auto trans popped up on my Craigslist Feed the other day. I passed it along to a good friend who *might* be picking it up, which would undoubtedly be saving the poor thing from the junkyard... This is related, because in his hands the 12v V6 will ultimately get yanked (and go to me!) and get replaced with a proper I5 turbo + manual trans. If he gets it I'll encourage him to check in here to see all the great info you've been sharing. :thumbup:
 
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