Angular's "Doing It The Hard Way" GT build thread.

[wan2play]

Great build and I hope you ahve fun doing it.

Just one recommendation...Get ERs...Rs4 ICs barely hang with Ko4s.

[Angular]

Thanks. I'm going to be running the Wagner RS4 ICs which are substantially larger than the OEM RS4 units.



There are mixed reports about how well these perform compared to ERs which are thicker. There's a whole thread about it, actually. My gut feeling is that the Wagner's will perform adequately. My only potential problem is that "adequate" doesn't really jive with the premium price 034 is selling them for. ERs are likely the better value.

[AwdOwns]

Why not just run Jason's units from Amd?

[Angular]

OK. You buy my Wagner's and it's a deal.

In all seriousness, I think I acted too hastily in purchasing the Wagners. If I had to do over again, I might wind up going with ER, AMD, or maybe some homebrew ICs. Who knows. I do like the carbon fiber shrouds that ER and Wagners come with. And the Wagners are custom tailored to the RS4 bumper. The cast end tanks are pretty nice, more of an OEM feel than the other options.

[DolphinV8]

Good choice!
ER CF shrouds suck. Require tons of work to fit behind the RS4 bumper.

[Soopaman15]

PM me how much you want for the Wagner's

[Angular]

Not for sale (yet). I don't feel like taking a big loss on them either, so I'll probably just install them and see how the IATs look. Also keep in mind the Wagner RS4 units only fit cars with RS4 bumper and RS4 front fenders.

[Angular]

Minor update: VAST EFK, snub mount, and metal clutch slave arrived and added to "the pile". I have been working on finance issues, turning over rocks, looking for the green to fund the remainder of this project. In the midst of fixing some things on my sister's A4 now. Still need to do some more clearning/organizing in the garage, so the plan is to tear the S4 apart in April. I guess that's when the REAL 'fun' begins!

[Angular]

I got my financing worked out, so the "money spigot" is offically back open and I'm shopping for parts & materials.

Right now I'm waffling on how to do the inlet pipes. Aluminum or stainless steel? 'Standard' 2.25" like everybody else or try to make 2.5" tubing fit? What do you guys think? I do loves me some stainless (looooong time) still but it is more expensive and heavier. The thinner walled stuff (18 ga, .049 inch) is a bit harder to find too.

Here's another off the wall and totally wacky idea: v-band the inlet pipes? Instead of a silicone coupler in the middle of the pipe, how about a v-band? Would the seal be good enough? Probably won't do it, but the thought did cross my mind.

Other things I'm shopping: mandrel bends... 3" for downpipes and 3.5" for the cat-back. And high-flow metal core catalytic converters (at a reasonable price... $200 ea or less). Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Angular]

3" V-bands kits arrived. Not bad for $40 a pop. Notice the stepped male/female interface.

[gearhead1186]

I got my financing worked out, so the "money spigot" is offically back open and I'm shopping for parts & materials.

Right now I'm waffling on how to do the inlet pipes. Aluminum or stainless steel? 'Standard' 2.25" like everybody else or try to make 2.5" tubing fit? What do you guys think? I do loves me some stainless (looooong time) still but it is more expensive and heavier. The thinner walled stuff (18 ga, .049 inch) is a bit harder to find too.

Here's another off the wall and totally wacky idea: v-band the inlet pipes? Instead of a silicone coupler in the middle of the pipe, how about a v-band? Would the seal be good enough? Probably won't do it, but the thought did cross my mind.

Other things I'm shopping: mandrel bends... 3" for downpipes and 3.5" for the cat-back. And high-flow metal core catalytic converters (at a reasonable price... $200 ea or less). Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I vote 2.5" aluminum inlets matching a 2.5" Y pipe.

[AudiA4_20T]

That lip helps a lot we used them a bunch when I worked at RAI

[michael66899]

Very nice, where did you get the V-bands at?

[Angular]

Very nice, where did you get the V-bands at?

