mk4 GTi v6.0 - v8 RWD Edition

Spent some time Monday night thinking about what would be good next steps.  One thing that I know I've said is I'd like to get the car on an alignment rack before I get too much deeper, so in order to make the car roll, I need steering and at a minimum outer axles subs in the rear.

That being said, I started thinking about finalizing things to help work towards the tunnel, floor, which will help drive seating position, steering location, etc....so last night last night I decided i was going to finally measure and shorten my driveshaft....I figure this helps me finalize something for the tunnel that will help drive where exhaust can route under the car, which means I can start thinking about flooring

OEM S4 Cabriolet driveshaft ~63", measuring my tailshaft flange to rear end flange, ~47", need to remove 16"

Marked up, drew the line 180° of where there was a weight from the OEM balance

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Precision cut, sanded and beveled 

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Used a couple pieces of 1" angle cut close to the full lenght of that shaft, lined up nicely 

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Tacked it up in 4 places ~90° from each other, seems to have stayed true

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Need to get another set of hands to help me install it

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

While I was motivated I dug into tearing down the old CV shafts, the car will use VW R32/Audi TT outer knuckles and the Audi B6 S4 rear diff....smaller OD, yet solid shaft on the right is the OEM VW R32/Audi TT rear shaft, the middle shaft is from the S4, far left is a 1.75" OD x 0.375" Wall x 1" ID steel tube that I bought with plans of machining into a sleeve to join the two

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Spent some time today on the tubes watching some folks do samilar things and seeing how they measured, seems like it should be relatively straight forward to get my lengths, then onto actually making a functional part...until next time, always welcome any/all, comments and feedback

This has to be my favourite build right now.  Amazing work. ​​​​​

JohnnyWholesome said:

This has to be my favourite build right now.  Amazing work. ​​​​​

Thank you!

Got under the car last night to apply my learnings of how to measure for CV axles, wanted to make sure my camber was as consistent as possible, found out that one of the LCAs had an outer heim joint seized, so dug out an old/spare set from my R32, cleaned them up and threw them on...still need to get one more measurement with the springs out and fully compressed, but seeing that full sag and spring copressed are the same length, I think is a safe assumption at this point

New LCA, and you can seem my customer UCAs from years ago, this is why doing an AWD in an MK4 without the R32 or TT floor pan is a bad idea....lots of savagery to get proper travel

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Measurements from inner flange face on the diff to the inner race on the wheel bearing

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Rough mock up of what I am working with....I have a couple differnet ideas of how to make these two merge/join them, as you can see in the second photo the Audi S4 axle is hollow and the TT axle is solid, thinking of machining down the TT axle to where it is almost a press fit, then drill holes  and cut slots in the S4 axle for a series of rosette welds....the other thought is do that and sleave it, but there will likely end up being a step int he sleeve, which may be a different challenge....plan is to do some more measuring and put some ideas on paper tonight

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Following here as well.

Guess its been a busy couple weeks....not as much project progress as I would like, but been able to focus on buttoning up a couple other little projects.

I did make it over to a buddies house last week that has a lathe, chucked up the axle halves, the solid one is certainly pretty true, the hollow one, not as much, but I think it will work well enough to get me rolling.  We basically got our thought process aligned for getting down to work, did a little test machining, faced both and turned down the OD of the solid shaft....seems more than reasonable to machine it down and do my best to press it into the hollow shaft.

Hopefully going to get back on that project Wednesday or Thursday night

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Picked up a new tool during the black friday sales, the drive motor was on sale for close to $175 off, by the time picked that up, a couple bead dies, a set off flange dies, I saved a little over 20% from where it normally runs (been watching them for a while).  Need to get some sheet metal and start practicing with it, will be nice to have once its time to do tunnell and firewall

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Cant remember if I had mentioned it, while doing the steering I had all but convinced myself that building a set of headers was going to be the way to go to ensure that when the time comes to build the tunnel & firewall it was optimized for footwall room and pedal placement.  Ordered up some vw 1.8t turbo flanges and they appear to be the same bolt pattern, now just need to see how they will fit on the heads the next time i have the engine out

