tuffty 4 Posted August 15, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 15, 2021 Some more progress today.... after the issues I had with the pattern part sump the only thing left to do was to mod the OE sump and hope this would weld better Removed the boss on the sump and drilled a suitably sized hole... ...and thankfully the OE sump welded fine So fitted that back on the engine and went to the next job... Next job was to remove the NA exhaust manifolds and downpipe... I ended up having to cut the downpipe to remove it (won't be using it again anyway)... ...leaving lots of room for 'vrooooom!' I did a test fit of the turbo manifold and wastegate as I knew it was going to be tight... and it was!!.. So a minor application of the magic spanner (a hammer) later... I think I would prefer a little more than that but it will do for now... then I fitted the turbo to see what other little challenges awaited me... Turns out the cooling pipes are in the way a bit... ....but the good news is they do not really get in the way of the inlet to the turbo... I was expecting this tbh and the hoses are a rationalised version of the Mk1 TT ones the engine came from... this is an easy problem to resolve though so not bothered about it... and to that end I drained the coolant and removed the hoses for now so I could focus on fitting the turbo and then I can work around that once done Plenty of room now lol.... and talking of room... I removed the wastegate to give me better access to the next job on the list.... ...to continue tomorrow <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 16, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 16, 2021 Downpipe day.... a little bit rusty (no pun etc) at making these but got into the groove fairly quickly.... one thing I did actually achieve today was to use the TIG welder... Previously I just tacked the stuff together using a MIG but that only had mild steel wire in it and the wrong gas for stainless so had a crack at TIG.... ...ok... its just a tack weld but!... its a bit of a milestone for me considering how long I have been doing this level of work lol... that said... I did end up blowing a fair few holes in things until I got a bit more comfortable with it... it feels very much like rubbing your tummy and patting your head but I guess I will just need to practice a bit more.... Anyhoo... the DP itself was a little bit of a challenge... the turbo sits quite low and a little more centrally than it did on my 20v... felt more like my original GT3071 install tbh but once I had worked out the initial part of the DP the rest fell into place nicely... Tried to make sure I had as much clearance for the prop as possible in prep for when the DSG finally goes in as the prop will move over to the right/drivers side a bit.. And here is the main part of the DP Alex will be welding that up tomorrow and I can then do the wastegate pipework afterwards... I next moved onto the cooling system 'challenges'... other than the coolant lines to/from the turbo I had to rejig some of the main engine coolant lines to the heater matrix and expansion bottle too... Made a start on this mocking up a few things to see what would work I also mocked up the intake pipe out of the old 20v parts to see what else I may need... as a result I now have a better idea of how its all going to hang together and of course a long list of bits to order More tomorrow... <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 17, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 17, 2021 It would appear that the years of a desk job is starting to catch up with me lol... 3 days of working on the car and I am stiff as a board (fnarr!)... anyhoo... more done today First job was to fabricate the turbo coolant lines... ...done... well... nearly... waiting on a 'barb' to weld onto the end of the shorter line so I can connect it up to the hose that feeds it... Next up... I fabricated the charge pipe... main reason for this was I need to work out how much room I have to play with for the turbo after run pump that will be fitted under the battery cover... in order to do this I need the parts that have little room for adjustment in so I cracked on with that... Happy with the way it runs... need to finalise a few things as waiting on hoses etc and need to work out how to secure it to the side of the head but its coming together how I visualised it... I also positioned the dump valve... ...yes, its a BOV bruv... but I am on standalone ECU using speed density so its fine Last job was to sort the oil feed to the turbo... there appears to be a few ways that this can be achieved on a VR6 turbo conversion... the information (as always) is suitably vague but... some people weld a fitting to the top of the oil filter housing but this seems a little sketchy to me as the top of the housing is just a void and while it is the filtered side it seems that it could drain down between starts so maybe cause air to be drawn into the feed leading to a small chance of oil starvation... I am sure that in reality its fine but just didn't feel right to me... so another option was to use the adaptor I bought a while back that you fit the timing chain tensioner through so it can feed from there... however it seems that a larger plunger is needed to make up for the way the oil take off spaces the tensioner away from the chain... this seems to be something HPA sells along with a longer top chain so decided I will wait until I have those parts ($225 plus shipping!) before I decide on using the adaptor... that will also wait until I am ready to swap to the DSG box as you need the box off to play with chains.. So I went for plan Z and fitted a 10x1 to AN4 stainless fitting to the end of the oil pressure t-piece... ..to which I fitted the oil feed pipe... All a bit tight there but have cable tied and spaced to make sure it doesn't end up in the fans.... The only real issue with this solution is that the oil from the oil pressure switch side is not filtered... so I got an inline filter with AN4 fitting... its a 149 micron mesh filter that is cleanable and will do the job nicely... I may well review this at a later date once I have the parts from HPA but happy with the solution as it stands... I just need to take the front off the car to feed it more elegantly but will address that when I take the inlet off to be powder coated again While I was faffing about the hero that is Alex welded up my downpipe.. This means