Unicorn Rescue! - My B6 Avant Ultrasport

[pablolizarraga]

Great work and progress! Looks like you're having a great time working on your car. Looking forward to your updates.


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[BeerBrent]

Audizine needs a like button.


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I agree!

Amazing job on this build!

[eljay]

Audizine needs a like button. Those seats are sharp! Keep up the great work.


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The older recaro seats are nothing short of amazing! Mine look almost new still and are like floating on a cloud of titties. This build is great! I love seeing another B6 getting rehabbed -


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This is amazing! I had a 2004 6spd avant and it needed everything done and I just didn't have the time sadly. Glad to see you giving this car the love it deserves!


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Great work and progress! Looks like you're having a great time working on your car. Looking forward to your updates.


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I agree!

Amazing job on this build!

Thank you for the kind words everyone!

[avantagg]

So. Damn. Thorough. Your attention to detail is admirable. Awesome progress on this Avant. Keep it up man! She's A rare beauty.

[DownhillA4]

Love the progession!

[eljay]

In my best Elvis impression: thank you, thank you very much.

[moyzes]

Having owned 2 of these, I can't tell enough of how much I loved them! Awesome work!

[eljay]

Yep, this one is a keeper! Especially, since it's not worth much to most people.

[jhoward]

What's so special about the ultra sports? Or what features did they have that people like so much? Honest question, I'm not being a punk! You've already got me at b6 mt6 avant, which are my favorites


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[eljay]

What's so special about the ultra sports? Or what features did they have that people like so much? Honest question, I'm not being a punk! You've already got me at b6 mt6 avant, which are my favorites


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Basically, it's a very nice and desirable cosmetic package on top of the Sport package equipment and it was offered as a swan song to the B6 platform.

So, Sport package plus:
- 18" RS4 style alloy wheels
- quattro GmbH designed lower front bumper, side door flares, trunk lip spoiler or upper hatch spoiler on an Avant
- euro rear bumper
- black interior
- 3-spoke air leather sport steering wheel with S-Line badge for 2005 MY.
- aluminum trim (fish scale in 2004, brushed for 2004.5 - 2005)

[jhoward]

Thanks! How does this compare to the trim on the b6 S4's?

Looks like different wheels, no silver mirrors, and no recaros - everything else looks quite similar

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[eljay]

Thanks! How does this compare to the trim on the b6 S4's?

Looks like different wheels, no silver mirrors, and no recaros - everything else looks quite similar

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Almost.
S4 has bigger door blades, different bumpers and front grill, plus Recaro seats with power folding memory and auto-dimming mirrors, different instrument cluster with S4 logos and white needles, S4 badge on the steering wheel.
Oh yeah, and that awesome-sounding monster V8 shoe-horned in its nose.

[jhoward]

Don't forget 13mpg in town!


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[pablolizarraga]

[QUOTE=eljay;12605384] Spot on Eljay!

I also would add that it's a perforated leather
steering wheel.

And, weren't the bi-xenon black housing headlights, which were offered on S4, part of the USP trim?





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[eljay]

[QUOTE=pablolizarraga;12606021]

Spot on Eljay!

I also would add that it's a perforated leather
steering wheel.

And, weren't the bi-xenon black housing headlights, which were offered on S4, part of the USP trim?





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The bi-xenon headlights are actually part of a Lighting Package.
Halogen was standard. If you bought a Lighting Package in 2004, you got single xenons and in 2005 you got bi-xenons.

[pablolizarraga]

You know your stuff!

Here's another one for you,
When we're the 3-spoke USP steering wheels w/ S-line badge offered?

I'm coming to find out that the OG owner of my just said yes to all the options offered. More reasons why I love my car!


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[eljay]

You know your stuff!

Here's another one for you,
When we're the 3-spoke USP steering wheels w/ S-line badge offered?

I'm coming to find out that the OG owner of my just said yes to all the options offered. More reasons why I love my car!


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2005 MY got the S-Line badge. 2004 didn't have the badge.

I'll take B6 USP options for $500, Alex!

[pablolizarraga]

Damn. Gonna have to think of a Daily Double.


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[nsprosty]

Thank you!!! I will be watching your thread for inspiration and most likely picking your brain as I work through rescuing this.



