Das Auto

[Kittrell]

I know you guys like variety around here so I figured I would make a thread for the Audi. Which is a 2005 A4 Ultra Sport. Since I decided to leave the real world and go back to school I sold the MJ, the '03 A4, and bought this. I've had it since November 2009. Not much has changed since then.

All ready for the drive home from Carousel Audi in Minneapolis.

The next day in the garage for the first time.

Shortly after it went in to have the plate bracket shaved off of the front bumper and 30% 3M tint. A couple weeks later it was loaded on a trailer behind the uhaul and made the trip to Oregon with me. Apparently it rains a lot here. So it sat with the snow storm and road grime on it for about 6 months. The sun finally came out, it was only 45 degrees but it was time to wash it.

You can see the condensation in the headlights. Common problem with S4 Bi-Xenon lights (optional on the '05 USP).

I fixed that with the o-ring mod. Basically the o-ring in the adjuster shrinks over time and fails to seal the housing. So you just install the next size up o-ring and it's good go. One adjuster done, the other untouched.

To keep with tradition, it made it onto a trailer. Had an ignition coil pack fail. They happened to be under recall and it's also a CPO so it was double covered for that one. On it's way the 100 miles to Portland.

 

[DutchVDub]

I like the B6 chassis cars a lot, except that they put a V8 in the S4. Its a good engine, just not as tuneable as the 2.7T is my B5 S4. I actually got rid of my HID's though, too many reliability issue with the fancy pants lights and their auto-adjusters.

You've got a great looking car there man, I especially love the rims.

 

[Kittrell]

After that I replaced the peeling Symphony II HU and climate control with a Symphony II+ out of a B7 A4.

Next I scrubbed the squaids off of the steering wheel and shift handle. Initially I thought the leather was trashed. I came to find out that it was build up on the wheel. So I spent a few hours correcting that. After which I scrubbed my hands with bleach and then set them on fire.

This is after starting to clean. This stuff was as hard as a rock and covered the whole wheel, you really couldn't tell that it was just stuck on there.

All clean and conditioned.

New S-Line badge.

 

[Kittrell]

You've got a great looking car there man, I especially love the rims.

Thanks Dutch, the B6 has always been my favorite style. Especially the Ultra Sport.

 

[Kittrell]

Rear door got head butted by a pit bull running at full tilt. I was coming home from dinner with the lady and this dog's owner threw his stick into traffic from a side street. Took about a week and $1,600 to fix. Nice bill for the new dog owner of a day.

All fixed.

Replaced all of the interior lights with LEDs.

Before

After

Installed a heat shield between the turbo and airbox that I bought for my '03 and then packed it away in the garage for three years. Rediscovered it and tossed it in.

I swapped out the "fish scale" aluminum interior trim with a brushed aluminum set recently. No shots of that, still hunting down the piece for around the shifter. The set came out of a 6 speed, which uses a slightly different trim piece. It is almost due for pads and rotors so I am upgrading to B8 S4 front brakes and B6 S4 rear brakes. Essentially going from a 288mm/245mm rotor setup to 345mm/300mm.

B8 front caliper

B6 S4 rear calipers, cleaned one next to the untouched one.

 

[Kittrell]

Thats it for now............:repair:

 

[DutchVDub]

Oh, I really like how the B8 S4 front calipers have an S4 logo on them. I'll have to look into that for mine. Although personally I've never found a need for upgrading the brakes on mine beyond the Mintex pads and cross drilled rotors I've already installed. Even hitting speeds in excess of 70mph in the straights when coming down from Estes Park I've never had issues with brake fade. They also have no issue what so ever with not having enough braking force, they'll put you through the windshield if you make the mistake of sneezing while pressing down on the pedal. I'm not entirely sure how my B5 S4 brakes compare to your B6 A4 ones, but I know they aren't anywhere near as big as those B8 S4 ones. Of course the B8 S4 is larger and weighs more than my C4 chassis S4/S6 did, so it needs the bigger brakes.

I might also have to look into upgrading my stereo, except I still use the casette player to listen to my iPod.

My biggest thing I want to do is get the gauge cluster rebuilt. My center display is basically useless from the typical burned out line issue these cars get.

Holy cow!!! The rear brakes on the B8 S4 are bigger than my front brakes!!!!

93 S4 / 2000 S4 / 2010 S4
Front brakes: 10.9" / 12.6" / 13.6"
Rear brakes: 10.6" / 10.1" / 13.0"
Engine: 2.2L single turbo inline 5 / 2.7L twin turbo V6 / 3.0L supercharged V6
HP, Torque: 227hp, 258 ft/lb // 250hp, 255 ft/lb // 333hp, 325ft/lbs
0-60: 6.2sec / 5.9sec / 4.9sec
1/4 mile: 14.9sec / 14.4sec / no info
curb weight: 3839lbs / 3384lbs / 3847lbs (6spd manual)
limited top speed: 130mph / 143mph / 155mph

Sorry to clutter your thread, I just found it an interesting comparison. And actually, I was right. The B8 S4 is the same basic size and weight as my 93 S4 wich was really an S6. I wonder if the current S6 is the same basic size as the original S8 too?

 

[Kittrell]

The B5 S4 brakes are a big upgrade over the B6 A4 brakes. The dual piston HP2 calipers have way more bite, and of course you have the 320mm rotor. The stock B6 A4 brakes are a sad excuse for stopping power.

 

[DutchVDub]

Probably similar to the sadness of the B5 A4 brakes.

 

[Kittrell]

As far as your screen goes.