that tomorrows work will be sorting the wastegate and getting that fed into the down pipe along with finalising EGT and lambda boss locations... All in all I am happy with progress... waiting for parts is a pain but they are bits I wasn't sure of needing until I had worked out how it was all going together.. My S3 however is clearly not happy about me not giving her much attention over the past 2 years and so is making me pay for it lol... Nice engine bay rash from building the downpipe... Nice burn from linishing the cut ends of the downpipe bends... stupidly managed to grab the hot bit while turning the cut piece around... After realising I was TIG welding without heat resistant gloves (just had nitrile gloves on) I managed to stab myself with the hot end of the filler rod while putting stuff down to grab the gloves... Lastly... managed to pinch my finger (somehow) whilst doing something in the vice!!... nice bulge too!.. I expect to bleed a bit when I do car stuff as that is the nature of things but its getting out of hand now LOL... <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 18, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2021 So on to what proved to be the trickier part of the downpipe... the wastegate pipe work... this was a bit of a challenge mostly due to space... or more space where the wastegate pipework seems to want to go naturally.... I had removed the driveshaft for better access plus I needed to change an outer CV boot anyway but it was proving quite difficult to get room to work so I just marked up the hotside and DP positions and took the whole lot over to the bench to work on it out of the engine bay... much easier... This allowed me to position the pipework much easier and gave me a few more options so it ended up like this.. Refitted everything back in the bay to check clearances... Looking good... so removed it all, marked up the hole I needed to cut out in the DP for the wastegate pipe and that should all be welded up by Alex for tomorrow so I can wrap it in heat wrap Not many jobs left now... had a bunch of parts turn up today... mostly hoses... so I have all the coolant hoses sorted except for the hard pipe feed from the expansion bottle... that won't fit in its original place so I am making up a new one... This will run closer to the head rather than on the back of the heatshield over the NA manifolds... Only other thing I need to do is the oil drain... I am waiting on a flexi hose to arrive so I can make it... not sure when it will come though is the issue so I may have to come up with a plan B... hopefully it will arrive tomorrow and I can get that done too... then Friday should be mostly assembly and fluids ready for a start <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 19, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 19, 2021 Super hero Alex finished the welding on the downpipe... ...while I worked on the cooling system.... Fabricated the hard pipe to replace the one that runs along the back of the heatshield to the expansion bottle.. ...and the coolant feed to the turbo... Then cut out the hole in the charge pipe for the dump valve... Today was a day of fitting the turbo, taking the turbo out, fitting it again etc while I made sure everything still fitted and made sure all the coolant lines lined up, the heatshield on the transfer box actually fitted and started work on fabricated the oil drain on which I am still waiting on the flexi to arrive... I also refitted the charge pipe to finalise the clocking of the comp housing... Few more things to sort out... need to bead roll a joiner for the charge pipe to the FMIC pipework... remake the intake pipe as my old one (from the 20v) has an outlet for the DV (no longer needed) and is too short anyway due to the location of the turbo... I also need to add in the turbo coolant return line and hook up the after run pump in the 'battery' area Home stretch now... waiting on parts as always but still a bunch of little jobs to do in the meantime... heat wrap the down pipe, fit the after un pump for the turbo, plumb in the N75 valve etc then hopefully she will be up and running at the weekend... but if the flexi doesn't arrive tomorrow then I guess it will have to wait until next week (I have next week off too!) Either way the old girl should be running very soon <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 20, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 20, 2021 Today was a day of mostly final assembling and tweaking of things.... I double wrapped the downpipe... managed to survive this without itchy arms and soaked the wrap in water to make it a bit easier to work with I added some extra heat shielding where the wastegate runs... ...and added a little extra to the knock sensor... this is mostly covered by an extension on the exhaust gasket on that side but doesn't hurt to have some extra protection... I am still waiting on the flexi for the oil drain fabrication so did a final mock up fitting to see if I could fit the drain with the turbo and downpipe in place... turns out I can... yes its not exactly the easiest job in the world but.. its doable so... I started final assembly Turbo, downpipe, wastegate, oil feed, EGT and coolant lines are all in and torqued up... Then moved on to the charge pipe... I did discover that the charge pipe sat oddly when I actually tightened up the clips... so remade one of the joiner pipes to fix that.... I also remade the intake as my old 20v one was too short and sat at the wrong angle I ran the turbo coolant return and have worked out where the pump will fit... I have a few bits to sort on that including the wiring and a bracket but the list is now very short indeed... I won't be painting anything just yet as I want to get the engine running first... I also have to work out a few more brackets for things like the oil feed pipe, turbo coolant return pipe and EGT... I also need to make something to secure the charge pipe to the head to stop it moving about.. Not long now <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 22, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2021 This weekend has been mostly doing the fiddly bits and making stuff fit up right... I needed to wire up the turbo afterrun pump and make a bracket to hang the oil feed, turbo coolant return and EGT probe wiring off... The oil feed filter needs a 45 deg fitting which is on order to get a better run without bending the pipe too