This has been my dream car for many years and as soon as I found it I jumped on buying it so fast the seller couldn't say no. Will be picking it up 2000 miles (3200 km) from home and driving it back. Overall it seems to be in great shape and obviously the modbug has already bitten as I have sourced some s4 seats to pick up on the way back home. I haven't even bought the car yet and I'm already buying stuff for it.


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[jhoward]

Thank you!!! I will be watching your thread for inspiration and most likely picking your brain as I work through rescuing this.



This has been my dream car for many years and as soon as I found it I jumped on buying it so fast the seller couldn't say no. Will be picking it up 2000 miles (3200 km) from home and driving it back. Overall it seems to be in great shape and obviously the modbug has already bitten as I have sourced some s4 seats to pick up on the way back home. I haven't even bought the car yet and I'm already buying stuff for it.


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Congrats! Love the white B6's!! Hope you make it into a monster!


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[eljay]

Thank you!!! I will be watching your thread for inspiration and most likely picking your brain as I work through rescuing this.



This has been my dream car for many years and as soon as I found it I jumped on buying it so fast the seller couldn't say no. Will be picking it up 2000 miles (3200 km) from home and driving it back. Overall it seems to be in great shape and obviously the modbug has already bitten as I have sourced some s4 seats to pick up on the way back home. I haven't even bought the car yet and I'm already buying stuff for it.


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Beautiful example! Congratulations! Looking forward to your posts on it. Feel free to ask as you go along. I'm no expert, but I learn as I go.

[eljay]

I still didn't get around to finishing everything inside, but made another small step: installed a dashcam and hardwired it as well as a microphone into the factory location. I would like to run the two wires need for auto-dim side mirrors before I reinstall the glovebox, on which I fixed a broken hinge and re-inforced the other.
Oh yeah, and my inspection sticker expires in September, so let's hope there are no unwanted surprises there.

[eljay]

Pegged her at redline. Tops out at 280kph.



... OK, maybe not.



It's just the cool needle sweep feature of my newly-installed VFIZ by Qmatis after I got rid of my column-mounted boost gauge. I haven't played with it yet, but the needle sweep on startup and oil temperature readings are nice! I need to setup some screens and take full advantage of its capabilities.



Oh, and I also installed rear LED puddle lights with "quattro" logo. Sorry for the crappy pictures.
I have "S-Line" logo lights coming for the front doors.





As well, I picked up a spare hood and both front doors since both my front doors are starting to bubble under the door blades and my hood has a few rock chips that are rusting and the replacement hood was cheaper than a respray. Unfortunately, I discovered later that the "new" passenger side door has tiny bubbles starting under the strip, so I'll have to address that before I put them on. Oh well, winter project I guess. Let's hope the shade of silver is not too far off from my car as metallics are always the hardest to match.

[eljay]

I received the front door puddle lights as well and installed them, so now I have this cheesy setup!







In other news, I took the car for an alignment because of a slight wobble and found a defective tie rod end. That was swapped, but they couldn't do the alignment because they found both of my front Eibach springs are broken at the last bottom coil. So, I'm hunting for replacements now. This car is always testing my patience.

[LASERSareRED]

I received the front door puddle lights as well and installed them, so now I have this cheesy setup!

[img]https://i.imgur.com/jCwJnCN.jpg[img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/rOIiFfi.jpg[img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/ApoE7rk.jpg[img]

In other news, I took the car for an alignment because of a slight wobble and found a defective tie rod end. That was swapped, but they couldn't do the alignment because they found both of my front Eibach springs are broken at the last bottom coil. So, I'm hunting for replacements now. This car is always testing my patience.

Any desire to sell it?

[eljay]

Any desire to sell it?

Ha!
Everything is for sale for the right price, so feel free to PM, but I don't know if I could do that or whether the price would even be worthwhile.
Plus, I would have withdrawal symptoms, especially since there isn't a manual Avant available past the B7 generation. :(

[frenchyofcp]

Need moar pics

[eljay]

Need moar pics

Yeah, I need to take some pics. Does this count for now?

[frenchyofcp]

No it does not

[eljay]

OK... where were we?