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showt...the-resistor?p=6580004&viewfull=1#post6580004

http://www.audizine.com/classifieds...nter-lcd-screen-for-instrument-cluster&cat=53

 

[DutchVDub]

I've got a shop here in town that said 400$ and they'll remove, refurbish, and reinstall my cluster. The LED for my oil temp gauge is going out and now the gauge is intermittently not working either. The car is 11yrs old now with 198,000+ miles on it. The original K03's are still going strong too, even with it being chipped for the last 50,000 or so miles.

I'm more than willing to tackle a lot of stuff on the car myself, but considering if I screw up the gauge cluster its nearly 1,000$ for a new one I'm more comfortable paying a bit for somebody else to do it. That way if they screw up its on them. The problem is the 2000 S4 gauge cluster is very specific to its exact model year and computer. I would need to find another from a 2000 S4 that had the same "box" designation for the computer. It mainly has to do with the fact that my car doesn't have traction control like the 2001 and 2001.5 cars.

 

[Kittrell]

Those things are hangin' in there. The K03 on my bone stock '03 started pukin' oil at 109k.

Definitely sounds like your cluster is on its last leg. I don't blame you for not messin' with it either.

 

[DutchVDub]

Yeah, I'm surpirsed but happy they've been holding up. Once we get some things paid down I'll be getting my wifer her Touareg and then the S4 is mine again. At that point I'll be going K04's.

 

[ClarkPeach]

...who the hell throws their dog's stick into traffic for them to fetch?! I ought to castrate that person. It's irresponsible pit bull owners like this that give the breed a bad name.

</rant>

Ok, back on topic. It looks pretty good for a farfromgroovin'! Keep up the good work!

 

[DutchVDub]

Oh yeah, and you just have to love the gratuitous Audi driver flip flop shot

 

[Kittrell]

Been a while since I updated this. I had some issues last year that were a bit of a pain. I had some noticeable misfires that just sort of happened while driving down the road, barely made it to my destination. Wouldn't stay running after that. I tried to troubleshoot it but couldn't get it going enough to want to drive it home, so I had it towed. Insurance covered that so it did not cost me anything.

Pulled the codes back at the house.

17705 - Pressure Drop between Turbo and Throttle Valve (check D.V.!)
P1297 - 001 -
17536 - Fuel Trim; Bank 1 (Mult)
P1128 - 001 - System too Lean - Intermittent
16555 - Fuel Trim; Bank 1
P0171 - 001 - System Too Lean - Intermittent
16684 - Random/Multiple Cylinder Misfire Detected
P0300 - 001 -
16685 - Cylinder 1
P0301 - 001 - Misfire Detected
16687 - Cylinder 3
P0303 - 001 - Misfire Detected
16688 - Cylinder 4
P0304 - 002 - Misfire Detected
16686 - Cylinder 2
P0302 - 001 - Misfire Detected

Did a boost leak test, no luck (passed). So I just started tearing it all apart. I knew it had to be in the vacuum system somewhere based on the first code which resulted in the rest. So I basically just started looking until I found something that was broken. Had to nearly take all of it apart before I found it.

Here was the problem child. Not the shattered piece you see, that was in the process of removing all of the hoses. That elbow or whats left of it is the crank case breather. What failed is the three way valve it was connected to, the PCV. This assembly is under the intake manifold and not very easy to get to. I had to do quite a bit of disassembly to get to it, but much less than everyone said had to be done, carney hands came through again.

The crankcase elbow disintegrating is a very common issue over time. I did not want to have to deal with any of this again so I picked up a silicone breather kit from 034Motorsport with billet check valves. This eliminates the 3 way PCV valve. Got it all back together and it purred like a kitten. Ran better than it had in years. I used to have this little stumble at idle and I could never figure out what it was. My guess now is that it was the valve on its way on. In its defense it did that for years.

 

[Kittrell]

I had the timing belt, water pump, and coolant flange done last year as well.

 

[Kittrell]

Been wrenching on it the last few weekends and this will be going into weekend three coming up. I was halted last weekend when I realized the outer tie rods were seized to the inners. Which did not end up being the larger issue, which was that the inners were toast. Also, the lower ball joints on the driver side did not want to come out. I ended up pulling the steering knuckle with both still attached and had to dead blow them out. This resulted in the sleeve coming out with one of them as it was seized due to corrosion. So I hit Napa for a joint separator that was just barely sufficient to pop the sleeve off. Used a ball joint press to push it back into the knuckle. Assembled everything back together on the driver's side, save the tie rod, and knocked the rear shocks out as well. Ordered inner tie rods and a 38mm crow's foot socket for this weekend. Got after it yesterday anticipating doing tie rods and the whole passenger front. Tie rods went fine, save for not having a pair of offset boot clamp pliers for the dust boot. The clamp on the steering rack end is almost inaccessible and can really only be tightened with this nifty tool. Upon tearing the passenger side apart saw that the wheel bearing was roached. So that's pretty much where I called it a day. Waiting on a new hub and wheel bearing, I'll have to get that pressed together somewhere. Next weekend, fingers crossed, it should be back on the road. At this point I still need to reassemble the passenger side, clamp the dust boots on both tie rods, swap the motor mounts, and do the oil change.

Full front control arms, outer tie rods, motor mounts, struts/shocks, and an oil change.

 

[Kittrell]

Got it all back together and out of the garage. Still needs an alignment, it's fighting itself pretty bad.

Autosport Werks in Broomfield pressed this together for me at no charge, great shop.

Both motor mounts, 83,000 miles on them. For those unaware, the Audi motors mounts are oil filled. You can see just how bad the passenger side was.

Replacement 034 Motorsport solid motor mount, no oil filled void. This is the normal shape and what the factory mounts would have looked like new.

 

[Kittrell]

It's back! Sorry, Troy.