C6 S6 - JHM overhaul

A6 All/ S6 All
#1

Well, tomorrow is the big day - taking the car to JHM for an extended stay. I wanted to start a new thread for this so I can hopefully provide a whole rundown on the process as it goes, and the results.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I should mention it again, that thus far JHM’s customer service has been nothing short of spectacular. They’ve gone way above and beyond to answer all my questions, offer suggestions, and help me get my car into their shop. I really can’t speak highly enough of their communication, every company should operate like they do.

Follow this thread for updates as they happen!

Any folks here from JHM, feel free to chime in on this thread as well, I won’t mind :wink:

#2

Update 7/27/2016

Now that JHM has had a chance to look over the whole car, we’ve come up with a game plan. Here are their findings, and the work we’re planning to do:

Front/Rear brakes
Mine are shot (grooved & warped), so JHM is installing their lightweight rotor kits on all 4 corners, which will reduce the rolling weight by ~31lbs in front and ~10lbs in the back. This is an item that I was hesitant about for a while, concerned that the money could be better spent on a different upgrade/repair, but JHM is confident that this is a huge upgrade and shouldn’t be skipped, so we’re moving forward with it. New Hawk HPS pads will also be installed.

Transmission
I’ve never been real happy with the feel of my transmission, it just feels a little slippery/slow and also has the infamous ZF lurch while in sport mode. JHM didn’t find anything specifically wrong as far as I know, but they’ll be doing a fluid flush to see if that helps. I’m not sure if a TCU tune has been developed yet, I keep forgetting to ask.

Fluid & Vac leaks
There were no major fluid leaks, but as would be expected on a 120k-mile car, there are a few minor ones to be addressed. Crankshaft seal, water pump, upper radiator hose, oil pan seal, coolant reservoir, valve cover gaskets, and vent hoses (oil separator to valve cover & crank case to MAF hose) are all being replaced. The vent hoses were a major contributing factor for the lean mixture codes and rough cold idle. Later in the project, it was also discovered that the oil cooler was leaking, so this needed to be replaced as well.

Suspension
My front suspension is toast, which I already knew. They are rebuilding it with a Meyle control arm/tie rod kit, then doing an alignment.

Engine
Coil packs are dated 2009, so they are being replaced. The fuel injectors tested fine, so I think we’ve decided to leave those alone for the time being. The spark plugs were soaked in oil from the bad valve cover gaskets, and probably needed to be replaced anyways, so they’re putting in NGK Laser Platinum plugs. Replacing the fuel filter. My accessory belt was shreddded, so they’re replacing that and installing a JHM belt tensioner. Also a JHM lightweight crank pulley. Performing a carbon cleaning, installing the JHM 8mm intake spacers, and flashing the ECU with a JHM beta tune. Near the end of the project, 2 engine mount were found to be in bad shape. One was completely broken/separated, the other leaking fluid. Being a less-critical and quite expensive item, I opted to replace just the severely broken one for the time being.

Various
Some of the rain trays and such were either broken or missing, so they’re installing new ones to protect everything, especially the ECUs.

It’s a lot of work, but I’m happy to be taking care of it all at once. The car is definitely in good hands, JHM has been spectacular to work with and I can tell they’re excited to start digging into this project! As I mentioned before, I’m letting them use the car for R&D to develop some new ideas for these cars, so it’ll be interesting to see where this leads. I’m also very excited to see the difference in my car, I’m guessing it will be like night and day. Should be a great example of what these cars are capable of with good maintenance and proper upgrades!

#3

reserved for delivery report

#4

reserved for long-term report, performance numbers, etc.

#5

Good luck. Would be interested to know if there are any other s6 or s8 in the shop

Your car should be ready to haul ass once maint is up to date, and the beta tunes are applied

#6

Look forward to hearing the updates and seeing what the secrets are about later on.

#7

I can’t wait - it already hauls some pretty good ass, and I know it’s leaving a LOT on the table in its current state. Between the error codes, the slippery trans, the carbon buildup, and who knows what else, there’s a lot of room for improvement. The JHM upgrades will be icing on the cake, should be a brand new car when it’s done.

