Weekend build under way

[DavidB8]

Had a nice shiny 2009 S-Line come visit me from the US.

We just a quick jump on it tonight and yanked most of the trim panels and part of the front end and tomorrow we will start it again. This will be a marathon that should take us into next week to complete.

What are we doing you ask???

We are retrofitting one of my front parking sensor kits then since the bumper is off why not put in Active Cruise Control. After that Hill hold, upgrade the alarm to full factory ROW spec. No not it..

A full S5 brake upgrade front and rear.. But what build would be complete without an HID upgrade from standard HID to full Adaptive HID.

Of course there's more to this than it sounds like new turn stalks, new gauge cluster, new parking module, lots of wires and fun to come. Had I known we where going to start the actual work tonight I would have taken my camera... Sorry.. But will have there tomorrow for lots of photo ops.

[maga4]

Awesome, looking to hear and see more! Glad to hear from you, David. Good luck with the retrofits and build!

[jbradle7]

David are you a masochist... you must enjoy pain and suffering. Good luck with the mods!

[TofuShop]

Good to see you have time to play with audis even after picking up ur new vw

[tenfour]

Awesome sounding project you are about take on. Standing by for pics and progress.

[name.goes.here]

My pulse just began to rush......

[wildcat333]

yikes! sounds like this would take multiple weekends for the average guy.

[DavidB8]

Bit of a busy day, not as much headway as would have liked but still good. Hopefully 3-4 days and we'll have it all done. We had some fun though and a few interupptions but everything has been going smooth.

We started the day by getting the rest of the car pulled apart. Front bumper and wheel liners out, passenger seat, drivers side dash, console...... Here as some probably wanted pics.

We'll start of with some of the parts.









Some pics of the car partially pulled apart, forgot to grab some of the bumper and everything off.

[DavidB8]

OK we did have some progress today but thought this needed a new post. Had such a great time with this. Not only did we get to play around with some insane parts but it felt good teaching the owner how to do a brake job on his own car. The nice thing is I now have access to a shop and I managed to replace all my tools that I had to give up when I forced to move from the North.
Anyway, enough ramblings, there's more to come of that.

Front Stock Brakes. (Note the stocks where painted black, they are not S brakes)



Rear Stock Brakes, Make note of the space around the dust shield



New Front S5 Brakes, this increased the size from 320mm to 345mm



New Rear S5 Brakes, Take note of the lack of gap now in the dust shield, this increases the size from 300mm to 330mm. The picture is a little deceiving, when looking straight on the 330mm fits the dust shield completely. Just enough space to keep things safe but really fills them up. Looks cool. They also add venting just like the front unlike the solid stock disks.



OK now for some fun pics.. We got a set of A8 brakes. The intention was to use these on my A4. Now do to some luck and fate I got a smoking deal on RS5 brakes for my own car. So now we are sitting on a set of new model D4 A8 brakes to find a new home for.

Up to this point no one to my knowledge has done an A8 swap, specially not with the oversized 380mm brakes!!
We didn't figure we'd be able to sell them without proof of concept so we had some fun. I swear I still laugh when I see these things. Amazingly the calipers do not feel that heavy compared to stock. I think it's because the A8 uses all aluminum in their construction.

OK enough ramblings.. Check out these monsters.

A comparison of the Disks between the stock (320mm), S5 (345mm) and A8(380mm).



Now the Calipers.



Now the Question.. Will these monsters mount to a B8 chassis.....

YOU BET!!!


Here is the caliper bolted up from the rear. Fit like a glove.


Now some comparison pictures to the stock rotors.





Just insane how monster 380mm is...... Looking at those things just make me smile.

[vtheman]

question: will they clear the rim?

[DavidB8]

depends on the wheel. 19" would be minimum I would think although we have seen an A6 with 18" rims with these on them. Would be a gamble I think though.

[UmIsThisThingOn]

Awesome to see you around these parts again, David.
I look forward to your future endeavors and hope you continue to share them with us here @ AZ.

[CloseEncounters]

Wow...awesome project. Very good info on the A8 Brake Upgrade....

[TofuShop]

did you change to A8 brakes in both front and back?

[jbradle7]

Are the S5/S4 calipers the same as the A5/A4 single piston units? They look very similar and the P/N's are almost identical.

[PaperishPlastic]

Are the S5/S4 calipers the same as the A5/A4 single piston units? They look very similar and the P/N's are almost identical.

NO

[jbradle7]

NO

ok, any idea what the difference is?

[DavidB8]

Logo?? They use the same pad so I'm thinking they may be the same caliper.

[jbradle7]

Logo?? They use the same pad so I'm thinking they may be the same caliper.

Thanks David! I'm planing a front brake upgrade to S4 rotors and was curious if the calipers had any difference aside form the shiny paint and logo.

Awesome work too, by the way; you never cease to amaze me in the scope of your ambitious projects.

[DavidB8]

Well one or two more days to go. Yesterday was a long day on little sleep so tensions where high.

We managed to get the headlights rewired over to adaptive lights which was difficult to figure out but fairly easy to do. Thanks to Kufatec's donation to the project a new range module was installed to make the adaptives work.
We got the Active Cruise wiring run and wired in, just about all the wiring is complete for the new front parking sensors and the rear of the car put back together.

The dash wiring is all run now and we just have to insert the wires into the plugs and the console can go back together. All the harnesses needed to the front of the car have been run. We just need to put 2 new pins on the lines running to the ABS controller and a fuse end on and the Hill Hold is complete.

So essentially what we have left to do:

Drill the bumper and mount the sensors
Oil Change and bleed brakes
Replace the Cruise stalks
Hook up the alarm sensor (Cool thing is it can practically all be done in the overhead console since 2 of the three wires match the auto dimming wiring)
Mount ACC Radar
Wire Alarm switch in Drivers door

Then tomorrow when everything is open, book appointment with Audi to get protection removed from new gauges and ACC controller and pick up new fog grill with ACC opening.

I'm sure I'm missing some little bits but all in all that's where we are going into day 3 of the long weekend. I took a few pictures yesterday but being such a long day just to tired to even bother bringing the camera home.

Stay tuned.

[DavidB8]

Days not over and the fun continues:

Done- Drill the bumper and mount the sensors
Done- Oil Change
Done- Mount ACC Radar
Done- Replace the Cruise stalks
Done- Hook up the alarm sensor


Still working on:
Wire Alarm switch in Drivers door
bleed brakes
Assemble the remaining parts of the car...

Most of the car is together, we have checked to make sure the lights come on but have coded the adaptive yet, front parking is working great.

Time to get back to work......

Smoke Break..
Wheel liners in, bumper done, belly pans back in place... NO EXTRA SCREWS!!!

Time to bleed the brakes and put the wheels back on.. The fun stuff....

Back to work.....

[bluetori]

What exactly is the hill hold?

[stan211]

The A4/5 and S4/5 share the same caliper (just the "s" is painted black). What differs is the bracket the holds the caliper and pad; obviously, the "s" is larger.
Hence, any A4/5 owner can get "s" brakes by swapping out the caliper carrier and throwing on the larger rotors. This also does not intervene with ABS,
Traction control, and keeps the brake balance in check. Also, the weight difference is less than 2 pounds by going to 345mm "s" rotors. Now, as for the A8
brake upgrade, I am curious how much added weight was added to the car and will it actually benefit the car from a performance standpoint as look wise
its awesome!

My 2c

[brainpan]

Cool build David, any chance this is being done at eurosport ? front counter looks famillair