So, the Fall of 2017 was a very frustrating time in my B6 ownership. A lot of it was caused by an incompetent local shop where I took my car for a safety inspection and alignment. I will not bore you with that story, but after 4 visits 2 months they always found something else! Basically, first they found broken front springs, then one broken tie rod end, then loose lower control arm ball joint, then apparently an exhaust leak. All of this in 4 separate visits when I drove the car 6 miles home and parked it as I fixed the "next thing". I finally took it to my regular shop even though it's a bit out of my way.
I should've gone there from the start. BTW, they found an inner tie rod play after all of the above trips to the other shop. Crazy.

As I carried out these repairs one by one, I discovered more things like a crack in one of the upper strut mount bolt thread holes, torn CV boot etc and changed some other things "while there".

Here's what was replaced since September:
- both front lower rearward control arms replaced with TRW
- both sides inner/outer tie rods replaced with Lemfoerder items
- both front springs replaced with new Eibach Pro-Kit springs
- both front strut mount bushings replaced along with lower mileage strut mounts
- found lower mileage Koni FSD shocks, so I installed those
- driver side CV boot
- driver side wheel bearing (SKF) and wheel hub (Optimal)
- DIY front toe alignment!

Here's the new spring/strut assembly vs what came out with 50k miles on it:



Since I was taking the axle out to replace the torn CV boot (which has not leaked out any grease BTW!), I figured I might as well install the new SKF wheel bearing I had in my parts stash.
Well, because nothing can be easy, I couldn't for the life of me separate the wheel bearing housing from the knuckle. I used the same method that worked wonderfully on the passenger side, but driver's side was another animal. The wheel hub came out with half of the wheel bearing! Yikes. Then I tried to remove the remainder of the bearing, but it wasn't to be.



So, I proceeded to take the whole knuckle out and got the housing removed at my shop. After 3 days of trying to knock the CV joint off the axle, I also took that to them and had the new boot installed and CV joint cleaned and greased.



What started out as a tie rod replacement was now looking like this...




Since I didn't want to re-use the hub that took a lot of slide hammer pounding, I found a new Optimal wheel hub and pressed that into my new wheel bearing:



Cleaned up the upright and installed the new wheel bearing/hub assembly:



Note the new shiny bolt holding the ABS wheel speed sensor because the original decided to break off in the upright arm!


And now the queen was almost ready for the road! It's not on jack stands; I call them Audi pedestals!



After lowering it back to the planet Earth and backing it out of the garage for a shakedown, the whole car barely moved because the toe was so off, it was like dragging a crossed rubber across a sticky floor. It sounded horrible. So, I pulled back in and went searching for a toe adjustment DIY, which was wonderfully prepared by none other than old guy.
I counted the exact amount of turns when reinstalling the tie rods to be somewhat close to the original spec, but when I looked at the tie rods, the Lemfoerder units and the Delphi seemed to have different lengths of the threaded part for some reason. So, upon installing the new ones, I counted 354' of toe! Yes, three-hundred-and-fifty-four minutes. The spec is 8-10' of total toe!
I adjusted the toe using my specialized toe alignment machine!



Went for a test drive and still felt a little instability, so I checked again and had too much toe out this time, so I re-adjusted and ended up with about 6' of total toe. On the test drive, my car tracks perfectly straight with no pull anywhere!! The steering wheel is slightly to the right, but I can correct that later in the spring. That felt good!

FYI, my front end parts were all part of the FCP Euro control arm kit. Needless to say, you get what you pay for. Delphi brand tie rods and control arms lasted only 2 years and ~20k kms (12k miles).

Yes, there were many many frustrating moments during the above service(s). Again, I've learned a lot and spent a lot more tuition $ at the Audi University. Now that it's all done, the car is fun to drive again and the front end feels great. A huge difference.

[fR3ZNO]

I had a very similar experience when I replaced the tie rods on my brother’s B5.5 Passat. Counted the number of turns, but found out the tie rods were different lengths. Had a crazy amount of toe in that caused the tires to squeal at any speed above 30. I ended up limping it to the alignment shop anyway since it’s close.

Also, x2 on the “you get what you pay for” mantra. The FCP stuff is decent, but if you plan on keeping your car for a long time, you’re better off with other brands. I’ve been running Meyle HD front control arm kit for about a year and a half and 30k miles. Got them from FCP too so I get the warranty too at least.