much... After run pump is switched off the original feed that has now been connected to the VR's after run pump... this means that it will work off its own power at the same time as it always did when on the 20v... I modded the bracket I made to support the battery cover and airbox to mount the after run pump... and also fitted the EGT probe black box to one of the fixings... And that is the cooling system done and dusted... to recap what I did to get the turbo coolant side of things working.... I picked up the coolant feed from the hose going from the back of the head to the heater matrix... ...this was a 16mm to 13mm 90 degree silicon elbow that then connected to a fabricated stainless hard pipe to a banjo on the turbo... The return is a stainless pipe welded to a stainless flexi... This is routed to the nose of the after run pump and the outlet of the after run pump connects to the plastic hose union going to the top of the rad... (this is much the same as the S3 does it) There is a hard pipe that runs from the other heater matrix hose (outlet) to the expansion bottle... this is bolted to the heat shield... but as someone has fitted a hoofing great turbo there then another solution was required... so I made a hard pipe from 16mm OD stainless tube and a 45 degree elbow.... ...this is connected to the heater matrix hose using a 16mm 90 deg silicon hose... And thats about that!... (and don't worry... a new air filter is on its way as I didn't realise how bad my old one had got! ) ...and of course the OEM++ look The oil drain flexi still hasn't arrived so as a plan B I am going to look at repurposing an OE oil drain... this actually was my original plan but Alex mentioned he had order 500mm versions of the lines they usually use on customer builds so was hanging on for one as they are a really good flexi.. That said, OE drains aren't prone to fail although I have had one modded one go on me once but think that was more down to it being too tight a bend that cracked to PTFE inside... Either way it will get the engine side of the build done and should the flexi fail later down the line its no drama to mod it for the other flexi as I will grab one anyway N75 is connected up too but this will be unrouted in IECU for now while I start building the VE table for the actuator pressure... Back at it tomorrow... who knows, it may even get started <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 23, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2021 <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 24, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 24, 2021 Thanks all... been a fairly intense week... my arms and hands look like they have been mauled by a hundred cats and my feet feel like I am walking on gravel bare foot... but... its been worth it.... Yesterday started off fine... not knowing when the flexi would turn up I turned to plan Z... use the flexi from an OE drain I had... After quite a lot of faffing about Franken Drain was brought to life!!!... Happy with myself I went to grab some lunch and as I finished that a delivery arrived... Well fark a duck!!!... so oil drain v2 or the 'proper one' was quickly knocked up... Ah well... at least its done properly and I am happy now All that was left was fluids... My 'luck' continued with the battery being mostly flat so had to jump pack the battery to turn it over... turned it over using Ignitrons little feature that turns off ignition and injectors to allow you to turn the car over without it starting to build up oil pressure... After allowing the engine to turn over for some time the pressure had still not built so checked the turbo oil feed to see if oil was getting that far and it wasn't... this was a worry as now I could not recall fitting the oil pump driven shaft when I buttoned up the sump sooooo.... I drained the fresh (expensive) oil out and dropped the sump to check... thankfully I had but I had to check... Refitted the sump, refilled the oil and turned it over for a bit longer and slowly but surely the pressure came up... at 2 bar I took my foot off the accelerator (part of the ignitron no start actuation) and she fired up straight away... Most noticeable thing was how quiet the exhaust was now... the turbo acting as a silencer of course.... ran the engine up to temp topping up the coolant along the way only to find that the turbo after run pump wasn't working... B*gger!... that was a job for the following day as its was now 10pm at the unit and I was pretty fried... So todays first task was to check the engine bay over to check for leaks... nothing... nada... zip... nothing... pretty happy with that but tbh I haven't changed loads and the engine has been in for two years now so shouldn't have been much that could go wrong Next task was to sort the pump... I didn't fancy driving the car without this working so out came the multimeter and I gave it a damn good probing... the fix in the end was simple as the VR after run was working fine and I thought that the wire I had ready should have been fine but for whatever reason it wasn't and so I just retapped off the feed I know was working to power the relay and bob's yer muscle... working pump I then turned my attention to the heatshield over the manifold... took some measurements and used some Cardboard Aided Design to get to this... Just need to clean it up and paint it One thing I was concerned about was whether or not I would get boost creep from this manifold... its a bit of an unknown and previous experience has taught me that its a real possibility... that in itself would be a downer if the creep was serious enough to take me close or god forbid over the 1bar of boost I was aiming for... So I paid a quick visit to Mexico and did a third gear run to see what was what.. 0.5bar flat (give or take a kpa or 2)... happy days and given I have a 7psi spring thats bob on Obviously the VE map is a mile out so need to address that before I give the old girl the beans again... getting over 20% additive in places so need to reign that in... Timing map will need a bit of attention if I intent to up the boost I suspect but I can deal with that once the initial VE is sorted... EGT's were surprisingly good given the probe is in the hotside (as per OE K04) and the air temp delta was also nice... However as the outside temps increased later this afternoon to 27deg ambient the poor old girl was showing signs of getting a little warm... coolant temps were around 