Audi S2 Coupe Project-Battleborn Quattro Download

Alright, update time!

Took the CQ to Las Vegas this past weekend for the Urq GTG. Had an awesome time with great people and lots of cool cars…it’s good to finally put a face to the screen names.

It was stressful for the last several weeks trying to get things together and going, and then driving nearly a thousand miles. I’ve never really done much of this stuff to a car before, so I had visions of the motor falling apart, electrical fires, and wheels coming off. Thankfully, none of that has happened…yet…oh, except for the wheel falling off part.

I had a caliper carrier and a couple subframe bolts come loose on our drive in Vegas, but other than that there were no major potential issues. Got about 23 mpg for the trip while driving 80-90 most of the way there/back. I tried to be fairly easy on the car knowing I had so many miles before I would make it home.

So back to this update thing…Here is what has transpired since the beginning of August.
With the engine up and running and with a heat cycle or two beneath its belt it was time to retorque the head studs. This is an area I’ve been concerned with as I didn’t have the block or head surfaced prior to slapping in my MLS headgasket. They were pretty flat, but far from freshly decked. Also, the 3B donor had some JB Weld gooped up around the rear passenger sided of the headgasket, probably due to some coolant weeping in that spot. The coolant passage is right on the corner, so it is a common weeping point for this engine. So far things seem OK, I did strip a valve cover hole in the head; I’ll need to helicoil that when the valve cover comes off next time.

With the engine/electrical mostly ready to go, it was time to get the thing out of the garage and cleaned up. Hasn’t seen direct sun for over four years prior to this. There are a lot of new dings and things just from being in the garage sitting. Bath time:

I installed the battery in the rear for now. It is clamped down with an aluminum bracket.

Got the relays and resistors all set up and mounted for the 500W fan.

This is about the time that I caused my first major headache. So the wheels above have an offset that requires about 25mm of spacer to get things where I want them. (Can we see where I’m heading with this yet?, lol) Well they require the special ‘tuner’ lugs and I was having an impossible time finding something that would work. So I decided to try and sort some other things out while I figured out what to do about the lug bolts. I mean, I had two threads of engagement per bolt and I was just putting around the neighborhood.

So, yeah about 4 houses away, my driver’s side front wheel falls off and goes rolling out in front of me while I come to a grinding halt on the rotor. Ouch! Major damage to the front fender and a little bit to the sill behind the wheel. I sourced a cabrio fender in short order from Crazy Russian on quattroworld. Shipped it to me via Greyhound. Nice.

Well, not really…I pulled the mangled fender

And put in another in its place.

And not starting to sweat the schedule…yet…I’ve got almost two months ‘til Vegas and I already had it running. There can’t be that much more to do. Next up was getting the front bumper and accessories mounted. This wasn’t too bad and I may want to redo some of it, but you know how that is at this point…if it ain’t broke…

Checking clearances…Intercooler was a little close on one side, but I just used a bracket to pull to bottom of the intercooler back a bit…

And the wheel wells needed to be trimmed a bit…

I had to remove a degree of freedom from the light/duct assembly as the fit on these items was not good enough to only be attached at the ends. So I used some Sikaflex to bond them together. Not ideal, but I’ve got deadlines, and nothing is really compromised anyway.

I made the brackets three pieces per side so that I could have independent adjustment of the bumper mount, turn signal mount, and fog light mount.

There was also quite a bit of work to get the TechArt ducts nice and smooth. Good thing for Bondo…

I ordered some flattened expanded aluminum from McMaster for the vent covers. The center span was just over 24”, so I had to get a 48” X 48” sheet. That means I’ve got lots of extra if anyone needs some for grills. Just paint it with some Plasti-Dip or a proper bare metal prime/paint. It is a pretty close match to the grill I have too.

So how do you mount this on a Rieger ABS bumper (or fiberglass). I epoxied in some threaded hex standoffs and primed everything. They should hold pretty well, if the proper epoxy is used for the substrates.

So now, the bumper was ready to prime. Sorry, only before and as mounted after pics…

I also was noticing that I didn’t like the pearl rad support showing through the grill:

So I painted it black.