[eljay]

I had a very similar experience when I replaced the tie rods on my brother’s B5.5 Passat. Counted the number of turns, but found out the tie rods were different lengths. Had a crazy amount of toe in that caused the tires to squeal at any speed above 30. I ended up limping it to the alignment shop anyway since it’s close.

Also, x2 on the “you get what you pay for” mantra. The FCP stuff is decent, but if you plan on keeping your car for a long time, you’re better off with other brands. I’ve been running Meyle HD front control arm kit for about a year and a half and 30k miles. Got them from FCP too so I get the warranty too at least.

Yeah, crazy wasn't it? Visually, there was toe-in visible, but it didn't look as bad as it felt backing out the car. It squeeled loudly.
My plan is to build a more accurate home alignment toolkit as it doesn't take much to overshoot the adjustment given that one flat of the nut is 4.5' of toe.
I learned a lot.

[eljay]

Also, I replaced my BKR7E spark plugs with Bosch FD5P0R plugs.
Those may now be good for as long as I own the car! Haha

[eljay]

Soo, it looks like if all goes well, the Avant will become a baby wagen this year! yay!

With that, I keep pondering what to do with it or to it. Both my wife and I love this car and this is our ideal family car: Audi A4 Avant with 3 pedals. However, priority #1 is reliability. As you can see from the thread and the first post summary, I have replaced many many things on this car with great care and what I've replaced should last a good while. The only things left that I would want to do "complete my list" and feel like I have a super reliable wagon would be to swap out the entire rear subframe with new bushings, control arms, wheel bearings. Then on the engine front, while this engine has been running well, both of us feel like we'd like a bit more driveability. The power is adequate and we don't need more, but around town the GTRS setup is a bit too peaky - i.e. nothing, nothing, then full boost around 3k and you have to lift to have a smooth ride at city speeds. The Stage 3 setup parts are in good shape (only 55k on it) and so is the engine according to leakdown test some time ago, but it does have 180k miles on it.

With that, I always keep an eye on any 2.7T engines in my area, but they are rare around here and it makes no sense to have one shipped. I think that a lower mileage stock 2.7T swap with Stage 1 tune and 300chp would be perfect.
The other option suggested is a 2.0L stroker to add low end torque and help driveability, but that's too much money for little gain.
Of course, the other option is to quit the B6 game and look for a newer Avant, but they don't come with a manual tranny anymore and 2009-2011 have their engine issues and 2013 Allroad is too much money, especially since I have too much money in mine to to sell it. So there, random Sunday thoughts on the Avant's future.

[jhoward]

You could do a 3.0t swap - that seems to be working in the b7's. I hear you on the manual avants, that's what I'm looking to do for mine to keep it going


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[jbain2]

You could do a 3.0t swap - that seems to be working in the b7's. I hear you on the manual avants, that's what I'm looking to do for mine to keep it going


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Significantly different price points and work involved compared with the 2.7 swap.


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[eljay]

You could do a 3.0t swap - that seems to be working in the b7's. I hear you on the manual avants, that's what I'm looking to do for mine to keep it going


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3.0T is not an option for me.
As mentioned above, it's a lot of work for not much more gain given my goals - I'm not after major power.

Sometime in my future, I would love to do a 3.0T swap and manual into a B8 Avant. But that's in dream land now.

[fR3ZNO]

I think a 2.7T swap is the best bang for your buck. The swap is so well documented now, it's fairly easy to do as well.

It's definitely something I've been looking into, but I have the same predicament as you, they don't pop up very often. When I do find a parts car like a 2.7T A6 or something for cheap, it's usually pretty beat and high mileage (not looking to do an engine rebuild). Ideally I'd swap in a stock block and turbos 2.7T with stage 1 tune and call it a day most likely.

[squintsy]

what a killer car. any updates on this?

also, nice documentation on EVERYTHING!! keep it up bro.

[eljay]

what a killer car. any updates on this?

also, nice documentation on EVERYTHING!! keep it up bro.

Thank you very much.

Not much of an update, just driving it through the winter. There was only one snowstorm so far where I could actually have some fun roaming around empty streets. I discovered a small exhaust leak from my manifold to turbo gasket. I made sure to use an OEM gasket when I replaced it 6k miles ago. I'll need to re-check the bolts, but they look tight. Neverending fun.
Here's a dirty picture from this week: