Oh yes.... go on kind Sir
Oh yes.... go on kind Sir
Been making progress where I can...
Took a slight detour last sunday while "recovering" from a lake weekend to clean up and repair the value covers from the engine (donor car was a salvage where it had been rear ended and pushed into the car in front, so lots of little things are broken)....little jb weld repair on the covers, then some VHT wrinkle red....i think they came out pretty good lol
by fouckhest, on Flickr
by fouckhest, on Flickr
by fouckhest, on Flickr
In an attempt to salvage the bent subframe a buddy and I cut the bent one, bolted it to one of my replacements, it got my far enough along that i could start cutting into the frame of the car, but it was still too far out for me to feel comfortable about using it for much more...but it served its purpose
Here is how far it was off after cutting it, so we patched it and it was square'ish
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
It did help figure out where my interference points will be with the current mk4 rails, note, where the lift arm pads are position under the plywood, this will likely be trimmed later, but not neccessary right now....that is why i cut those two rearmost mouning points off so i can focus on the main 4 mounting points
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
After passing my point of comfort with the bent subframe last week, this past weekend and last night i've spent some with one of my replacement subframe(s), i cut up one of the newly acquired just like the bent one and have been cutting into the fame little by little....
Where it is notched now i've got it pushed back far enough that i like how my mock-up wheel is centered fore/aft, still not sure it sits up high enough in the wheel arch/fender, also need to check caster where it sits right now, but this leaves me at a point where i need to get it tacked in, my wheel adapters are hopefully shipping today or tomorrow, fingers crossed they will arrive this weekend, at which point i can really start evaluating more variables with the car on the ground (wont lie, im excited for that)
Here are the notches in the chassis rails with the subfram in place, it is up on 1" blocks in the rear and a 1.5" block in the front, this gets the top plane of the mounting holes relatively parallel'ish
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
wheel position in the arch/fender
by fouckhest, on Flickr
I was able to relaim the captive nuts from two of the VW subframe mounting locations, widdled them down with my bandsaw, I think they will work well for mock up purposes right now, thinking of making a simple mount either using some angle like this, or some box tube...need to think on it some more, TBD
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Solid builds over the years
Love the cat yellow TDI
No ground breaking progress last night, lots of measuring, little bit of cutting, figured out some angle for the front mounts.
I have some ideas for the rear mounts that I want to work on tonight, need to go get some threaded rod at lunch today....to be continued.....
Also, got good news, my front wheel adapters shipped yesterday, should be here tomorrow, so this all plays very well into being able to get this subframe tacked, wheels fitted and see how things look, which will drive next steps....all in all i think the subframe is very close to centered and level, time to commit
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Made some good progress yesterday....lots and lots of measuring and shifting of the subframe, it is tacked in and will support me standing on it...did a test fit with a wheel on one side...need to install an actual set of struts, my faux struts deflect too much so hard to tell where things are actually going to land (dont zoom in on my welds, not sure whats up with my MIG was welding like garbage yesterday)
on a positive note, the 255/35/18 dont look too meaty, might be able to jump up to a 265 or 275 on all 4 cornerss 
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Productive morning, got the coilovers installed, steering rack installed, definitely more wheel gap than I want so going to start working on positioning the engine and see what it does to the ride height and control arm angle. From there will determine if I can/need to move the subfram up to bridge the gap.
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Happy with how the steering linkage and rack are lining up, this is encouraging (I hope)
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Rainy night allowed for some garage time....got the engine in the bay, pushed it back as far as I could...time to start the next round of cutting
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Marked the firewall/raintray where the valve covers will start to hit...the nice thing is, I "think" that moving the engine back ~6-8" will put the oil pan in a nice spot to clear the steering rack...fingers crossed....
The in/out of the engine will certainly become a PITA, so ordered a cheap sissor jack that will help support the tail shaft, will build that tool later this week, then hopefully get back onto the project this weekend
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
**also need to see if I can relocate the oil filter housing...it will certainly provide challenges down the road if the engine lands where i want it
Small world. I followed your garage build over on The Garage Journal!