98deg while loaded up up hill... this is compared to a typical 88/90 I used to see when NA... I suspect I may need to look into a CFS rad at some point as the VR is quite well known for running a tad warm <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 26, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 26, 2021 Heat shield is done <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 27, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 27, 2021 For the past couple of days I have been in Mexico pretending to be a 'tuna'!... VE map is in a happy place now for actuator pressure and trims are looking good... Next up.... N75 controlled boost <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 27, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 27, 2021 (edited) So while I was in 'Mexico' it seemed rude not to enable the N75 and build the boost map First iteration was to get to 180kpa or 0.8bar/12.6psi from my actuator pressure of 0.5bar/7.25psi.... Set the 'P' of the PID control to 0.1 from the map file wizard settings to give a bit tighter control... Then set the limp mode over boost threshold to 185kpa ...and finally as an added safety I set the over boost throttle limit to 30% at 200kpa in the egas throttle modifiers On to the boost map... top line is 180kpa with vertical interpolation down to 130kpa integrator min was set at zero across the map ....and integrator max set at 30% tops (interpolated vertically back down of course) Turns out 30% imax wasn't enough ...so after some tweaking imax at 60% did the job nicely...... obviously 0.8bar wasn't really enough sooooo.... Changed the specified boost to 190kpa (0.9bar/13psi) up to 5000rpm (this is where torque looked like it was stating to drop off...) and then 200kpa (1bar/14.5psi) to redline... Updated imax to suit... I also upped the limp mode values to 210kpa and the egas overboost limit to 205kpa (after I had obviously done my first run at 190/200kpa and hit limp mode!!... DOH!!) And this was of course pretty close to where I wanted the tune to be boost wise and torque wise... Top end is still dropping off to just under 200kpa so I have another map to try later with a few tweaks to imax higher up the rev range... Obviously BHP and Torque is IECU's calculated values which when the STFT's are 'zero' are pretty close to actual output... however I do of course need to validate all this on the dyno and do a few other tweaks to things like timing as currently I have no pull and I am not running meth either at this time... EGT's look good considering the probe is in the hotside of the turbo (like OE K04) and the air temp deltas between ambient and manifold are good too... The car feels blisteringly fast... although bare in mind the last time I drove a 'fast' car was some 2 years back before the rod went and an NA 3.2 vr is not a powerful engine in a heavy car like an S3... Hopefully will be able to get the car on the dyno in the next couple of weeks to see where it all stands... but it is a joy to drive... the response from 2000rpm is very very impressive... like they say, no replacement for displacement Using nearly 80% duty on the N75 to get 1bar of boost is actually quite a lot... if I wanted to have more boost then I would need to change the actuator spring for something stiffer but... as it stands if the engine makes 450/500hp as it is and given how fast the car feels already its not something I am that bothered about as the setup suits what I need... the injector IDC is currently at 80%.. this could rise a little depending but they a re 625cc at 3bar... so if I feel I need a bit of over head I can always fit a 4bar fpr or more likely a decent variable one and take it to 3.5bar just so I don't mess with the idle and low cruise rpm fuelling as at idle IDC is already stupidly low at 1-2% Best I make a start on the DSG loom then <tuffty/> Edited August 27, 2021 by tuffty Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 28, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2021 So this happened!.... Initial run off the back of my tuning trip in 'Mexico' netted 485hp... this was at a shade under 1bar as I needed to tweak the imax up a bit for it to achieve the 200kpa request up top... Had a couple of runs just faffing but it was evident I was running out of spring rate in the wastegate as raising imax was having diminishing returns on boost... For the final map I bumped specified boost up at the top end to 210kpa as I was seemingly stuck at 490 odd hp... Boost map ended up as... ...with integrator max as... I also noticed that the VVT was retarding the inlet cam from 5k so I zero'd that lot out too and.... Happy dayz... So next thing to do was to fix the AWD lol... I have had the common issue of the rear wheels hopping on low speed manoeuvring and pulling the fuse 'fixes' that issue which means its typically the haldex controller at fault... I am not exactly sure what the issue is but given its a fairly simple unit that has a potted electronics board, a servo motor and a valve my money is on the servo motor... but I think I will strip my old one to have a look as tbh it would be useful to be able to repair them if at all possible... So, one haldex controller... After draining the oil (which looked quite dark tbh) I undid the two bolts holding the controller on and jiggled it out... this is actually a little awkward but it will come out with a bit of faffing about... Nothing obvious other than it being 'dirty' I had to clean up the mount face on the haldex diff as this was a little crusty... ...and decided to change the filter while the controller was out... not that its really any easier... After that came the job of 'wrestling' the replacement controller back in!... There are a few things to be mindful of when doing this... if you have the earlier o-ring seal type haldex then you only have to worry about the bolts falling out as a rule... however if its a metal gasket type like mine then you have to try and get the haldex in with the bolts on enough that the gasket doesn't fall off as its almost impossible to fit in once the controller is in its 'hole'... that was a fun 10 minutes I can tell you!! Last job of the day was to fit the 45 degree -4AN fitting to the turbo oil feed filter to take the rather sharp bend out of the not too bend oil line... Bill pulled up the dyno plot of his Mk1 TT 3.2vr and overlayed my plot on it... A turbo certainly wakes a VR up lol... On the way home I took a small detour to 'Mexico' just to do a log on the road now things were at a good point... 