Thanks to cstarky and justincredible for pointing me to the oil filter housing gasket as the source of my oil leak. Pulled the IM over the long holiday week.
The good news. Replaced both oil filter housing gaskets/o-rings, replaced the PCV, and replaced the coolant temp sensor while I was in there (just recently got a fault for fan control that I traced to the sensor probably starting to go bad). BTW, that knock sensor bracket caused me a lot of heartaches trying to get the IM off. Needless to say, that bracket is now gone.
The bad news, I think I damaged the upper intake manifold gasket during disassembly. Car is running like crap at idle with both cyl 5 and 10 missing quite a lot. There’s an extremely loud whistling sound coming from the interface between the IM and the throttle body duct. Just ordered the gasket and will be replacing this weekend. Luckily this is a quick fix. The really bad news, found a couple of plastic pieces in the intake runners. Looks like I’ve got some damage to the intake manifold flaps. Don’t really want to spend a couple grand right now to replace. Will have to hope the damage is not too extensive. Prior to finding this, the car was running fine except for an exhaust O2 sensor fault. Wondering if there could be any connection.
Yeah only solution is to buy the new redesigned intake manifold
I had the same issue when I had the IM off for a carbon clean. I had the flaps completely removed, waiting for an upgraded IM from JHM. The car drives fine without it, but you lose some pull on the top end.
After I tossed the flaps, I leaned that you can epoxy them in place for a little better airflow - cover the short runners for the best low end response. But now I hear that a redesigned IM is available from Audi. Still waiting to hear if that will fix the problem with the broken internal flaps…
(If you don’t want your internal flaps…)
Do yourself a favor and see if there is play in the existing gasket that you re-used. You might be able to slightly wiggle the gasket in between the throttle body and the intake. Previous owner/shop that worked on mine over-tightened the bolts and warped the intake mating surface a little so now I’m left with a similar whistle as you described. I re-tapped the two stripped bolt holes on the intake using a heli coil kit and then applied RTV to compensate for the excessive gap. Not by the book by any means, but like you I do not want to drop around 2k for an intake just yet.
So far so good after about 150ish miles and no CEL.
Good luck! Keep us updated.
SIXSIX and mixofia I read a couple of the posts discussing the new IM and it seemed that there is no definitive answer as to whether the flaps were revised. If it’s the same flap, linkages, and motors, it stands to reason that it will be damaged again. I’m leaning toward your solution mixofia of just locking the flaps in place and just hope that JHM works on a new flap (or improved IM?) design in the near future. I’ll probably order the intake spacers soon and install those. Who knows, maybe the reduction in temperature will reduce or eliminate the damage to the plastic flaps. We all know this engine runs insanely hot, and combined with heat cycling and pressure cycling, stresses a lot of parts in the engine.
Nebu, I think I recall your post about the throttle body to the duct. I actually had that problem a year ago. Some previous shop had over-torqued one screw and stripped the threads. I drilled out the old threads and ran a bolt through with a nut on the back. Problem solved. The gasket I damaged is the orange one between the upper duct, where the two throttle bodies are attached, and the IM. As I was pulling the IM, it slipped and the gasket caught a nearby connector, creating a little kink in it. I hoped that assembly would morph it back in to shape. Interesting enough, the car is running much smoother now (still haven’t replaced the gasket). I’m guessing that a couple of full temp operating cycles have flattened the gasket out again and created a better seal. Still going to replace the gasket once I get it though. I’m sure there’s probably still some air being pulled in that is throwing off the air/fuel mixture.
Is it worth replacing the oil filter gaskets while in the doing a carbon clean? I have them there ready to throw on once I get time to start the maint
Absolutely! The oil filter housing is sitting right there with easy access to the mounting bolts. There are 4 of them BTW. Took me about 15 minutes of attempting to carefully pry the housing off the block to realize there was one more bolt on the back side. The lower figure eight gasket on mine had taken a complete compression set. The cross section was square, just like to groove it is sitting in (the new one is round). No wonder it finally leaked.
Yes, it should resolve the problem. Had mine installed early last week.
Talk to JHM. This is the new manifold as redesigned by Audi corporate. The purpose of the redesign was to resolve the issues with the plastic parts as far as I know. But if you don’t need to have clear CELs to pass inspection, then may as well go with the stationary flap solution and save the money. Main reason I got one was because I needed to pass emissions inspection.
Thanks for the clarification. I’m definitely going to hold off on a new IM since I’m not getting any CELs directly related to it. And my next required emissions inspection is not until next year. I’ll keep the new IM in mind if needed to pass inspection at that time.
Glad they actually got around to redesigning at this stage in the game. Would be interested to see one cracked out and compared to the former to see what the exact changes were. Also is the p/n the same or no?
Same part# according to my JHM invoice, but you may want to call or email to double check. You can also call any Audi parts center and they should be able to see all of the same information. The part price is just cheaper with JHM and I trust them way more when it comes to anything related to this engine.