2005.5 S4 parts car, drivetrain swap into 2008 A4 avant, Both 6 speeds, what to do?

[macantley]

I'm looking at purchasing a wrecked 2005 S4 sedan at an auction, it's a 4.2L 6 speed, my current daily driver is a 2008 A4 avant 6 speed, I do know the ECM, Wiring harness, engine, transmission, mounts, and core support would have to be swapped over. and probably the driveshaft as well. Would anything else need changed? steering column for security reasons? master/slave cylinders? and yes, i would be putting new timing chains and guides in the 4.2L while its out, as well as a new clutch kit and timing belt kit.

I'm just not sure if the entire cabin harness would have to be swapped or not, i know there's some differences in how the fueling works between the two cars, So i'm not sure if the in-tank fuel pump is different or the fuel lines that travel to the front of the car.

any advice would be great, my car is a 2.0T with JHM stage 1 tune and Single mass flywheel RA4 kit from ECS tuning. no other major mods done.

matthew

[EvolutionArmory]

Part the car out, sell your car and buy a S4 if that is what you want.

Running S4’s are dirt cheap.

[macantley]

a running S4 avant 6 speed isnt going to be dirt cheap...... Guess i'll probably end up figuring it out on my own if it becomes a parts car.

[EvolutionArmory]

I just went on cargurus.com. You can get them for 8 grand from a used car dealer. That’s cheap for a car that was 50 grand.

You can get one that needs chains for 5 grand or less.

Your swap idea is a lot of work for very little pay off is all I’m saying. Buy the auction S4, part it out and with the money you get on top of what you sell your A4 for, you can take your pick of any S4 you find. People can’t get rid of V8 S4’s fast enough so you can negotiate a fair amount off the asking price. Or don’t waste the money you would spend on the auction S4, sell your car and with that combined money just buy a running S4.

It’s just another way of looking at it and achieving the same result.

[macantley]

they range from 9,000 to 15,000 on carguru's and every single one is automatic....... the stick shift ones are just super rare for the B7 avant s4's

[EvolutionArmory]

Right on. It’s still a lot of work for hardly any gain. Lots of people talk about it but hardly anyone really goes through with it.

Good luck. Sorry I couldn’t be helpful and get you the answers you wanted. I just wanted to present you a different perspective. Post pics when you get underway.

[macantley]

I've got a pontiac fiero i'm about to do an engine swap in, not sure what motor i want in it yet, I've already done a high output quad4 fiero, two 3800 series II supercharged fiero's and a 3.4L pushrod v6 fiero, I'd love to get a FWD 6 speed trans from a jetta or 06+ passat and swap the 2.0T into the fiero but i'm fairly certain that the wiring wouldnt work well together.

i hear the response of just buy what you want all the time, Sometimes the extra work to swap the engines isnt my problem, its having the money to pay for the car i want that is the problem, i can do the labor to adapt in most cases.

matthew

[EvolutionArmory]

Well with a complete parts car, it shouldn’t be too difficult.

[audiphila]

Test drive the b7 s4 before you decide on the swap. You may be underwhelmed by the engine and deem it not worth the time to swap. I just bought one and it sounds great but in hindsight I should have just put the money into building my other car into stage 3.

Plus 4.2 can suffer from cylinder scoring so even if you redo chains you can still need a new long block.

[macantley]

Well, i got the S4 at auction today for $1217.74..... it's a 2 owner car, 70yr old man owned it since 07, juding from the stacks of receipts in the glove box, it had a new engine installed at 105k miles (has 141k on it now) new clutch at the same time, recently had a new cat installed and about $2000 worth of front end rebuild (brake rotors, pads, balljoints, control arms, upper/lower, alignment, and several other things) I havent called the previous owner yet to ask them any questions, but i wanna find out if it was a brand new engine installed, or a junkyard engine, all the receipt says is "customer supplied new engine" and then the shop moved all the parts over to the new engine from the old one and put a new clutch kit in at the same time.