83% IDC at 500hp, 700deg EGT's, 10 degree delta on ambient vs IAT's and this is with no meth as I haven't got that plumbed in currently... I want to dual port the wastegate as this will give me some duty cycle back and help keep the gate stable at higher RPM/manifold pressures... this should allow me to fine tune the torque curve as I would ideally like to get this as flat as possible Still a few things to sort out like making a bracket to hold the charge pipe as that moved about quite a bit on the dyno lol... and painting things of course Oh and the haldex appears to be working ok now... when I first drove the car out the unit it still seemed to be binding a bit but no where near as much but when I got home I reversed into my parking space with no obvious issues so hopefully that is now all sorted <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted September 3, 2021 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2021 Bit of progress with DSG related stuff.... After a bit of deliberation I acquired a different DSG selector... this one is from a Polo 6R (2011)... this 'should' work fine and is the same as one used by a friend of mine on a DQ500 gearbox.. it being from a 7spd vs 6spd should not make any difference as all it does is tell the gearbox what drive mode to be in or in manual mode to change up or down... My mate has retained the Polo knob and trim but its not the best fit... so I bagged an S-Line version... The other real difference on this selector setup (other than the cable end for the box) is that the way the release button works is no longer at the side (thumb operated) but at the front... this means the slot in the selector mech faces forward and not sideways (like my earlier 8P one) The S-Line knob is mostly metal too so feels more premium than the Polo one... The selector trim looks like it might be easier to make fit too Looks like I will need to trim the top and bottom off the 8L panel and make something out of that... and to that end I covered the DSG trim in tape and cut around it to create a pattern that should make trimming the 8L trim a bit easier... I am going to wait until the selector is in before I tackle that task though as I want to be sure where the selector and trim actually sits rather than assume it will be similar to the 8L one... Next up was to do some work on the wiring looms for the selector and box... the gearbox is a 20pin plug (1J0927320) which can be bought from Ali Express pretty cheaply... the gear selector plug (10 pin, 1K0972776) was also bought from Ali Express... I used this wiring reference and just added the colours or wire I used to make it a little easier to follow The results so far... Selector loom.... Gearbox loom... I have added in the extra wires for the starter inhibit relay, reverse light and speedo feed... I have not finalised the pin outs I am using on IECU yet but the starter and reverse light feeds will trigger relays accordingly and the speedo signal will go to the cluster... I need to offer up the looms to work out lengths etc then I can finish them properly... I will then hook them up to my test harness so I can power up the gearbox and selector unit to make sure they and the loom works before installing it in the car ready for when I get around to fitting the box Lastly I painted the intake pipework a gloss black but... the paint started to react for some reason so after a lot of faffing I stripped it all back down to bare aluminium again to start again... as I needed to drive the car I fitted it in the scotch bright finish and tbh... I kinda like it being silver rather than black... So I think I will paint the intake, charge pipe and inlet all the same silver <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
dale p 62 Posted September 19, 2021 Report Share Posted September 19, 2021 hows the audi going Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted September 19, 2021 Author Report Share Posted September 19, 2021 1 minute ago, dale p said: hows the audi going All going well so far... have done a few more bits and bobs that I plan to post up about soon... just waiting on parts as per usual One thing that did take me by surprise was the effect on the coolant heat... I know that VR's tend to run a little hot anyway but even when I had the 20v in at 620hp the standard rad and cooling setup kept that at 90 degrees all day long... but for whatever reason if I go for a bit of spirited driving the water temps get to 100 (have seen 104 deg in the logs) pretty quickly and of course as I still use the oil/coolant heat exchanger the oil temps start getting higher than I would like for a road based car... To remedy this I have a CFS radiator on its way and I also plan to fit an oil cooler and do away with the OE oil/water setup... I have also been working on the DSG stuff a bit more... decided rather than mod the 8L gear lever trim to fit the 8P trim I would mod the 8P trim to fit the 8L to give it a more OE look... Little more work to do but so far its looking like it will work out nicely I have also painted a few bits in the bay Need to paint the inlet now to match but that will get done when I do the rad as the front needs to come of anyway I have a few updates lined up but they are only partially complete so will post once they are all done <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
dale p 62 Posted September 19, 2021 Report Share Posted September 19, 2021 yea they run hot, all looking good tho just need to enjoy it Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted September 26, 2021 Author Report Share Posted September 26, 2021 Small update on progress and ongoing 'projects'... The charge pipe got some tabs welded on so that I could make a support bracket to hold it in place As ali is notorious for stress fracturing from vibration I decided to use isolating bobbins to try and mitigate that... Added and extra strap to help with support... I still need to make a second bracket for the other tab but as yet not had the time to work out where that will go as its a little less straight forward... but will update once I have done that.. Obviously I have now had a chance to paint the charge pipe and apply the obligatory OEM charge pipe warning label Another 'work in progress' is the trim for the DSG gear selector lever... the 8P trim has a plated metal finish and I was struggling to get