Hey guys, so in my quest to hit 11s I have done quite a bit of mods to the car. i am heading out to the island tonight and after reading the Stage 3 thread and Richi mentioning he may have air in the lines i want to see if that may be an issue. my laptop crapped out a few months ago so my recent trips i havent done any logging. before that Prime had said my IATS looked a bit high for having an open intake and a AWE cooler. When i first installed the CPS i used the 2 on the top of supercharger and then the 1 that is provided on the top of the rad on the AWE kit.
is there a procedure i can do before i head out tonight to insure there is no air.
thanks
For the alpha kit, the idea was to first bleed the lowest point in the system (from a vertical height perspective). Idea being that the air will always rise to the highest relative point in the circuit. This meant first bleeding the extra reservoir, then the heat exchanger, then the blower intercooler bleeders. When doing the blower bleeders, I used a large funnel extension along with tons of extra coolant plugged into the fill point of the normal overflow container. Don’t remember if I did this while idling the car, believe I did.
If you go look in the technical section, an audi tech here wrote a DIY for installing a T-stat. At the end, he described how to properly bleed the system. In addition to what I did, he ran the heater and bled the heater lines behind the false firewall. I tried to do this, but it was a PITA. http://audirevolution.net/forum/index.php?topic=3247.0 (keep in mind, this is for a non-divorced system)
After writing all that…I just realized your system is divorced, so everything having to do with the coolant overflow tank and heater loop is a waste of time. Damn. Well I wrote that all, so will just leave it there FYI. Maybe someone with the APR/AWE kit can better tell you. But like westwest has said before, he just continued to refill the system as it burped air out. So it might take a while to bleed it completely. I would recommend getting a funnel extension if possible to try and raise the fluid above the blower to help bleed the air out. Good luck.
Thank you DROB,
that thread was helpful. I will give it a try later. i will just use a gravity funnel in the AWE res and see what happens. since it has a bleed screw i will do that first, 2 on the SC second, and then go for the hose one by the windshield. have my New laptop and Vagcom ready and will do some logs tonight hopefully.
I think the one near the windshield will be useless, since you have a divorced system. The windshield one is for the heater core and is part of the engine coolant loop. The engine loop is definitely self burping by design (even though Audi techs vacuum fill it).
Someone pm richi about this thread. Maybe have a bleeding party.
Come on man…
I have an AMS system (non-divorced) that I haven’t installed yet, but I’m a water source heat pump tech that works on massive, complicated systems directly related to a closed loop circuit (ie divorced SC loop) exchanging heat with an open loop cooling tower (ie the engine loop). Though I don’t have actual hands on experience with my S4 yet.
That being said, bleeding the divorced SC loop should be super easy. The air will always try make its way to the highest point, with no weird nooks or valves to complicate things. The way I do it at work is shut down all the pumps and bleed from the highest point. Then put it back through a heat cycle, shut everything down and bleed again, until u never hear air coming out the last 2-3 times. But I get to fill the system with 40-60lbs of city water pressure…
Where does the CPS get filled from, the intercoolers up top? Can’t see how else you would get the system fully filled unless filling from the highest point. I can talk theory all do, just don’t have experience with the CPS directly…
You’ll probably have no issues installing the AMS kit from the sound of it. One recommendation would be to borrow a riv nut installer or at least make sure you understand how to make a home made solution. I realized after the install that the ECS street shield came with a riv nut tool (I was installing the shield after putting the AMS kit on…fail lol).
Regarding bleeding. You can bleed the reservoir and heat exchanger without even turning the car on. The fluid will completely fill them from the normal overflow tank. The blower bleeding I think needs to take place while the car is running. Basically, the fluid goes vertically up from down near the pump/heat exchanger to the front of the blower, then to the intercoolers. Even if you buy an extension funnel, I don’t think the air will exit the intercoolers. It may self burp itself…dunno. Another recommendation is to use a hobo freight impact screw driver on the blower bleeder screws - not an impact wrench, just a impact screw driver that spins 20 deg every time you hit it with a hammer. This prevents you from stripping the extremely soft plastic bleeder screws. See the recommendation in the thread I linked above.
My system took about an extra 8-10 oz of water in 2 fills over the three weeks after install.
You’ll probably have no issues installing the AMS kit from the sound of it. One recommendation would be to borrow a riv nut installer or at least make sure you understand how to make a home made solution. I realized after the install that the ECS street shield came with a riv nut tool (I was installing the shield after putting the AMS kit on…fail lol).
