So I figured it's about time I do my own little build thread.

My FC is my daily driver. That includes a lot of winter driving, especially since I've been working in our snow removal shop working on the equipment used to clear the air field (plows, brooms, blowers...all giant sized). I'm about 30min from the Nurburgring, so the goal of the build is to allow me to thrash the 'Ring and drive semi-comfortably the rest of the time. I guess you could call it a resto-mod build.

What I started with:



A series 4 TurboII with an unknown number of miles and engine rebuilds. When these cars are imported into Europe they tend to go through a bit of an identity crisis. Mine is definitely a S4, but it's registered and has the VIN plate of a S5 (1990). This didn't really matter to me, because the price was right and it is mechanically sound...for the most part.

I got the car from my friend Higgi, who has been a member on here and numerous other rotary forums for a long time. Before he delivered the car to me he installed a Racing Beat front sway bar and Torsen LSD (from a FD). These will be the only parts and work not done by me...that's mostly because he had the parts and he made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

It has since developed an odd cooling system issue where it occasionally over fills the overflow and I end up refilling it. It doesn't happen all the time and I'm sure I have a small leak somewhere allowing air into the system, just haven't picked up a pressure tester to check it. It doesn't over heat or smoke and I have muy bueno compression so it hasn't been a big hurry for me.

The parts:

My goal is to try and get as many parts second hand or rebuilt, as I can. I have a wife and two kids and I have to be realistic about how much I can sink into this project. My goal is to keep it under $8k and that includes the price of the car. I'm a little under $5k so far. This is what I've ordered and received so far:

- 17x8 +35 and 17x9 +40 Rays Egrets
- 235/45 and 255/40 Federal 595 tires
- KSport Kontrol Pro coilovers
- Racing Beat Rev2 turbo back exhaust
- HKS Sequential Blow Off valve Version 1 (old school)
- Twin plate OS Giken Clutch (more on this later)
- Custom Landon Shift ****
- Mazda Racing Short Shifter
- Tubular S4 turbo manifold
- Prosport Gauges (oil pressure, H2O temp, boost)
- S5 tail lights (convertible, since I need the extra room for my long euro plate)

The remaining items I need to upgrade/order are (list is not all inclusive or final ):

- Reman calipers all around, along with new rotors and pads
- Hybrid turbo (DIY build)...I have 4 cores on the way, lol
- RTEK 2.1
- eBay v-mount setup
- upgraded radiator

Think that's it for now. Next post will be some more current pics.

 

The car after installing the wheels with tires and the KSport coilovers:





Ignore the dirtiness...we've had a helluva a lot of pollen this year.

 

Had a busy day working on the car this weekend. Yesterday was just removing the old exhaust, the turbo, and UIM and exhaust manifold.

Today I wrapped the new down pipe and tubular exhaust manifold with thermal wrap. Here's a couple pics of that:

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I found some pretty nasty cracking on my factory exhaust manifold and also discovered that two of the manifold to engine nuts were missing. Needless to say, I'm pretty sure that is the cause of the nasty exhaust leaks I've had going on. Here's some pics of the old manifold:



I also ported the wastegate and the smaller twin scroll runner on the turbo. Since my new manifold is almost fully divided and I'm losing the twin scroll actuator I figured this was the least I can do. Hopefully I don't experience too much lag as a result, but it'll be hard to discern any real downside since I've been rolling around with such nasty exhaust leaks the whole time. Here's a pic of the turbo with it's new blanket installed too:


While I have everything out, I removed the air pump and ACV since I won't have any cats. Installed my block off plates this evening. I am keeping my BAC and keeping the throttle body stock for driveability.

Also, on Saturday I rolled my passenger side fender a bit to resolve a rub I was getting.

This upcoming week I'll be reinstalling everything. Putting in new motor and trans mounts. Installing my Mazda Racing short shifter and Landon custom **** and installing my Prosport gauges along with the various adapters and such that go along with that.

 

That looks like a very solid base to start building from. It looks very good so far and I must admit I envy the fact you live 30 minutes from the Nurburgring. There's a few cool tracks here in Florida to do track days out, but not many in the world stack up to the Ring.

 

what manifold it that . havent seen to many tubular for s4 .

 

I'm 90% sure it's custom made. I bought it from another member in the classifieds. I saw one other one not too long ago, but you're right, they're pretty uncommon.