the transition sanded out so it wouldn't show through the paint so resorted to using a plastic filler.. This appears to have worked out... The mod is still not finished as I need to secure the leather gaiter to the mounting ring (normally stapled) but even my heavy duty stapler is not really managing to get staples through the plastic mounting ring so I have some Evo Stick on its way... One thing that reared its head now that the engine is turbo charged relates to the brakes... more specifically how the vacuum in the servo disappears quite quickly when having a spirited drive... this will potentially get worse once I go DSG and VAG actively fit electric vacuum pumps to auto's so a little research ensued and picked up this... This was from a Mk4 Golf but they are still fitting these to more modern cars like A1's and the like... further searching about for how these are actually fitted netted a Self Study pdf (SSP 257) dedicated to the vacuum pump in question... Seems it runs in one of two modes... Open loop... this is where the ECU guestimates the 'vacuum' available and kicks the pump in as needed... ...and closed loop... this is where the ECU actually uses a sensor to measure vacuum and will kick in the pump when required... Both setups use manifold vacuum as well so the systems supplement each other... I plan to use closed loop control as I can use a MAP sensor to measure vacuum and then set Ignitron to switch the pump on and off as required feed from the MAP sensor (separate to the main ECU MAP sensor I should add) The idea will be to kick the pump in when vacuum drops to around 60kpa (600mbar absolute, ambient pressure at sea level is around 990mbar) and turn it off at around 20kpa... although this change once installed and being tested... of course Ignitron being Ignitron will allow me to log the pressure and I believe also the actuation of the pump so I can fine tune this I just need to make up a bracket, get some isolating bobbins to stop any potential for vibration through the chassis and hook it all up... that will happen when I make a start on the next 'major' project... ...fitting a CFS alloy radiator... as my coolant temps are getting a little out of control when the car is pushed... VR's do have a reputation of running hotter than most engines but I am seeing over 100deg coolant temps with the fans running and this in turn effects the oil temps so I will be fitting this rad first then looking at an oil cooler later... Last show and tell for now is the mods to the fuel rail.... now being a big tart this is purely a cosmetic mod and serves no other purpose at all... as you can see from the previous engine bay pic the fuel hoses are looking a little 'untidy' so had planned to get some decent nylon sleeved fuel line to replace it... I just couldn't find a way to terminate the ends that would look 'right' soooo I bagged some stainless -6AN to 1/8npt adaptors... I could have got some bung type fittings but they are a round profile and not machined for a spanner... I cut off the ends of the OE tails and cut/drilled out the fittings so they would snug over... They just need welding on now (something my mate has done on fuel rails before so it should all work fine without spontaneously combusting) I am using PTFE -6AN fuel hose and so need the 'special' PTFE fittings... given this is essentially just to replace the fuel feed and fuel return hose in the engine bay there are some 75 quids worth of fittings required <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted November 7, 2021 Author Report Share Posted November 7, 2021 (edited) Bill has kindly given me a corner out of the crappy weather so I can do some work on the S3... CFS radiator, vr6 PAS pipework and the fuel rail plus the vacuum pump will be going in over the next couple of weekends... I had an issue with one of the GSF fans (new at the time of fitting the VR6 in)... I had been getting quite a large vibration from the fan when they were on and turns out that the larger fan was the culprit and the blade assembly had come loose ...so a bit of locktight later and it (and did the smaller fan too) was sorted... The CFS rad is quite a bit thicker than the OE rad.... Also being a fabricated product the tolerances were a little out in places... Nothing a little filing can't sort out... with all that sorted I fitted the fan pack... Next job was to sort the PAS pipework.... I used the 20v pipework when I originally fitted the VR but due to the way the engine tilts forward its got a habit of hitting things... Also the feed hose from the reservoir was modded as best I could at the time to try and clear the alternator that was more forward now.... I had to cable tie it out the way to clear the pulley... when I bought the 4 motion gear box I also grabbed the PAS lines... so now fitted those... I didn't get a pic of the feed hose but the 4 motion one clears the alternator by miles now... the only issue now is that the run to the rack goes a different way to the S3 pipe... this means I need to sort a bracket out for it to secure it properly... I think I will be needing to change the PAS pipework again once I get the DSG box on but that's a problem for when that happens During the last week I worked on the inlet manifold and headlights (as they were getting a little misty)... sanded down the powder coat... ...followed by some etch primer, Simoniz's best wheel silver and a few coats of clear lacquer... Next up was the headlights... Used the same lacquer on the headlights too... I then swapped out the fuel rail to the AN fittings one and fitted the mani... Then came the 'fun' part.... I knew the aircon would be an issue with the position of the dryer canister... ...so some tactical modding later and.... I now need to mod the front clip lol.... Ah well... joys of modding cars right? <tuffty/> Edited November 7, 2021 by tuffty Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted November 11, 2021 Author Report Share Posted November 11, 2021 I have taken some time off work to get the car into a drivable state... fitting the CFS rad and keeping the aircon has been a bit of a challenge and that challenge hasn't ended yet!... When trying to secure the slam panel properly it was evident that some more modding was required... first task was to mod the slam panel itself.. this required a couple of cut outs to allow the repositioned dryer canister to 'fit'... (it's still jeffing tight!!!) Once done it allowed the rad