Hello everyone. I’ve been reading here for a while and i have to say that i am impressed by the information and the “lack of bad information” that is tossed around on this site. I’m on other sites and i would like to bring my build log over here and share it will all of you. I’m not a professional mechanic. Not an Expert by any means. I don’t like regurgitating information from one place to another unless i know what i am talking about. I don’t like drama. I however have built several cars and am currently building my 2005.5 s4 so here it goes! Most of my build will be budget minded. I’m in the middle of buying a house so some of the stuff i’m doing will be redone in the future when i have the extra cash laying around.
*most of this is copied from my build log on another site
Well everyone, I have been on here for a little bit and have been slowly working my way into the audi scene. I have owned a couple and my latest one is a 2005.5 s4 b6/b7 Tiptronic. I wanted a manual, but the lady can’t drive one, so I figured why not.
A little back story and what led me to buying this particular car. Erlier this year I had a vw VR6 GTI. I basically replaced everything on the engine and suspension and then it threw the timing chain 52 miles from home. Bought a long block and put it in, sold soon after. Bought a Mercedes c230. The car had some weird issue when it was cold. Traded that in for a 03 rs6. Loved that car, but between the cost of un maintained parts such as the DRC system, brakes and rotors, and it being over due on the timing belt change. …it just looked like I was getting hosed. Then I get a call from the lot asking me to come in. Long story short, deal feel through, got the Mercedes back and almost immediately took and traded it in for a 2010 A4. Seemed more practical. I had that car for a few months until a lady lost control of her car and slammed into the side of me. Insurance totaled it.
The A4 was in such good shape and the only things I had to do to it were front wheel bearings ( got the car almost 4k under book because both he and I knew what it needed) and the battery. First car I’ve had that didn’t need anything haha.
So since the A4 turned out to be a good car, I bought my s4 from the same lot. No PPI ( my fault I know) BUT I did take it for like a 45 minute test drive and put it through the places, looked everything over. The dealer actually called me wonderingwheniwas coming back.lol. The only thing I didn’t do was crawl under the car. I noted oil burning off of the downpipes
, flickering h.i.d bulb, and a popping noise when turning. For some strange reason, I just had to have the car. So i signed the initial paperwork. I remember him telling me they had just put a battery into it. Well I brought tools, scanner, multimeter etc… with me when I went to pick the car up. And after signing the finalized paperwork, I get the keys, I go out to start it and it won’t start. Battery is dead. Jumped it and it ran fine, and the multimeter showed it was charging. ( he looked surprised that the car didn’t start (riiight) Dealer then informed me that the car “had a slight valve cover gasket leak”. I drove the car about 40 or 50 Miles home and the car dumped about quart of oil. …
And my timeline begins…
So here is my car. I fell in love by the dealer pictures:
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/Screenshot_2015-11-07-18-44-36_zpsljcbqin7.png
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/Screenshot_2015-11-07-18-44-31_zpsvepw4wmb.png
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/Screenshot_2015-11-07-18-45-04_zpswveccrco.png
In the ad it stated the car had a sun roof. Look at the last picture. Sunroof. My dumbass completely missed the fact that the car doesn’t even have one. Was to wrapped up in the car. I’ve been told it’s a good thing. Who knows.
So I ordered a bunch of stuff right from the get go
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20151125_065814_zpslp7rpfef.jpg
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20151123_225300_zpskfkd2vxb.jpg
And it begins:
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/20151119_200824_zpsfrtsnnn5.jpg
I had narrowed the leak down to the front of the engine and it ended up being the oil filter gasket and/or valley pan. It was leaking pretty bad. I ordered the parts and took some photos along the way and wrote a little diy. ( didnt know ecs tuning had one already. )I was still in pain from the accident so I didn’t take nearly as many the farther along in the process.
https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php/680213-B6-B7-S4-Valley-Pan-Gasket-DIY&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwiK4qi4ldvKAhUH6mMKHQ2tBe8QFggEMAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNHUObkew5Pb4bjBqKsFpAvb3c4zhw
There was also a power steering hose that was leaking pretty heavily so I bought some fluid and did a system flush and cleared all of the old fluid out of the system while I repaired the leaking hose.
At the same time, I ordered: brake fluid, spark plugs, valve cover gaskets, coolant, oil, filter, fuel filter, thermostat (received wrong one) valley pangasket, oil filter housing gaskets, oil pressure switch, (didn’t know about the oil check valves or I would have ordered them too), and intake manifold gaskets.