 

Working on the car today. Just got done doing the motor mounts and trans mounts. They're a lot easier to do without a turbo in the way, lol. I'm glad I had them on hand to swap out because I've had a clunk ever since I did my clutch and I think I know why...here's a picture, since they're worth 1,000 words, lol.



Now it's time to start putting the turbo back in and then the exhaust. Slowly but surely getting there.

 

Nice kicks, dude. Definite upgrade.

 

Finished working for the day.

I Installed motor mounts and transmission mounts. Not sure if it's covered in other posts, but installing the motor mounts is pretty easy with the turbo out. I loosened all the mount bolts, then used a floor jack to raise the motor up until the slave cylinder was almost contacting the tunnel. I also just loosened the fan shroud to make sure the fan didn't get broken. I noticed that if you remove the three bolts for the driver's side bracket and pull the whole assembly out, it gives you more wiggle room on the passenger side so you can slide that mount out without messing with the bracket.

After doing the mounts I installed my Mazda Racing short shifter and my Landon custom shift ****. This was a huge improvement since, for whatever reason, the bushings on my factory shifter fell apart so I had zero bushings left. Made for very sloppy shifting. Here's a pic of the shifter in it's new home:


I serviced the transmission fluid since the car was up on stands anyway.

The last project for the day was reinstalling the turbo/manifold assembly and installing the Racing Beat Rev2 exhaust (with wrapped downpipe). Went on pretty easy, but the muffler flanges are hitting where the lower control arms attach at the subframe. However, I haven't installed the Y pipe hangers yet because I was missing a couple bolts to bolt them on, so maybe they will help adjust the positioning just enough to prevent any contact. The turbo went in pretty easy, but it is a very tight fit because of the turbo blanket. I had to make some small adjustments to the blanket so that the coolant banjo bolt could go back in, other than that, pretty easy. Here's a pic of the turbo all snug in the bay with it's blanket:


So far so good. Tomorrow I'll be tidying up some of the rats nest, installing those missing hangars, installing my gauges, and reinstalling the UIM. I may even get to fire her up, we'll see.

 

So today I got everything cleaned up. The UIM gasket was baked on and took me the better part of 4 hours to remove. I finished removing the rats nest. I installed my Audi Q7 fuel pump and rewired it (per the directions on 1300cc.com). As my time was quickly running out for the evening, I decided to bolt down the UIM and call it a night. Tomorrow, all that's left is the rest of the intake system (IC and airbox),a little vacuum hose rerouting and re-assemble the interior from running the wires and hoses for the boost gauge. Then I'll double check everything is good to go and fire it up. I can't wait to hear the sweet sweet sound of that RB exhaust.

 

Well ****.

I got everything finished up this morning. Double and triple check everything.

Checked the fuel pump wiring and plumbing by priming the system (little yellow connector) and found a small leak at the top of the filter. Tightened it up and no more leaks.

So I fired it up. It started on the first shot and idled perfectly, but there was very obviously an exhaust leak in the engine bay and it sounded terrible (almost like an open header). So after doing a quick look over the engine bay I shut her down to tighten the exhaust manifold nuts (since that's where it seemed to come from). I tightened up the nuts and also observed some smoking from the thermal wrap, which is pretty normal till the wrap gets "baked" the first time.

I went to start it back up again and nothing. So I thought maybe I flooded it with all the fiddling with the fuel pump and not letting it warm up. I pulled the trailing plugs and the EGI fuses and cranked for a bit. The plugs weren't wet and nothing came out when I cranked it. So I put the plugs and fuses back in and tried it again. Nothing. It just cranks and cranks, but doesn't fire.

I'm at a loss here, I can't seem to get it to run again. When it was running it idled perfectly, no stumbles or anything. Anyone have any ideas?

 

Was it a new fuel pump that you installed, or used? Can you hear/tell if it's running or not?

 

Yeah it's a brand new pump. It is also equivalent or better than a Walbro 255.

The only thing is because it's designed for the Audi direct injection engines it has two outlets, one of which is super high pressure. When you install it you block the super high pressure outlet.

Well because it's in the tank I didn't think to check it and it wasn't tight enough. This means the pump was putting hardly any pressure to the engine and was instead cycling the fuel back into the tank. Well, once I determined that that was what was happening, I pulled the pump and put new clamps on the plug.

