I know I have put a ton of money in my car and I will put a ton more. I have not been able to find a car that gives me all the things the S4 does. Now that there is the stage 2 supercharger kits and built motors. Just when you thought you had seen the end of the road JHM builds a new 4 lane expressway. And that expressway loves your money and treats you right.
Yup and if I had an s4 avant I would have kept it and gone built motor. But my b7 sedan was very replaceable, so it was replaced.
Doing the timing service soon on my avant along with jhm header install. Hoping I don’t run into any surprises like this. Not losing/burning hardly any oil so don’t plan on doing valve stem seals.
Will be fun to see what 130k mile guides look like…if there is anything left of them.
If you wait a bit, Jimmy is working on a DIY to replace the timing guides in car. I’m pretty excited to see this DIY containing shots of my Avant, she’ll have some sort of internet celebrity status (not of the #dapper/STANCE kind either!) ;D ;D ;D
I’ve been tempted to just take my car to Jimmy since I’m not too terribly far away…buut probably DIY.
Update:
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/17/06d71c1ddae4605d1282f8ae678d4e5e.jpg
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/17/f2a5c3770924029d0a69448c6df22022.jpg
Heads came in today…the progress continues.
Sincerely and monumentally jealous.
Sigh!!
Don’t be. This entire process has aged me about five years and taught me a valuable lesson about patience, haha.
Nice slow. It shouldn’t be long now.
Update:
Since last week, Jimmy and I ran into some issues while re-installing the cams back onto the heads.
The day I got my heads was the same day we installed the it onto the motor, there with no issues until it came time to bolt down the cams with the cam bearing caps. Both exhaust and intake cams seem to have seated perfectly, making us believe it was a streamline process from here:
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/22/8bf50b3ed84b008768bdcea64dab7917.jpg
Until we slowly bolted down the cam bearing caps, that’s when things got frustrating. At first, we thought we were moving too fast so we slowed down, hand torquing everything in sequence as instructed and snap it happened again, another cap. The process of unbolting and slow-torquing repeated itself a few more times, each time in a slower, more controlled manner and it still happened, the snapping of the cam caps. We ended the night with some disappointment.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/22/1fec1bab6c72bc4cf4dbb622c51f49d9.jpg
Jimmy reached out CV to see if he had any extra cam caps since we had gone through roughly two more (totaling four) before calling it a night. I felt pretty defeated by the snapping even though Jimmy was doing everything correctly per Bentley manual.
Roll around to today, Jimmy had pulled the heads from the engine as an alternative to see if the cams could get bolted down with more ease. The process repeated itself and again, two more cam caps snapped…at this point, we were getting limited on caps. Again, Jimmy reached out to CV and I reached out to JHM with provided pics of our issue.
I guess Jimmy got an awesome suggestion from CV about fiddling with the cams. We originally did this the first night but thought the cams had to be aligned before tightening down the caps…apparently it can be done differently. CV suggested we roll the cams until the lobes were just sitting on the rockers versus pushing down certain ones; this “happy medium” should allow us enough room to bolt down the caps without snapping the caps.
Once we fiddled with this idea, everything fell into place:
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/22/190be05e06d4a196b0ea67641827dde1.jpg
After fiddling with cams, slowly torquing down caps
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/22/873e154c9bd82417e6a837a993639eff.jpg
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/22/4105884496d1d469ce644207f8593e98.jpg
With everything back on correctly and correctly torqued:
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/22/eccbd4b7588d3af9f8b4ffb635082c81.jpg
*** FYI ***
30nm + 60nm + 90deg turn + 90deg turn is one helluva bolt down!!!
As is 5nm + 45deg turn + 45deg turn
EDiT:
Timing guides and adjusters go on tomorrow
Damn slow cutting it close to h2o!
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/23/fd24dfae1338fb1b9e9389e2442cfc15.jpg
Timing components back on with wedges in place for slack
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/23/5408029aa72397617dd2ca862e1a77bf.jpg
Quick, someone ask Jimmy how many cars he has fingered! Haha.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/23/ea8cc7fc548606271843f58e1af92f89.jpg
Rebuilding mechanical adjusters
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/23/837a0b1fb1cbb78275126cd9785e239e.jpg
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/23/7e29c4e0a168fc9e87bd2e6d0a6970be.jpg
Close up of the broken guide…as you can see, there’s no impact damage to the guide suggesting it hit something or something hit it. Our theory is the inside half moon curve might be the weak point; you can see a small hairline crack underneath the fracture.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/23/4e6920b40a9b3cd6f334110d2c9a9d4d.jpg
One of the cam bearing caps; note to others (jimmy will reiterate this in his DIY), do not bolt down the cams with the cam bearing caps without getting the cams to rest in a “sweet spot” or risk snapping many! This is more applicable towards the rebuilt JHM heads.
Quick game for all:
Which mechanical adjuster sprocket is the new one?
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/23/93b9d1dab771837f4cc953395aadc700.jpg
Haha, I like to live on the edge…but seriously though, h2oi was far from my mind during this process. I was more worried about getting my car driving than going.
Look forward to meeting you guys. Hopefully Jimmy will take me for a ride in his car. Id love to feel the supercharger and also feel how the 034 sub frame bushings feel.
Please try to catch me in a non - drunken state (unlike now) and I will gladly take you for a ride.
Haha, this might be hard for the both of us to do; you need a drink for the work you’ve been doing, I need a drink for the money I’ve been burning.
I needed a drink for things other than working on your car. Made a good dent in my bottle of Sailor Jerry’s. The good news is that if you take B - vitamins after drinking then there usually isn’t a hangover.
Slow to play the game. The new one is the upper left one.
All the cap you guys went through on that. It started as something simple turned into a major job. No wonder you started drinking. Is the car up and running.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/26/9cd64769131a767be673f7f5b826b27c.jpg
Fast Eddie has a sadistic sense of humor, haha
I got F-ing robbed six times in that game!