Once JHM has done an inspection, I should have a much better idea of what to expect, and what I can afford to upgrade. If the repair bill alone is too high then I won’t have a lot of headroom to experiment with upgrades, so crossing my fingers that there’s nothing too major that needs to be addressed.

#8

Dropped her off this morning, JHM is going to perform a full inspection and advise me on what needs repair before we move forward with performance enhancements. This way I know how much budget to allocate to what.

Impressed with the JHM staff and facility, though I didn’t tour the inner workings of the shops. The place is huge. Lots of S-series audis on-site, and I believe they said they have another S6 there right now as well.

Will post an update once the inspection is done and a plan is established.

#9

Status report from JHM’s preliminary inspection today:

[quote]On the initial inspection, the technician found the following fault codes stored on ECU

008585 - Bank 2; System too Lean at Idle
P2189 - 004 - - MIL ON

008583 - Bank 1; System too Lean at Idle
P2187 - 004 - - MIL ON

We will need to look into these fault codes further. We also found a few other items that may need to be addressed.

*The coil packs are from 2009 and the spark plugs also look to be in need of replacement. We recommend that the coil packs and spark plugs be replaced. This will also need to be done for the ECU tuning.

*There was oil in the spark plug hoses on both banks. This is because the valve cover gaskets are leaking. These will need to be replaced. There may also be oil in the girdle seats. We will know more at a later time.

*The accessory belts are ripped and will need to be replaced. Because of the mileage we recommend that the belts and belt components be replaced.

*The technician found that the front crank seal is leaking oil. It may also be masking an oil leak from the oil pan. We will need to repair it first before we can assess if the oil pan is leaking.

*The water pump is leaking

*The front brake pads are at 10% life left and the rotors have a grove in them. The pads and rotors will need to be replaced.

*The rear brake pads are at 15% and the rotor will need to also be replaced.

*The front control arm bushings are torn and will need to be replaced with a full front end suspension rebuild.

*The fuel filter looks to be the original unit and will need to be replaced for tuning.

*The coolant expansion tank has cracked. This can cause coolant leaks under pressure and will need to be replaced.

*We will also recommend that the cabin filter be replaced.

Upon delivery of the car we noticed that the driver side headlight cap is missing and the passenger side headlight lens is broken. These items were damage when the car arrived.

Under the hood, we noticed that the ECU covers are missing and will need to be replaced due to rain.

I will be building a quote for you with the above items replaced that have been recommended. I will also include a transmission service so that we can rule out something that would be considered simple for the transmission problem you stated the car was having.
[/quote]
Sounds like there’s going to be a fair bit of work involved before we look into any upgrades, hopefully I’ll have money left to put some fun stuff into this car!

#10

Jezzzz it is a lot stuff:(

#11

Great updates keep it comming. This is a great tread and Ill continue to give you karma marks. I think this is very important for everyone to see. These cars can run very well for a long time and not show too many signs of issues even tho there are small issues creeping up.

Can you post any of your pre exsisting codes and issues before you dropped it off to JHM. Did you say the car had misfires as well. It will be interesting to see all of the issues and what things needed to get replaced. Service is a big big part of having good performance.

It is good to see thats a good range of things looked at on the inspection

You will find a lot of guys saying the same thing you said about JHM. They are very passionate about the cars they are involved with. Its good to see JHM getting involved in the v10 cars because once JHM gets involved they tend to really put development time and parts into the platform. The one thing that everyone knows about JHM when they step in to make performance and performance parts for a platform they only do so to be #1

Performance wise JHM holds all the records for performance in the markets they get involved in. It gets a lot of people very excited… Well everyone except for the very few who dont go with JHM performance parts.

Interesting thread keep the updates coming.

#12

Plus one Justin!

And Maint over mods! On this car without maint there is no performance!

Glad you are focusing on rebaselining of sorts!

#13

Thanks guys, I’ll definitely post updates as they happen. Priority number one is definitely getting all the maintenance items resolved before anything else. Above all else, I want this car to last me for a long time. Everything else is just icing on the cake. I’m definitely confident the car is in good hands, much better hands than they’d be in if I was pulling this thing apart in my garage myself.

