Broken intake linkage arms

[jbird60]

Hi Everyone,

For the past 2 years or so, I've been wondering why my B6 3.0 would randomly misfire at throttle angles above 70%. I went through multiple fuel filters, replaced a bunch of vacuum lines, investigated the PCV, etc. However, none of these items ever rectified my issue. Finally today, while rooting around my engine bay for an unrelated reason, I found this underneath the front plastic cover:

intakeArms.jpg

For those not familiar, those horizontal arms should connect to the two pegs close to the center of the picture. Those arms, when pulled out via vacuum actuation, change the intake runner length to optimize torque at various RPMs and throttle angles. Without that functioning, the car idles fine, but really bogs down and loses power in the upper rev range.

I'd like to replace just those actuation arms with new OEM ones to save a bit of money, but I'm having one hell of a time trying to locate these. I've found many places that sell the entire intake actuation assembly ($380 roughly), but I don't really need to replace everything there. I've also found that I can replace the actuation arms with billet versions from GrüvenParts ($109 for a set), but I'm not quite inclined to spend that much if I can find OEM plastic ones for less.

Anyone else have this issue and perhaps know where OEM arms could be found?

[19jdog]

This should help you out


YO click here!

[jbird60]

This should help you out


YO click here!

Yeah, I came across those and found them interesting, but I figured that I'd stick with plastic arms if I could find them (I'm cheap that way).

In the end though, I bought the billet parts from Gruven anyway. Got tired of searching and I just want the problem fixed.

Thanks!

[jbird60]

Ok, an update:

When I removed the vacuum actuator assembly (1st picture), I found a few things which were a bit troubling:

1.) A broken O-ring (highlighted in the 2nd picture in green)
2.) What seemed like rubber particulate both on the rotating part of the actuator and in the rotating flap shaft in the intake

Also, I had the initial impression that the shaft within the intake would come out as part of the actuator removal (as is shown when the full assembly is ordered from a place like ECS), but several repair guides shown online seem to show that this isn't the case. But basically, I couldn't find the mechanism by which the actuator actually turned the flap shaft.

Am I going crazy here, or is something legitimately wrong with what I've found?

IMG_1228.JPG

brokenOringHighlight.jpg

[vtince]

hope this helps a bit, diagram of the actuator in the manifold

http://www.audiworld.com/forums/a4-b...3-0-a-2379987/