My stroked BT Build...

[A4DRIVR]

Log from yesterdays OVERBOOST conditions

[dougyfresh]

When I asked Chris Tapp about MAF scaling, he implied it wouldn't be easy to dial in. I suggest starting out by tuning at very low boost levels using the stock MAF housing. Obviously it won't take much to max out the MAF readings with the stock MAF housing.

Good way to start for you'll already be calibrated for those curves. Once you start maxing stuff out you can make adjustments for your larger MAF housing and go from there. Its not terribly difficult. Just a lot of work to get it dialed in correctly.

[CapstoneJHS]

This car is the truth!

[A4DRIVR]

Word YO!

So... since you got to ride in it, is it an acceptable grocery getter?

[A4DRIVR]

I figure I owe this thread an update...

I wanted to step back and touch on a couple of topics. First, being the N75 boost control. I returned the plumbing of the N75 back to stock-like connections - long port to atmosphere, short side port to wastegate top, short bottom port to boost pressure. In order to remedy my over-boost condition (and tune my max boost levels), I made changes to my Maximum VE map within the ECU. Ultimately, I had to lower the values to prevent the ECU from allowing such high boost requests. I'm currently running 25psi using the factory N75.

I am, however, still developing the tune on the car. It has actually been parked for nearly a month due to an electrical gremlin which cropped up after an encounter with a large body of water... and the fact that my rear main is leaking, and I hate getting oil on my driveway! So I am going to be dropping the tranny to replace the rear main seal at the end of the summer, and start digging into the wiring harness to determine where my electrical issue resides.

[Sales@RAI]

End of the summer? Thats no fun!

[A4DRIVR]

Well... I have started to pull the front end of the car apart tonight. The running issues are more than I can stand at this point, and the oil leak has gotten worse.

SO THE ENGINE IS COMING BACK OUT!







I pulled the skid plate, front bumper and inter-cooler, drained coolant, pulled reservoir and removed throttle body tonight. Oil is all over everything under the car... it's a freakin mess.

[A4DRIVR]

Well... time has been hard to come by lately.

I pulled the motor out again back at the end of August. I only just now had time to pull the pan and look for the actual oil leak.



When examining the rear main seal, either there was a flaw in the seal itself... or there was a manufacturing defect where the inner seal is joined to the cast aluminum housing causing a drip. I'll try and get some pictures tonight to illustrate what I'm talking about.


For the reinstall, I thought it would be a good idea to upgrade the hardware connecting the flywheel to the crankshaft. I went ahead and purchased the APR P/N: 151-2801 from Summit Racing for a fraction of the cost of the actuall VW/Audi bolts. HOWEVER... the bolts are a bit longer (which is something I wasn't aware of). I did a test fit , and determined that the new bolts interfere with the bottom of the tapped hole at about the same time as they seat against the flywheel. This obviously makes me concerned, so now I'm trying to determine if I can simply use a thin hardened washer under the head of the bolt, or should I just scrap the idea and go back to the old OEM style bolts?

[SpeedWorksAuto]

Hardened washer

[A4DRIVR]

Hardened washer

I plan to use either the ARP P/N: 200-8519, which are a non-stock item and take a while to get since no one stocks them. OR... I can order the following parts from McMaster-Carr P/N: 98035A106.

My delima is that I'm not sure of the type of steel for the McMaster-Carr part... however, I do know they are hardened. I'm just not sure if they need to be Chromoly like the ARP versions are.

[Sales@RAI]

If you got a Victor Reinz rear main, we noticed they end up leaking quite a bit

[A4DRIVR]

If you got a Victor Reinz rear main, we noticed they end up leaking quite a bit

Bastards!

[SpeedWorksAuto]

I remember it being really easy to mess up how the rear main seats around the crank. Mine is Victor Reinz too.

[A4DRIVR]

I'm not sure if mine was Victor Reinz or not... It's definitely an OEM since it has the VW/Audi logo in the casting. Either way, I will be extra careful when installing it this time! I'm printing out the Bentley instructions as we speak to see if a missed a simple step...

[Issam@INA]

I'm not sure if mine was Victor Reinz or not... It's definitely an OEM since it has the VW/Audi logo in the casting. Either way, I will be extra careful when installing it this time! I'm printing out the Bentley instructions as we speak to see if a missed a simple step...