China's finest, baby! Right off eBay. They look & feel fantastic for the price. Hopefully there won't be any unpleasant surprises down the road.

More parts showed up today. Compressor inlet & outlet adapters, 5 bolt flanges, wastegates, 3" & 3.5" mandrel bends...



Box o' mandrel bends...



Mufflers, cats, and AN hoses & fittings due in tomorrow!

[cjk]

Nice parts man :)

Why isn't this in the build thread section??

[jibberjive]

Nice man! So did you go with the ATP adapters, and how do they look? What cats did you go with? I've got to buy some myself, and haven't decided what to do yet.

[Angular]

Yeah, the big box I got yesterday was from ATP. 2.5" compressor inlet adapter and 2" outlet adapter with 1/8" NPT port... both are o-ringed and look good. GT28 style 20-22 PSI WG acutators. -4 AN oil fittings (with restrictor). 5 bolt flanges (mild steel but oh well). 3" oval to round adapters.

The 3" mandrel bends and straight pipe are OK but the 3.5" stuff is crap. Not only is it 18 gauge, even though I specifically asked and was told everything is 16 gauge before I ordered, the wall thickness varies and some of the pipes aren't exactly what I'd call round. So those pieces gotta go back.

Mufflers are going to be 3.5" Magnaflow race (per Jason@AMD's recommendation) and the cats will be the Vibrant 3" metal core units. I'd rather have the Random Technology 100 cell race cats but they're nearly 3X the price ($280 vs. $105). The Vibrant cats are supposed to be 200 cell (although I've seen them referred to as 200 some places and 300 others) and a 5" diameter body so they should perform OK (if the 578 CFM rating means anything!). I will probably order two more v-band clamp kits so I can make test pipes to go in place of the cats to determine just how much HP they're costing me.

[jibberjive]

So you decided to try to go with the internal wastegates then? Good deal on the cats, I'll prob steal your parts on that, but I'm for sure going to be running them with v-bands and swappable test pipes, because I'm going to be running E85 and the cats are just for the visual inspection for registration, and at some race events. $105 isn't bad at all.

[Angular]

Yeah, internal gates. It will be challenging to make the actuators fit but at this point I can't see any good reason to run external gates.

[jibberjive]

You should've snagged my GT wastegate actuators, they're literally brand new and sitting on the shelf ha

[Angular]

You're a real funny guy! Only problem is the stock ones are like 7 PSI. I'm going to test these with a hand pressure/vac pump and also a fish scale to determine spring rate and cracking pressure. I was thinking about running the same actuators as TiAL uses, but I'd like the option of running less (than 19 PSI) of boost if I want to. There's always a tradeoff involved and there's a "rule of thumb" that the cracking pressure should be 1/2 of your max boost.

[Angular]

It would seem AMD has raised the bar with 2.75" inlets, therefore making 2.5 inch pipe fit should be child's play.

Here's a picture for illustration. 2.5" pipe next to stock.



Another pic. Test fitting some of the plumbing...

[diabolical1]

you sound excited about this, as you should be. i will definitely be keeping tabs on this build. your car looks gorgeous and now it should boast some serious muscle to boot.

[Angular]

Thanks. After 8 years, I still love the car and find it hard to imagine driving anything else other than a widebody Avant.

I tend to vasilate between "excited" and overwhelmed with this project. It's going to be a hell of a lot of work and a great big ol' pile of money! But hopefully the results will be worth it and I'll come out on the other end having learned a few things and achieved one of my long time (day)dreams... buying a TIG welder and learning to weld.

So... moving forward... I picked up two Magnaflow 3.5" race mufflers for the exhaust and have been deliberating/waffling on what to do for an exhaust tip. Here's an idea I'm kicking around... 4" x 6" oval tip by Ractive.







Monster truck exhaust tip FTW?

[Angular]

Here's a shot of the rear bumper and existing exhaust tips. For reference the dual tips on there now are 3 inch (each) and the "cutout" in the bumper is about 9 inches wide, 7 inches if you don't count the curved transitions on either side. Not sure how the big oval tip will look, but I'll be sure to post pics when I get a chance to mock it up, test fit.