Looking good!
This is excellent--dig the commitment to continually ripping apart a perfectly good thing! Do VW people get mad at the things you do?
This car would be amazing to see out at one of the local tracks.
Wow, I remember drooling over this car on Stanceworks a long while ago, always loved the engine bay details. Really cool to see it again and all the progress!
Mustard said:Small world. I followed your garage build over on The Garage Journal!
Looking good!
Awesome, love the crossover between sites, just like there folks seem super helpful! Thanks for following along
rustomatic said:This is excellent--dig the commitment to continually ripping apart a perfectly good thing! Do VW people get mad at the things you do?
This car would be amazing to see out at one of the local tracks.
LOL, thanks...I figure at this point its been so cut up, might was well keep going. Not many in the VW world have seen this version yet, like anything there will be some that love and some that hate.....the plan is certainly to get this on track, I really want it to be track focused car.
Doubleoh9 said:Wow, I remember drooling over this car on Stanceworks a long while ago, always loved the engine bay details. Really cool to see it again and all the progress!
Thanks, that seems like a million years ago, but was certainly a fun time in the VW scene
What are the dimensions of that Audi v8 engine? It looks really compact.
In length the Audi V8 is extremely short. Shorter than most V6's from anyone else. Shorter than an LS4 as well.
SpeedAddict502 said:In length the Audi V8 is extremely short. Shorter than most V6's from anyone else. Shorter than an LS4 as well.
Exactly, I cant remember exactly, but somewhere around 32" square....but its a heavy lump
Actually the Audi 4.2 is about 20" long crank pulley to end of block. It's about 23" long in the heads area.
Now it is a lot wider than that because of the huge heads. And weight wise its not too bad at all compared other V8s.
SpeedAddict502 said:Actually the Audi 4.2 is about 20" long crank pulley to end of block. It's about 23" long in the heads area.
Now it is a lot wider than that because of the huge heads. And weight wise its not too bad at all compared other V8s.
Yeah the "package" size is really why I went down this route....YEARS ago, my buddies that own a shop had a car in getting the timing chains done, it was sitting on a table so I measured and was surprised how compact it was. The engine was also out of this car, so when I measured it was an ureka moment, that "this just might work"
Just went and measured, if you account for coolant pipes on the sides of the manifolds and back of the engine, its about 32" wide and 23" long
While working Monday night, first its not easy to get the engine in/out, then once in and when I start cutting the firewall back I have to remove the spreader bar, so I can only support the front of the engine with the hoist, so dreamt up a way to repurpose one of my wheel dollies and purchased a cheap scissor jack to make a rolling tailshaft suppport for when the engine is installed and I need to start leveling and adjusting....
So, in todays episode of bracketology...made up this little guy, the bottom angle in on there to slip into the jack and be a positive stop
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Jack tacked onto the wheel dolly with bracket installed
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Tested and works great on the tailshaft....next step start cutting out the firewall and test it with engine in the car 
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
In reply to fouckhest :
What transmission are you thinking? I mightve missed if you stated already.
yupididit said:In reply to fouckhest :
What transmission are you thinking? I mightve missed if you stated already.
I'm using the Audi S4 unit, pulled the center diff and welded it, so it will send everything to the rear end, which will also be the Audi S4 unit. If the rear end doesnt hold up I'll like go find a Ford 8.8 IRS, then have a broad range of gearing.