What I usually do now is get like the old cast housings from the 9A/PL Golf's and just get a rear main from worldpac for about $7
I never have a problems with these after

[A4DRIVR]

What I usually do now is get like the old cast housings from the 9A/PL Golf's and just get a rear main from worldpac for about $7
I never have a problems with these after

That's good information to have...

I think I will stick with the OEM gasket for now since I already have it. Is it worth while to put a little oil-pan sealant between the housing and block to insure a good seal?

[Lowdaily]

That's good information to have...

I think I will stick with the OEM gasket for now since I already have it. Is it worth while to put a little oil-pan sealant between the housing and block to insure a good seal?

I dont see why not it won't harm anything. I have done on mine.

[A4DRIVR]

I've started another oil clearance thread:

Oil Clearance Thread

I was hoping to get the opinions of others who have built their motors, concerning the proper oil clearance.

[A4DRIVR]

OK... so tonight I dug into the motor and had planned to check the oil clearance using some plastigage... However, after removing the oil pump, I noticed a small crack in the oil pump chain tensioner.


When I compressed the tensioner, it promptly broke off.


So now I'm going to have to pull off the front of the motor, including all timing related components.

Does anyone know if I have already installed the new rear main seal, but haven't ran the motor... can I reuse the rear main seal?

So, I went ahead and started pulling off the misc. brackets and accessories. While doing so, I decided to remove the turbo, waste gate, and exhaust manifold. How difficult should it be to compress (or open) the wastegate? Is this something I should be able to do by hand?

Also... most disturbingly, I tried spinning the impeller on the turbo, and it no longer "free wheels" like it did when brand new. I did notice that more I fooled with it, the more it began to free up. However it is extremely far from what it used to be. Does anyone have any input on this? Could it be that it just sat for a while and the 10w50 I had in the motor last has the bearings gooed up? Just as a side note, there is not side movement in the shaft, or does there appear to be any contact with the compressor or exhaust housings.

Here's quick video after I played with the impeller for a little while:


So now I am starting to determine my best course of action... I'll take any advice.

[bananas]

So now I am starting to determine my best course of action... I'll take any advice.

More boost!

[A4DRIVR]

More boost!

Duhh...

Not to branch too far off the topic that caused this response... but do I pitch the N75 and move over to EBC, or just continue the struggle?

[bananas]

Duhh...

Not to branch too far off the topic that caused this response... but do I pitch the N75 and move over to EBC, or just continue the struggle?

Try N75 + MBC parallel to control spikes? Whats your current N75 problem?

[A4DRIVR]

Not a problem... it's just a bear to adjust, where as if I had an EBC it's basically set-it-and-forget-it. Takes another variable out of the tuning process.

[A4DRIVR]

On a side note... I made up a fixture to alter the length of the ARP (151-2801) Flywheel bolts.



Worked like a charm!

[Lowdaily]

When I compressed the tensioner, it promptly broke off.

I was wondering about this its happened before, wonder if i could get one made out of aluminium at machine shop the plastic ones seem to be no good would be wise to get a few made an sell the rest.

[A4DRIVR]

Wonder if an aluminum piece would have any negative characteristics such as added noise or lack of self lubrication. Seems like an easy piece to replicate...

[SpeedWorksAuto]

I dont know about a chain sliding across a piece of aluminum. Seems like it would wear it out pretty quick. Maybe some nice A2 tool stee, or just a new plastic piece.

[Lowdaily]

Wonder if an aluminum piece would have any negative characteristics such as added noise or lack of self lubrication. Seems like an easy piece to replicate...

hmm never thought of the noise issue, it will still get grooved like the plastic ones but not as quick i don't assume so anyway. Seems like the actually tensioner should be made from metal and then a plastic runner on it would be the best option surely would'nt become frail in a hurry and would defeat the noise issue too 'IE' ..

Ive seen on other builds about the Oil Pump, Gear spins loose on high RPM.

[JumboBlack1.8]

Any updates yet? I'm curious how your tuning venture is going, as we have relatively similar setups.....Thinking of starting a thread about general Maestro7 tuning, as the B5 A4 forum is seriously lacking

[A4DRIVR]

I wish I could say yes, but...

The car is still apart, and I'm hoping things will slow down after the first of the year for me to tackle the motor again. I need to get it back in the car before I forget where everything goes!!!

[A4DRIVR]

Any updates yet? I'm curious how your tuning venture is going, as we have relatively similar setups.....Thinking of starting a thread about general Maestro7 tuning, as the B5 A4 forum is seriously lacking

Don't forget about the Eurodyne Forums... they are a great resource, and a great way to keep all of the pertinent tuning information in one place.