[Angular]

2.5" aluminum inlet piping. All this for $100 shipped. As long as it welds up OK, helluva deal.

[Angular]

Trying to clean & organize out in the garage. Assembled a new shelf and loaded it up with goodies. I call it THE TOWER OF POWER.

[jibberjive]

Nice. Got that rack from Costco, yeah? Almost bought the same one myself, but settled on one half the price without the wheels. I think stuffing the 2.5" inlets is going to be tougher than you expect, but best of luck!

[nefkntym]

Trying to clean & organize out in the garage. Assembled a new shelf and loaded it up with goodies. I call it THE TOWER OF POWER.

Good thinking, I picked two of those for the build parts that are going into my Avant. I got the diamond black ones from Walmart.

[Angular]

Nice. Got that rack from Costco, yeah? Almost bought the same one myself, but settled on one half the price without the wheels. I think stuffing the 2.5" inlets is going to be tougher than you expect, but best of luck!

Yep, the rack is from Costco and I'm quite happy with the purchase. Having it on wheels is a big plus for me with the cramped quarters in my garage. The 2.5" inlets won't be TOO bad. The driver's side is probably going to be the most challenging, but I know they will fit. In fact, I was up at AMD yesterday and got a glimpse of 2.75" inlets on a customer's car. Talk about big! The compressor wheels those inlets were going to are equally obscene.

Moving along with the build: yesterday I finally plunked down some cash and officially ordered a CM FX850 clutch in full kevlar (Fiber Tough or whatever they call it), EPL GT fueling kit, Aquamist HFS-3, and in-tank 044 fuel pump kit. The biggest thing holding me back from putting the car up on stands and ripping it apart now is just cleaning & organizing the garage.

[Angular]

Delays, delays. I'm going to roll the S4 down to the State Farm claims office tomorrow to get some hit & run parking lot damage evaluated. Apparently they'll cut me a check right on the spot for it and then I can schedule with the body shop of my choice.

Beyond that I've been busy with work and cycling (road bike) now that the weather is halfway decent. Doing a 90 mile ride up to Mt. Rainier on Saturday. After several revisions to my "tune", here's my dyno chart for today...



This is why a bicycle can never be a true substitute for a powered vehicle. I can make all of 1 horsepower for about 20 seconds! Thankfully this is just something I do for fun.

Anyway... I'm hoping the build will really get going by the end of the month. My wife is taking a short trip to visit friends in California, so I'll probably take some time off work that week and focus on the car.

[Angular]

S4 is in the body shop now getting the left-rear fender fixed...





Should be done by Friday. Wish I could afford a full respray but this will at least keep me from cringing every time I see it.

[Eurotuned_A4]

Nice build. Im surprised I have never seen your car around. You should bring it out to Waterwerks in 2 weeks.

[Angular]

Thanks. I spend most of my time on the South end, between Federal Way and Tacoma. Haven't driven the S4 much in the past 7+ months. It still drives but not sure if I'll be doing Waterwerks or not.

The build project is on the back burner right now as I am focusing on work, cycling (road bike), enjoying our five minutes of summer, etc. I'm also still waiting on a bunch of parts from Jason@AMD.

[DarkSideGTI]

What's the status? This looks like a very nice build.

[jibberjive]

Was just about to post the same thing. Updates?

[Matt Danger]

Mr fancy pants is in Hawaii

[NOTORIOUS VR]

^lol

[JDM EJ1 95]

whered you get all that piping for 100 bucks.

[Angular]

Mr fancy pants is in Hawaii

Why yes... yes I was! Would up staying an extra 6 nights (for a total of 16) on the Big Island and didn't much feel like coming back!

The project has been on hold for a long time now as other things have taken priority. I think the reality is I will never find the time to do the work myself, so the likelihood of my S4 winding up at AMD is increasing with each day that goes by.