Once I did that, I reprimed the fuel system and now have another leak. It appears the increased fuel pressure is over running all of the old squeeze clamps in the system and I only replace those that were necessary to do the rat's nest delete...no one to blame but myself.

Gotta run to the store and get more hose clamps, then tear off the UIM again and reclamp all the remaining fuel lines. Hopefully another update in a few hours after all that's done.

 

id recommend running an aftermarket fuel pressure regulator

 

An aftermarket FPR is on the buy list, but according to Higgi (who's ran this mod quite a bit) it's not necessary.

I got the fuel lines all clamped up and I know I'm getting fuel pressure, I can see the fuel lines "jump" when I bridge the yellow plug.

The thing that really boggles my mind is that it ran. It's ran since I did all this work on it. I tighten a couple lines and all of a sudden it doesn't run any more.

 

Still can't get the car started. Higgi is on his way tomorrow for a prearranged meeting, hope we can get it going. There's a possibility I may not have installed the silly Audi pump properly. Something about a little plastic piece that needed to be there. Cross your fingers for tomorrow.

 

I would take out that fuel pump and put a standard (upgraded) pump in. Those direct injection engines run THOUSANDS of PSI fuel. Ours needs... 37-40 PSI base.

 

There are two outlets on the Q7 fuel pump. One is "regular" pressure, the other is higher pressure (but not 1000s of psi). The DI engines have a high pressure pump in the engine bay that bumps the pressure up the rest of the way. The higher pressure outlet is blocked off on my pump.

Here are some links to a flow test done on a Walbro and a Q7 pump:
http://rx7cz.net/pdf/PP13.pdf (Q7)
http://rx7cz.net/pdf/Walbro13.pdf (Walbro)

Basically, the Q7 draws more current than the Walbro, but flows more fuel at higher pressures. The Walbro drops to 230lph at 4bar where as the Q7 pump hangs tough at 280lph at 4bar. The Q7 pump's flow doesn't drop off as much as the Walbro.

I'm pretty sure I have managed to just install the fuel pump wrong. I'll try and document the proper installation in case anyone else decides to do this upgrade.

 

^I see. I actually (obviously) don't know much about these pumps.

 

Well I swapped out the fuel pump with my old factory one and it's running. Going to try to figure out the problem with the new pump, but at least it's running.

I still have a minor exhaust leak, but I was just happy to get it out. The thing smoked like crazy from the thermal wrap, but after driving it a couple times it's not smoking anymore.

I didn't have any more leaks, fuel or otherwise. That makes me happy, since I need new gaskets for the turbo lines.

 

Got her out and stretched her legs yesterday.

It appears I didn't do enough of a port on the turbo as I'm hitting fuel cut. I'm kicking myself for not ordering my RTEK or FCD when I was ordering everything. Now I'll just have to take it easy on her till I can either buy one or build one.

Still sorting a bit of an exhaust leak, but it's getting there.

 

So when I drove the car to base yesterday the car flooded...twice. Once when I initially shut it off, then again after driving it to my office.

I don't know if I've got a bad injector now or what (maybe caused by the factory pump being rewired?). When I deflooded and started it the second time it was missing for the first minute or so, then smoothed out, but wouldn't hold an idle till it had been running for a few minutes more.

It's been suggested that I reinstall the FPR vacuum solenoid that I deleted as that may be causing the condition.

On a better note, I mailed off my spare N332 ECU to get the RTEK 2.1 installed. So I suppose if it is the solenoid, I could just wait to get the ECU in and adjust the cranking map.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

Thought I'd throw this on here since I googled and couldn't find anything.

I wired up the Prosport Performance Gauges today. I wanted them to be amber all the time and I couldn't find the wiring for them. I called Prosport and this is how they get wired to be amber all the time:

Black = Ground
Red = 12v ignition
Orange = 12v ignition
White = Not hooked up at all
Green = Sending unit (if applicable)

Hope it helps someone else who may be doing the same thing.

Can't wait to get my RTEK. My gauge pod from Retro-Spec shipped and should be here soon, I'll post pics of all of that when it gets here.

 

How about a dyno run ?

 

Soon as I get my RTEK in, I'll definitely be up for a dyno run