Newbie in town

[k16eof]

Really hard thinking of something to open with other than Hi. Oh well

So the car, A daily hack, Audi A4 2.8 quattro. 99 (facelift B5)(pics to follow in 9 posts time ). Exchanged a lovely Audi 16v Coupe for it back in March. Not really a "seriously into it" car nut, unless it's Audi's:toung:.

I have tinkered with it abit and added a full custom exhaust with twin hi-flow sports cats, uprated the plugs and leads and air filter, swiss cheesed the airbox and put a set of 18" wheels on. Nothing spectacular I know but i like it that way. It still has the original Concert stereo in it, all the original interior/exterior parts. I must admit, i have just purchased a set of tower led's to replace my slightly yellow light giving sidelights. Will compliment the ultrabright HID or xenon or whatever you want to call em, quite nicely. Having silly ideas of putting the Audi running lights in my lense's, but so far nothing put into action.

Have plans to do a dimming exterior door handle light conversion though, like on BMW's. Unlock the car with the remote, the door handles light up gradually like the interior. Just wire a small bulb in each handle into the interior lighting circuit. I want to use LED's, but they will just work on or off, no fade, unless i buy more electronic gismos to wire in. Also looking at a puddle light from a short LED strip. It already has the red door light, so the puddle LED's will wire into that circuit. No need to do the footwell lights as already has them

Cheers for reading

G

 

[Prince]

Alright mate, welcome to TorqueCars!! Your A4 sounds nice! I'll look forward to the pics! I'm interested in the twin cats...how does that work?

 

[obi_waynne]

Hi mate, nice to have a fellow Audi nut on board. I'm curious to see your air box mods - thinking of doing that myself on my A3!

Looking forwards to seeing your pictures - the A4's are visually nicely balanced.

Pgarner smoothed out his airbox inside and this gave better flow - might be worth you looking into if you've not done so already.

The running lights would look awesome.

 

[k16eof]

Alright mate, welcome to TorqueCars!! Your A4 sounds nice! I'll look forward to the pics! I'm interested in the twin cats...how does that work?

Twin I meant two cats not the furry critters with claws, teeth and eyes that glow at night

Only 4 more posts till i can post pics :blink1:

Thanks for the welcome guys. Airbox mods are very straight forward. You need some holes at the front and a couple less at the rear and several on the wing side. Non engine side. This 30v comes with a duct from the front grille at std but i wanted to increase the airflow even more. Not thought about smoothing out the inside of it thou. makes good sense.

Running lights, i think it's a good idea, but just look at BMW's angel eyes. All the chavs have em and i have a feeling the same will become of the LED running lights. :sad2:

 

[pgarner]

hey and welcome k16eof.

yeah smoothing the airbox has made mine feel more responsive. ive still to get the laptop to record the new airflow, the ones ive put up on the other thread where after smoothing just the bottom half of the box ive now done the top as well. thinking about getting a metal plate fitted to make it really smooth

yeah your can get the oem running lights off vagparts. or you can get the cheepo flexable versions off ebay which are starting to appear on a lot of cars and not looking that nice

 

[thexav]

Lexus lights look good on Lexus and Audi running lights look good on Audi. I would still get them anyways.

 

[k16eof]

Thanks folks. I have met and spoken to Martyn from VAGparts and he says the RS6 lights seem popular atm with audi drivers. £150 odd a set still tho. Even though i have drilled my airbox, i may well go down the smoothening route too. If I take it further with the tuning, I'll be looking at more agressive cams with a pp and rematch. Have got ideas about installing and a PSE charger too. second hand for around 1500 new incl shipping 3k+ OMG.

 

[obi_waynne]

I've recently been thinking of a supercharger Plus turbo to reduce the low down lag.

Can't get my head round the air intake route though. Should the supercharger push the air through the airbox or suck it through and should it go parallel to the turbo or in series?

 

[k16eof]

I've recently been thinking of a supercharger Plus turbo to reduce the low down lag.

Can't get my head round the air intake route though. Should the supercharger push the air through the airbox or suck it through and should it go parallel to the turbo or in series?

I can't yet link you, though a guy on the forum in my previous post has superchrarged his 2.8 Coupe. He did however, swap the 12v for the 30v at the same time. Major Project but doable.

 

[obi_waynne]

Thanks for the info. Inspiration is all I need. Now to find a 30v engine and the hard part - convince the wife!