Out with the old…
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20151205_135735_zpsxclmywgl.jpg
In with the new…
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20151205_135859_zpswwkdmsfo.jpg
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20160127_123908_zpshbg8j3an.jpg
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20160127_123932_zpsvx9hj3fk.jpg
Threw some color on the valve covers for fun while I had them off. The paint on them was horrible.
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20151206_131918_zpshu2ot8sy.jpg
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20151206_224550_zpspyqnkixp.jpg
3 problems sorted out here in this picture:
- Stuck flapper.
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20160110_210857_zps6jhxz4qp.jpg
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20160110_210500_zpsju8b8fqz.jpg
Fixed
-
Broken vacuum lines for the Combi Valves
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20160110_211938_zps2m4lyc7l.jpg
-
Upper intake manifold gasket leaking causing a slight lean condition. Sealed it up with my favorite black sealant.
I flushed out the cooling system with distilled water and mixed in the g13 coolant.
After that the car was good to go. I swapped out the headlight bulbs for some morimoto’s because of a flickering bulb. I also went and installed a new battery since the “new” battery that the dealer had put in the car was not even close to the right one. Or new for that fact. Go figure.
Next I ordered a copy of the navigation disk with the newer software so I could use an ax input. I then coded the RNS-E to accept the input and installed the aud cord
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20151124_201932_zpsdzrojp4w.jpg
Changed the startup to make my brother smile
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20151207_222610_zps5ckejkec.jpg
Then 2 weeks later, the radiator blew out after the first time taking my new car out and giving her a little workout. Nothing crazy, nut obviously the radiator was the weak link. So I installed this
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20160112_203913_zpsyvszdozb.jpg
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20160112_214712_zpsbmmzktc8.jpg
Having a dirty interior drives me nuts. My friends think I’m super ocd, but that’s fine. I was going to detail the interior and saw ì quite a bit of dirt under the seat. So I loosened the triple square bolts and here is what I found.
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20160203_163829_zps2issvesu.jpg
This is as clean as the car has been since it first left the lot
Tonight I cleaned and conditioned the leather. I haven’t done the rear seats because it got dark and dinner was ready, but I’ll finish that up soon. Poor leather was probably never taken care of, it soaked the conditioner up like a sponge. Looks much better. Feels better too. I’ll try my best to bring it back! I’m going to remove the interior soon to wire the car for some aftermarket stereo equipment. I removed the alternator and installed a 0 gauge wire to the battery as part of the “big 3 upgrade” one thing I found interesting is that my alternator is newer. Manufacture date of august 2013 if I remember correctly. So that’s a plus because they aren’t cheap or easy to replace.
One question I have, is the cover for the ashtray only goes up so high. This just seems odd to me. You can feel it is obviously hitting something behind there, but my question would be is this normal height for the ashtray lid?
New found treasure is going into my headers fund 
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a479/vinnybuffone/Mobile%20Uploads/20160203_163833_zpswcdhxipz.jpg
I ran her through her paces. Just wanted to set some baselines for future mods. Not sure what the car is rated at stock, but I timed the runs using a stopwatch app while watching the playback (I know i know, I’m sure there is a better way haha) and the runs are 5 seconds or under. 4.7 4.4 can someone chime in if this is average? I’ve read elsewhere on it. …I’d just rather have real world data. (If that makes sense)
I’d like to be sub 4 seconds after mods NA…Wishful thinking?
Came home to these today:
Still waiting on my led interior kit to go with it. I’m going to try and do a whole LED exterior (except headlights) and interior
So my fiancee is all excited about getting my car tuned because when I told her JHM was in California, she heard road trip lol I’m going to try and stash a few dollars and sneak a few things into the trunk (not sure if I can get the headers box by her haha)
One more thing. …when my car is cold, it runs stupid strong. I don’t beat on it when is cold, but I’ve had to pull out in traffic early morning around 30 degrees outside and wow. Am i getting Heatsoakmost of the time then? Lol Or is it because the car is not in closed loop and is just running it’s “set parameters” and it has some issue reading data from a sensor after it switches to closed loop? Like say a lazy o2 sensor or dirty maf sensor? I have experienced this before. Like having a slow reacting o2 sensor and a vacuum leak making it run lean.
Any other ideas?