I bought an complete S4 cabriolet from IAAI many years ago when I was planning for this car to continue with the show car life, so I wanted to be able to have all the components to keep HVAC, power windows, radio, etc., the plan was to basically engine swap and wiring harness swap everything...I will still start with the OEM S4 harness, but will "weed out" a lot of the creature comforts that I dont care about any more. So along the same lines, the entire drive line will be used....at one point I had purchased an e90 bwm gearbox and an expensive adapter, but quickly came to the realization that the adapter was for an early 4.2, that posed challenges, then the speed sensor location and some other little things dissuaded me from that path and here I am
donor car the day it got dropped off by transport
Awesome work! Looking forward to more progress, thanks for sharing
Found some time last night to start the chop chop...marked out a rough area on the rain tray and cut a hole....guess i forgot to take a photo
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
tailshaft jack/support works great....found the current "limit of pushing the engine back and it seems where the steering column shaft points up might cause issue, but that doesnt concern me as much b/c i can definitely adjust where it sits and how it mounts....so dropped it out of the mounting location to keep pushing the engine back and hit aforementioned stopping point....here is that from inside the car...you can see the back of the engine hitting the old fire wall....not a deal breaker and that will need to be adjusted for exhaust, but getting to that having to think 10 steps ahead point quickly
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
passengers side not as concerning
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
view of the inside
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
But this is exciting, its very close to engine being directly over the front wheel centerline....thats mid-engine "technically" right?
by fouckhest, on Flickr
not perfectly centered, but close enough for now
by fouckhest, on Flickr
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Found some time over the weekend to keep moving forward, cut more of the firewall area out to find out how far back I can move the engine. What I have decided is that the steering rack is going to be my limiting factor, specifically the mounting points and where the "arm" comes up to attach the linkage.
That being said, I've made some assumptions that still need to be vetted with mounting the steering rack, so the engine will come back out to mount it and/or cut the mounts off and mock it up to where the mounts could/will be welded back on.
Here is the general front/back location of the engine
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Made a crude front mount bar that will attach the front of the engine for support while I start to fabricate the main engine mounts, but wanted something to quickly get the engine into position. Held in with c-clamps for now, but working on a temp mount that will use a couple bolts
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Decent clearance between the oil pan and subframe, other than on the front passengers side, but that could be easily persuaded to provide some amount of clearance
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Re-purposed and relocated my transmission mount, so now the engine is very close to being supported without the support bar
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Very cool build. Gives me terrible ideas of what could be done with the hulk of a Mk IV Jetta wagon in my back yard.
Carry on!
Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:Very cool build. Gives me terrible ideas of what could be done with the hulk of a Mk IV Jetta wagon in my back yard.
Carry on!
Thanks, jetta wagon would certainly be cool to do something ridiculous with!
Been working when time permits, wrapped up my braces/brackets(?) that will be welded to the chassis to support the front engine brace, not sure if this will be the final version, but it should be good enough for now, especially while I start working on the main engine mounts.
Steady hands are not my thing, so TIG welding little brackets like this is a struggle, not to mention getting good fit was tough
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr
Also reached out to a buddy to see if there is a chance we can drag the car to his shop at some point in the near future to put it on the alignment rack to get a baseline of caster/camber and put the scales under the car to see where things look right now since the "big stuff" for the drive line are in the car. Also also, did some digging and found where a buddy of mine had corner balance his stripped/boosted mk4 r32, his results were 63.5% (F) / 36.5% (R)
For the most part his car is very simlar to what my boosted r32 was, tubular manifold, FMIC, etc; so I feel using that as a baseline should be if nothing else a starting point/benchmark.
Here is the engine bay in my old car, you can certainly see how far forward the engine is of the front axle centerline, then compared to the v8, I am hopefully optimistic that i will be able to get closer to the 50/50 number. I will certiainly need to put some weight in the rear of my car to simulate a fuel cell...which is another topic I would like to raise here, is what is too small for a fuel cell when wanting to do some street driving, but mostly canyon/mtn driving? I think i can get a 10gal cell in the rear of my car, behind the rear end comfortably and keep it tucked behind th rear rebar...should be enough for 150ish miles of spirited driving
anywho...r32 bay
R32 bay by fouckhest, on Flickr
current v-8 position...seems like a substantial move
You'll need to log in to post.