 

[k16eof]

Thanks for the info. Inspiration is all I need. Now to find a 30v engine and the hard part - convince the wife!

Did you find his post??
Go for an APR 30v, iirc correctly they were the best of 2.8 lumps (Not just being biased either :cheesy convincing the wife however, is something that no man can help you with :bigsmile::bigsmile:

Going back a few posts here, afaik, a supercharger should be all you need. The boost is constant throughout the rev range unlike the way turbos work. A full hi-flow Cat system too would help as you'll be clearing the air out quicker too.

 

[k16eof]

Sorry guy's, I nearly forgot about this post. Here's some pics of my air box mod.


Just in case you can't find it
http://www.torquecars.com/forums/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=213

Nice Clean MAF!!!!

Ok, now we're getting to it!

5 Minutes later!

Back in situ.

Anyone know what the ? is for???

As you can see, it really needs a good smoothening. Whats the best way to do this?? usual sandpaper techniques??

One thing that I have noticed, and I don't know if this because of the swiss cheese effect, but i have lost some of the power I used to have at high revs. The power has certainly moved down the rev range, but i was hoping to keep the top end at peak too. It's not so bad getting up there, more of when your cruising and drop it down, I might as well stay in fifth

On another note, I fitted some really subtle window deflectors so that i can have the window slightly open, without recking the economy. Before you say anything, they are not the horrible clear perspex ones either.


Here take a look for your selves.

 

[obi_waynne]

Thanks for posting that up k16eof an interesting problem the loss of power at the top end.

2 ways to smooth -
1 get an orbital sander in there or do it the hard way by hand.
2 Get a sheet of sticky film (like the fake carbon fibre strips) and lay this inside the air box.

(Don't forget to smooth out the top half as well! Get rid of all of the dust generated as well - you really don't want plastic fragments burning/melting inside the engine.)

I like the window deflectors, where did you get them from?

 

[k16eof]

Using Blue Peter sticky back plastic, is a good idea. might be easier than trying to sand it all back:bigsmile:

I have a broken rocker cover breather hose that i have gaffered taped up so that might be the cause of the loss of power. It is already on order from VAGparts so i will see if that's the cause when i replace it. otherwise i might have drilled my airbox wrongly:embarrest:

The deflectors are from a shop on Ebay http://stores.ebay.co.uk/J-J-automo...o=CRX&its=S%2BI%2BSS&itu=ISS%2BUCI%2BSI&otn=4.

I am also going for a 25-30% window tint all round. will set the car off nicley and still keep it within the law. Law states that a 70% light infiltration must be acheived when window tinting the front passenger windows and IMHO it would look better having the same level of tint allround on my saloon. The Avants it would probably look better with two tone tints:blink1:

Am also reading up on the old NOS. When I was at Castle Combe for an owners club track day, i really felt that i wanted that extra boost to keep up with the M3's and the like and it will only be for this occasion as there are far too many cars on public roads nowadays to use it safely for everyday use. Besides £50-£80 refills for what, 10 minutes usage? is really not worth it. But would be great fun to use on the track:cheesy:

 

[pgarner]

watch out with the tints. the fronts might alreay be tinted.
re airbox i tried with a sander and it just melted the plastic. i used a chisel at each join, and scored across the bottom with a stanley a few times then snap them off. then went over with some wet and dry paper ( had no sandpaper lying about ) until it was smooth. im still thinking about fitting vinyl to smooth it just a bit more.

 

[k16eof]

watch out with the tints. the fronts might alreay be tinted.
re airbox i tried with a sander and it just melted the plastic. i used a chisel at each join, and scored across the bottom with a stanley a few times then snap them off. then went over with some wet and dry paper ( had no sandpaper lying about ) until it was smooth. im still thinking about fitting vinyl to smooth it just a bit more.

That's great advice on one way to smoothen the box
I think the vinyl would really finish it off as sanding plastic, can only go so far.:sad2:

Good point on the tints. I think there is only a 5% if anything on these. A good tint shop should be able to advise. I did tints years ago before the law cottened on and i remember they were such a PITA to fit. All that cutting and washing and wetting and squeegieing, I'm going to get them done properly this time. Looks way better if they are sprayed rather than using the film. They will often remove the windable windows so that the finish is that much better.