pack to fit properly into the slam panel... offering it back up to the car though highlighted another area that needed a trim... Sorted!!... I hope this rad does what it needs to do and sort the cooling issues out lol With the front end mostly together the final clearance issues became clearer... the larger fan is very very close to throttle body and I am hoping that the very small amount of engine rock I do have won't be an issue... the aircon pipe that the smaller fan managed to chew through before is again touching the fan... and the only other thing I have noticed so far is that the lower charge pipe is also touching the small fan at the bottom... sigh!... Was expecting it tbh as the rad pushes stuff more than you realise back into the engine bay and the VR6 is a very forward leaning engine.... I will get the car up on stands tomorrow and address these issues along with finishing up the PAS pipework Next task was to make up the 6AN PTFE fuel lines... I have made up the lines from the filter to the fuel rail feed... and the return... I still need to make up the line from the tank connection to the bottom of the filter but don't have all the bits just yet... Getting there... almost looks like a car again <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted November 12, 2021 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2021 Didn't feel like I got much done today but progress is progress.... First up was to address the power steering 'cooler'... the S3 one that loops around the front of the engine forms part of the return circuit for the PAS... on most 1.8t's the return goes from the rack and straight into the fluid reservoir but on the S3 and other K04 turbo'd 1.8t's there is an extra loop for additional 'cooling' capacity... this pipe ('L' shaped) was not fitting too well as it was with the VR but now I have changed to the 4-motion PAS pipework its even more in the way (although as it turns out the 4-motion pipework needs repositioning as it hangs too low using the S3 mount point)... I plan to fit a proper PAS cooler later but I also want to fit an oil cooler at some point too so rather work out where all that lot is going to go at the same time... Given that the VR produces less exhaust heat and I tend not to drive the car hard that much I felt ok removing the front 'L' loop and replacing it with a shorter version... I cut a piece off the old S3 PAS pipework and cleaned it up... ...mig'd beads on the end and painted it (obvs) ...then fitted it to the hoses... This is the low pressure return side of the PAS so this should be fine and no different to how I was running the original pipework... its just shorter now I do need to get a p-clip and fix it properly but I need the car on a ramp to do brackets for the high pressure side I replaced earlier so will sort it all out then.. While the car was up on stands I checked where the aircon hose was hitting the fan to see if I could cable tie it out the way... turns out I cannot as the angle the hose comes out the back of the pump is the reason it is now hitting The charge pipe was also hitting the small fan at the bottom... the clearance was tight before but the rad has closed that gap to the point the silicon joiner hits it This basically means I need to pull the front again and make some tactical 'changes' to the aircon and boost pipes... ah well job for tomorrow... Lastly I fitted and plumbed up the vac pump... Used rivnuts to allow me to bolt it on... then piped it up in a 'functional' manner... I do plan to tidy that a bit now I know what I have to play with but this will work... just not that pretty Not wired it up as yet but it will fail over to manifold vacuum regardless... the pump is designed to supplement the vacuum as required Hoping the aircon and boost pipe issues will be simple fixes and that I can finally fill the cooling system and get the engine started... hopefully with no leaks from either the coolant, PAS or fuel systems... seeing as I have taken all three fluid bearing things apart and replaced pipes!!... lol <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted November 15, 2021 Author Report Share Posted November 15, 2021 So here we are again... front off the car to sort out some the 'minor' problems of the aircon pipe and charge pipe clearance.... The aircon pipe needs to have a straighter exit from the back of the pump as its current angle means it just goes straight into the fan... ...a bit of tactical persuasion later.... Yay!... I then slotted the fan pack mounts a bit so I could lift it up a little higher to gain some space for the charge pipe and reassembled the front end... with a bit of jostling about of the clip mounts I got the clearance I needed for the charge pipe.. the larger fan is a little closer than before to the throttle body but clearance is clearance so I call that a win... Topped up the expansion bottle and and PAS fluid reservoir then fired the old girl up... coolant took a bit of bleeding tbh which also involved me taking the car outside to try and dislodge any air still in the system... this however was made more 'interesting' by the power steering that suddenly decided it was no longer going to be 'powered'... oddly bleeding up was fine and there was plenty of fluid in the reservoir but it seems like the pump had packed up... Thankfully I had a spare! This fixed the problem so not really sure what happened to the old pump... but happy days all the same Happy that the car is mobile again... the CFS rad appears to be doing its thing and I have so far not managed to get it over 90 degrees in Mexico... I need to do a few more tests as the CFS rads have a habit of 'over' cooling (I guess they are better in an environment where the engines being spanked all the time) but so far I get low to mid 80's just driving about and high 80's under load... Next job will be to get the wiring in for the DSG and the vacuum pump... I have most of the bits I need but not 100% convinced on the check valves I bought... I think I will need to remove the OE one by the servo as the valve seems so restrictive that it cannot generate enough 'suck' to open the OE valve upstream... I have a spare OE valve somewhere so will have a faff as there is plenty of vac being generated before the valve... All in all not a bad few weeks work... the CFS rad might be a little over kill but coolant and oil temps are definitely benefitting from it and the DSG cooler will only add to the heat loading