[JumboBlack1.8]

Yea. I've been posting there a bit, but it seems that traffic has died down there quite a bit recently. So I've been on my own tuning for a bit.....I'm slowly starting to get an idea for how things are working.....I've recently started over (from my base file), and I'm trying to get my injectors perfectly dialed in. However, now I'm STUMPED on how to adjust my Alpha-N table to fix the rich-lean fluctuation throughout the powerband.....I'm seriously contemplating throwing an MAF in there. Its just FAR more accurate than running off the o2 sensor and a table with phantom values.......Did you ever get your Alpha-N table adjusted properly? I'd really like to minimize the fluctuation, if possible

[A4DRIVR]

I kept making changes and never nailed down my Alpha -N map. Turns out I was having fueling issues causing some weird drivability problems. Motor has been out of the car for 6 month's and I swear that something is keeping me from working on it! Every time I start something on it I get sidetracked somehow and never get anything finished. I hope once its warm in the garage ill be able to make time.

I have already enlisted a good friend to come down and motivate me... Rob, I'm talking about you!!

Sent from my Droid Incredible using Tapatalk.

[A4DRIVR]

Well... in the past week or so, I have actually got to spend some quality time out in the garage. I was able to get the short-block completely assembled. In addition, I installed the front crank timing pulley... I hate tightening that darn bolt!

However, It appears that I may have had the cam timing one tooth retarded! So... just a little background. During disassembly, I marked the pulleys and belt before removal. So, when putting the motor back in time, I lined up the marks and tossed the belt on. To check my work, I used a screwdriver with a custom rubber tip inserted into the spark plug hole on cylinder #1 to find the exact (sort-of) position of TDC. I then pulled the valve cover off to check the timing marks on the cam chain gears. They looked to be off a bit, so I rotated the motor around by hand a couple times to confirm there was no interference, and my marks still weren't lining up how id like. Moved the cam gear one tooth forward and now it's perfect. Lets hope there's some low-end drivability improvements found here...

[SpeedWorksAuto]

So, you're about done?

[A4DRIVR]

I am now... The motor is back in the car and the front end is completely assembled. Just finished last night...

Just a couple of minor mods before hitting the road:
1) I have to get a flange welded on to the cold side intake pipe for my Tial 50MM BOV;
2) Change fuel filter;
3) Tie up all loose wiring (install resistor to VVT plug);
4) Clean up vacuum tube routing;
5) Fill and check all fluids.

[A4DRIVR]

Ladies and Gents...

I finished and started the car last night! It's alive!!! I drove it in this morning, and everything seems to be sweet. I tried doing some logging in Maestro, but I keep getting communication errors. I'm going to have to start bugging Chris again...

[A4DRIVR]

Just a quick update...

The car has been running flawless.
I recently started raising the boost again and have decided to change a couple of things:
First, I am going to bail on N75 tuning and move to an EBC. I just picked one up from the classifieds and hope I will get some time home in the relatively near future to get it installed. The goal here is to simplify my tuning procedure when tuning for the higher boost levels.
Next and last, I plan on pulling my current 870cc injectors and replace with the the Bosch or ID1000 injectors to give me a little more head room for my future boost levels.

The progess has been slow recently due to the fact that I travel a lot for work. I will keep the thread as updated as possible once I can get my hands on the car again.

[A4DRIVR]

So after only 18 months, my 034 coolant supply line started leaking. It was a slow leak at the crimped coupling between the rubber hose and braided line. I'd suspect it's a cheap Chinese made part that was of poor quality. Turns out 034 only covers the part for a year...




So today I did what I should have done to begin with and bought the parts to fabricate my own line correctly.

We have a great local shop perfect for supplying the parts I needed; Bob's Braided Lines. He had all the parts I needed in stock and even made and awesome suggestion to eliminate the stoopid rubber line and filler spacer which the 034 kit required (and also constantly leaked). My new line kit will be braided stainless only and adapts the 10mm tube off the coolant hard pipe to AN thread for a perfect fit. The only thing I will need to do is remove the barb at the end of the hard coolant line in order to fit the adapter.

Here are the parts I purchased...


There are two -6 AN 45 degree swivel fittings, a new banjo adapter, a SS Swagelok 10mm tube to -6AN adapter and 30" of -6 AN hose.

[NeedingAnAudi]

Glad to see you still at it!