Regarding bleeding. You can bleed the reservoir and heat exchanger without even turning the car on. The fluid will completely fill them from the normal overflow tank. The blower bleeding I think needs to take place while the car is running. Basically, the fluid goes vertically up from down near the pump/heat exchanger to the front of the blower, then to the intercoolers. Even if you buy an extension funnel, I don’t think the air will exit the intercoolers. It may self burp itself…dunno. Another recommendation is to use a hobo freight impact screw driver on the blower bleeder screws - not an impact wrench, just a impact screw driver that spins 20 deg every time you hit it with a hammer. This prevents you from stripping the extremely soft plastic bleeder screws. See the recommendation in the thread I linked above.
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Cannot suggest this more than what drob said about the rivet nut tool…this was the single hardest part of the install for me because the homemade version I assembled made it very difficult to get the tank tight…I have added a little water since install as the air continues to work out of the system…I went through 3 bleed cycles before reassembling the car
When you install the AMS kit, just send me a PM and I’ll ship you the riv nut tool, then ship it back when you’re done.
Nice! +karma
Sorry OP, didn’t mean to steal ur thread…
Havent gotten around to looking up install directions on CPS, where do u fill that system from, the APR coolant seperator Kit? That doesn’t sit higher than the intercoolers though…
Yeah I’ve made home made rivet nut tools but that was for light duty aluminum ones. The ones supplied with AMS Kit are pretty serious. Thank you for the offer drob, kinda wanna own one though, but might take you up on that offer. Was planning on installing at the end of the month but I’m so over my budget that I’d feel guilty dropping any more money into my car (for tool)
From looking at pics on APRs site, it looks like the coolant seperator is mounted level with the OEM overflow so make sure the seperator is filled, then bleed from both intercoolers . If u don’t get any air from either intercooler, your good. Make sure the seperator is filled to proper level, before & after bleeding.
After looking at the intercoolers through the study guide, I came up with an idea to basically upgrade the intercoolers. It would take some fabricating, that I’m not capable of, but don’t see why it couldn’t be done. It will take me too long to copy and paste the image , so check out page#35, and the close up of the intercooler. Cold water goes in bottom, wraps back around on the top hot side. What if the cold water passed out the back of the bottom pass, got cooled down again, and comes back rechilled through the top pass. I guarantee it would be a significant decrease in IAT. I know it would require a lot of plumbing and a custom made intercooler, but heat removal is everything, could be worth it. Maybe reuse the OEM heat exchanger.
Thanks for all the help. What i did was use the bleed on the cooler first. the res is mounted higher then that one so it was no issue. i then unmounted the AWE res and propped it up so it was above the 2 SC bleeders and then did those. seems like it will worked out. i was only able to log one run since I got out a bit late and my friend who was borrowing the cable showed up even later. on that run temps looked ALOT better then in the past. ill post temps later since i forgot to pull off my laptop
Just make sure to check whether the fluid lines have gone down at all. I imagine the circuit will eventually purge any air still in there.
come on what? the guy is local to him and they’re both having the same problem.
If I may add to the thread, we bled the APR CPS at least a half dozen times and although IAT’s are around 54C peak after a run or two in 83F with 80% humidity which according to APR site and techs is on point. I feel that there’s still some air left in there. I’m not touching the reservoir cap until I go back for an oil change in a month or so. All I can say is the bleeding end of the install is the biggest pain in the butt. To boot I’m getting a small intermittent vibration in the steering wheel and floor we’ve narrowed it down to the supercharger cooling pump which is stock on B8.5’s could be that it’s working harder due to increased capacity of coolant or because it’s sucking air pockets thru the system every few seconds. It has gotten somewhat less distinct but still there, My 2c.
PS. Not trying to steal thread just adding to already educating content on it. If anyone has same issues pm me…overall happy with product but could be much better, and for the record shop and crew have been great with sorting out the issue. Overall I think it takes time to get ALL the air out of these things.
didn’t think bleeding the cps would be that much trouble, here is my experience with the apr v2 system.
I kept my system using the factory cooling loop, not divorced. I used a airlift bleeder. The system took in close to 2 gallons of coolant/water.
Driving around my coolant level warning came on the following day, i added more coolant.
Light came back on the next day again, i thought i had a leak somewhere, looked didn’t find any, added more coolant.
My level hasn’t changed since, all in all it took 2 gallons in total of fluid to get this thing completely bled out. Even the airlift didn’t completely bleed it out which surprised me.
I can see if the system is divorced that getting it bled properly is that much tougher.
I think the best way to bleed the system if divorced would be to get a brake power bleeder (motive) fill it with coolant instead, connect to the cps reservoir, pressurize the system and let it bleed out the sc bleeders to get all the air out.
Everything above was done except system is divorced and they used airlift pump from Audi… I see what you’re saying about the brake bleeder system… How are you’re IAT’s without divorcing the system?