I also scored a sweet Audi tape deck to keep with the OEM theme. Yeah, full logic suckaz!

Now I just need to wire in a little mini amp to power the aftermarket rear speakers as that OEM stuff is long gone and not really worth keeping.

So after about a week of searching around trying to find lug bolts that would work, I bit the bullet and decided I needed to mill out the wheels to enlarge the lug bore diameter so that the available lugs could work. I’m not quite ready for the 5X112 swap as I’m still gathering parts slowly (=cheaply) So this means I had to pull the tires, machine, paint, and put tires back on. I didn’t have the clearance on my mill to machine them with the tires on.

And boring them out to 1” diameter…

And bored out after scuffing and cleaning for paint. I then used Duplicolor Graphite Wheel Paint. They were originally a bronze color, which wasn’t bad with the pearl, but felt it was more of a Subaru thing.

Also, for all you guys running aftermarket spacers and wheels, there is usually play in these making them not 100% hubcentric, even with the right spacers. I have done this on a few cars with good success in eliminating vibration from spacers. Take the few thousandths of slop up with some tape wrapped around the locating features. Those little plastic hub bore adapters are notoriously sloppy.

Because I was getting an alignment soon, and safety/emissions, I put on a few more new parts. My tie rods had torn boots, but weren’t too sloppy, but I got new ones for, you know, peace of mind.

And I refurbished the ARB’s. New links for the front too. The rear links could use replacing, but are pricey. They were kind of rusty.

And all cleaned up and painted. I still need to put the front one back on the car, but wanted easier access if I needed to do any work while on the trip.

I would also recommend this, or something similar, even home-made works, for bleeding brakes/clutches. Makes things go much quicker and you can be on the road with one person. I also used it to fill my transmission with thick gear oil.

So I finally took the car for a real drive on 9/8. Exactly one month before Vegas. Yikes, but not really sweating yet. This is up at Snowbird.

Aside from the primer and blue fender, not too bad, hahaha. But I was finally starting to like the look of the bumper in primer. The lines are much more apparent with the lighter colors.

I also made a visit down to see Hank to get my CAT v-banded in and make some adjustments to the downpipe and exhaust. We were a bit rushed and got it in, but it is not 100% leak-free and still needs some adjustment. It is basically resting on the rear diff mount and I have a section of silicone hose providing a little damping there.

And now I was down to about a week left until the event. So I was feeling OK mechanically, but visually, I would rather drive the Avant. We better do something about that. So let’s take everything apart again…

I have new side trims to put on, but wanted to clean up the sills a little. My plastic sill plates were broken up, so I removed them completely. I cleaned up some surface rust—this is a bad spot and a poor design as water can get under there but not out so easily.

And painted it low gloss black to match the rubber trim texture/reflectivity…

And then I attempted to do the 3 stage pearl paint. I figured I would be redoing it, so I was a little careless the first go-around, but it came out good enough that I’m not embarrassed to drive it around. I ended up painting both bumpers and front fender. I can finally say goodbye to Petar’s red bumper! And cover it with the pearly girly white :wink:. The car may end up a different color, but honestly the pearl is growing on me now that most of the aesthetic work is done.

I got all of the interior back together. I also put the cubby in under the driver’s side dash.

And here is a dirty engine shot. I had it clean for a day or two, but 1000 miles later and lots more dust.

So this brings us down to the day before leaving and I’m wondering what the hell all the racket is in my transmission. I’m thinking it’s going to fall apart half way down there, but Sam has assured me that it is normal. So away I went.

Here are a couple pics from the weekend…

We had a three 20VT CQ’s, a 4000TQ, and Greg’s ‘URQ’ on the ride down.

*More event pics in the Battle Born GTG thread…

970 miles later, I now need to make a new list as there are quite a few things to sort out and I want to drive it this winter while I start to tear into the urq.

But, first things, first… My intake pipe blew off the throttle body hose and broke my ABY airbox…Damn!

At least I’m breaking stuff from driving it now! 😀