Yes, I had a cylinder 4 misfire code when I scanned it myself a few weeks ago, but I didn’t clear it so I don’t know if it was just a one-time fluke or not. I wanted all the codes it logged to still be in there for when JHM scanned it.

Anyone know what kind of damage I’m looking at for the front suspension rebuild? That’s that part that concerns me the most at the moment. JHM is working on a quote for everything right now, but just wondering if anyone has any insight while I sit here biting my nails haha.

Oddly, the car still handles great despite the destroyed front suspension. It just has a hard time keeping a straight line, and feels a little funny going over slow bumps. Regardless, it’s getting fixed no matter what it takes, I don’t want to drive a car that I know has suspension issues.

#14

For all the front control arms there’s a good thread here that goes over it. There’s quite a few links/arms so it’s not a ‘small’ job.

http://audirevolution.net/forum/index.php?topic=3815.0

For the Brake maintenance, easy excuse to go with the 2-piece JHM rotors and decent pads :slight_smile:

#15

Yes, it’s a complex and time consuming control arm setup. Uppers and lowers, I am trying to remember if there like like 8 arms if I recall correctly on each side -

#16

Oh boy… well once I get the quote I’ll come up with a plan of attack. I definitely want the suspension rebuild since I’ve always hesitated to push my car too hard around corners, worried that something will finally break completely and I’ll fly off the road. It’s not a fun a car to drive if you have to be gentle.

Agreed about the brakes - if I need to replace the rotors and pads anyways, it’ll be worth the upgrade while I’m at it. I always suspected at least one of my discs was bad, because as I drive I can always here a “tsh tsh tsh tsh tsh tsh tsh” sound coming from the wheel area.

#17

Happy for you Scott, you sound like a new dad in the waiting area of th delivery room. I hope you can squeeze in a few upgrades after the maintenance is all addressed.

#18

Hafa so true smith. Good stuff. Our toys are our babies to an extent right?!

#19

Your totally doing it the right way. Again since there was no real S6 excitment you guys are really helping set the standard because in the past people just get these cars and sell them out of frustration. Well if you dont do the maintance the car is going to fall apart the car will start having all kinds of issues that snow ball. Now these cars have close to 100k miles and most of the time no real maintenance. just oil change maybe breaks and some other fluids.

Now at the miles your going to see on these cars you have to look at

The

Fuel filter
plugs
coil packs
Fuids in the transmission and even breaks
inspect the intake
You know the suspension control arms and bushings are shot
carbon clean
inspect the PCV system and the valve cover gaskets.
check the acc belt and the pulley system
check all the vac lines

when you do them over several years the car will never see any issues but if you dont you kinda get forced to do them all at once. But as we have mentioned a well maintained car is a car you can get 200k and more miles out of.

The best part is you can do the breaks and add performance rotors and do the carbon clean and get the intake spacers. So everything your needing to fix you can add more performance while adding better parts.

#20

JHM is working hard to keep me within budget, so I’ve decided it’s not really fair for me to publish specific pricing here, I’ll just focus on the maintenance work and upgrades that are being done and leave pricing out of it. If anyone needs specific prices on anything, I’m sure anyone at JHM would be happy to provide it.

I’ve got the list of maintenance items that need to be addressed, and it’s about what I expected:
-Trans flush
-crank, valve cover, and oil pan seals
-water pump
-accessory belts
-spark plugs, coil packs, & fuel injectors
-carbon clean
-front control arms & tie rods
-all 4 brake discs & pads
-fuel filter
-coolant expansion tank
-oil change
-vent hoses
-some various little odds and ends

As far as upgrades that we’re looking into:
-Intake spacers
-ECU tune
-Front & rear rotors
-lightweight crank pulley
-Possibly TCU tune, if available

I also let JHM know that they can use the car for a a few weeks to use as a guinnea pig to develop or test new ideas, it would be awesome if this project nets some new discoveries for all of us.

I’ll update once we’ve got a game plan put together, some items I may need to skip to stay within budget, but we’ll see.