of the coolant when that goes in... The AN lines tidy the fuel delivery up nicely... The painted mani now matches the rest of the silver items in the bay... along with the obligatory OE sticker of course.. ...and recently fitted a Funk Motorsport wastegate blanket... All in all I am well happy with the engine bay now... while obviously not as OEM as the 20v it has the clean OE look I had envisioned... ...and on the subject of OEM and DSG... ...its not perfect and not 100% sure how the lever will align given the tight space of the trim panel vs the practicalities of getting the display and gaiter in but happy with the result and of course I have a plan 'B' and a plan 'Z' too just in case <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted November 20, 2021 Author Report Share Posted November 20, 2021 Thought it would be a good idea to crack on with sorting the brakes as it seems a fairly good idea for a 1.5tonne 500hp car to have some Made up the loom for the vac pump... Routed the cabling through the main loom to pick up where I had wiring for the second MAP sensor I had originally planned to use for the Color MFA... ...and spliced the MAP wiring in.. The sensor wire is already next to the ECU so I just need to add that in and configure the input to be able to see the vacuum in the servo line... I have not done that as yet as I need to route a few more wires to and from the ECU so will do all that in one hit later on... Next up was to clean up the tubing and remove the OE check valve from its location next to the servo to relocate near the vac pump... and it was then that I realised what the braking issue was!!! ..ah!... if only I had access to a smoke tester or something! (which I do have by the way just to be clear lol) Soooooo... I replaced that with silicon vac hose and rejigged the pipework by the vac pump... I have also relocated the WMI nozzle as the route my charge pipe is now meant the old location would have been pre FMIC... A bit more off the list... next I plan to get the rest of the wiring I need to do to get the DSG loom in and all the other odds and sods I need to get the additional electrics squared away... ...after I have sorted this little gem that greeted me this morning... *sigh* <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted November 21, 2021 Author Report Share Posted November 21, 2021 Grabbed some time in-between playing BF 2042 to hook up the wiring for the vac pump MAP sensor... Added the senor input to ECU pin 11 as a User defined input This then popped up the relevant menu item in the sensors section and scaled it to be the same as the main MAP sensor (they are the same 3bar sensor) ....and took a quick trip to Mexico to get some data and also to check the coolant temps now the CFS rad is on... Obviously the main fix to the brakes was fixing the split pipes and ultimately the vac pump is more to support the DSG box going forward... looking at the data from the logging I have done so far it seems that on average the vac holds at about 30/35 kpa... even on a full foot off deceleration where measured vac hits 20kpa (sensor reads down to 17kpa) it will climb back to 30 ish without using the brakes... I can report that the brake issue has now gone... I don't have the pedal jump up on letting off the throttle and the brakes feel much much better braking hard from speed.. Its at this time that one could question why I would need a vac pump at all but because I plan to go DSG and during the gear changes the throttle doesn't close nearly as much as it does changing gear with a manual box there is the potential to lose vacuum when driving in a spirited manner being on and off the brakes and with little vacuum available during acceleration the vacuum would take longer to build back up... this of course is not the best scenario with a 1.5tonne 500hp car... I will wire the output to the pump later when I do the rest of the wiring I need for the DSG etc... As for the coolant temps... as you can see it hit a max of 81.6deg during the run... this is around where the stat opens (82 deg stat on a VR apparently) ... the max temp I hit was 85 deg on the whole log (some 20mins worth of data)... so what I think is happening is that the engine will come up to temp... the stat opens and the substantially increased cooling ability of the CFS rad is just too good to allow the coolant temps to get much above the stat's rating... Happy enough with that tbh as I will be adding more heat soon from the DSG cooler so nice to have that over head... Oil temps seem to be ok too at the moment and saw 91deg max in the log... this is quite promising as I still use the OE oil/water heat exchanger and it seems that the oil's heat is neither influencing the coolant temps nor the coolant temps influencing the oil temps in the way they were before so will keep an eye on that too for the time being... I also took the opportunity to hook up my boost gauge... I was going to hook up the WMI pressure switch too but tbh I think I will use Ignitron to switch the WMI as I am not sure the boost switch has the resolution to operate at the lower boost pressure I currently run... One last thing I noticed on the log is how rich the AFR is on full chat... I must admit I hadn't really done much to the lambda target table under boost conditions as the default settings are pretty decent but looking abck at a few other logs it is definately running richer than I need given my EGT's measured at the hotside of the turbo are less than they were on the 20v measured at the downpipe (where they are generally cooler) I have made some tweaks to the lambda target map and will do some logging in the week to make sure nothing untoward happens as a result but pretty confident in where I have it so should be reet... Progress <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted November 26, 2021 Author Report Share Posted November 26, 2021 Bunch of parts that have turned up this week for sorting stuff out on the car... A pair of brand new TRW rear calipers (with audi logo's as they are an OE supplier) that cost £35 each in the Autodoc Black Friday sale.... new pads for the rear (just std Brembo jobbers), Mintex M1155's for the front, new rear brake lines, RBF600 fluid, brand new aircon pump, brand new aircon dryer and a cabin panel filter Just need to find the time to do this lot lol <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
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