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

In reply to fouckhest :

Nice bead roller, I have a manual type from Woodward. Since its manual I made a small platform to support the work piece as I crank and maneuver it along my scribe, whenever I use it I dream of adding a motor with foot pedal control.  Tipping dies are real nice to make flanges and bends in a curve  

David_H said:

In reply to fouckhest :

Nice bead roller, I have a manual type from Woodward. Since its manual I made a small platform to support the work piece as I crank and maneuver it along my scribe, whenever I use it I dream of adding a motor with foot pedal control.  Tipping dies are real nice to make flanges and bends in a curve  

 

Thanks, I had actually been planning on getting the Woodward unit, but when I started to get serious about shopping, the Eastwood has a deeper throat, then when they ran the black friday sale on the motor, it pretty much sealed the deal for me.  I wanted a motor regardless, spent countless hours on youtube watching some DIY projects, and while they all work, this seemed much more practical.

Found a window to run down the street to my buddies house that has the lathe, only had enough time to get one machined, but I now know the recipe, so the second should go rather quickly/smoothly.

Did some final measurements, got both sections cut down...you can see in this photo, an uncut set and cut set....the shorter/smaller, second from left the inner mark is where we will machine too and act as a stop to set the length

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Chucked up and ready to turn down

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Solid bar turned down, hollow bar cut to lenght and faced 

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Slides right together, I actually wanted closer to an interference fit, but once I get holes drilled for fillet/rosette welds, I'll decide if I want to just weld it up, or take it back over and tack it while is in the lathe with one end in the live center

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Outer end on for a quick test and it is close enough to the 22" target that with the 1.75" of play, lets just call it close enough for gov't work

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Been boucncing between projects lately, currently waiting on my buddy with the lathe to say he has some shop time lined up to finish the other side axle....so in trying to keep moving forward found some time last night to sneak out to my shop, started working on the rear subfram mount tubes with captive nuts....nothing crazy, rince and repeat from the front tubes, but its always good to sit down and get some time behind the hood

components cleaned up

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

tacked up

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

captive nuts ready to be welded to the tubes

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

This thing is going to be nuts when you are done. 

Found some garage time yesterday and this morning, got the rear subframe mounts all tacked up along with some frame rail reinforcement

welded out the tubes with captive nuts

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

tube fitting and CAD for the reinforcing plate

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

plate cut out and bent, fit quite nicely

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

tacked up

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

got started on the drivers side this morning, some of the old firewal was kind of in the way and needed to come out anyway, so cut it back some more

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

then rinse/repeat for drivers side

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Just got cleaned up from that, pulled one of the exhaust manifolds to test fit one of the flanges i bought, unfortunately learned the hard way that the 4.2 head does not share a common pattern with the 1.8t, womp womp, so now I need to either find a real CAD file or get to measuring/drawing and see how much it will cost to get a set made from send cut send

Been trying to keep working where I can, Sunday an amp arrived for another car project I've been working on, so I detoured from big project, to button up a side project...which is now done....quick side project whoring lol

Old school stereo build project on my other mk4, which when it came time to wire the amp turned into putting seat heaters in the seats, which required new seat base foam.....rabbit hole!

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Back to the widebody car, after I posted Saturday about the flanges not fitting, I took some beer drinking internet surf time to see what I could come up with for either a CAD file or someone that makes a 4.2 specific flange....not sure why I didnt find/see these earlier?  Or I did and I was being cheap (likely the case), but found these and ordered them...1/2" think stainless, stepped primaries to accept 1-3/4" tube, seem like very nice quality, called them to verify the sizing on Monday morning, the owner called me personally within an hour'ish....I feel good about the purchase

(https://tweetlerperformance.com/products/audi-stainless-steel-1-2-thick-exhaust-flanges)

That of course had me down the rabbit hole of looking at what I will need to start fabricating the headers, I do want to use quality materials and JMD come very highly recommended....so went back to refresh my shopping cart from 1-5/8" primaries to 1-3/4" only to find that they are having a "year end sale" which is 25% off, which is likely the same price as if you have business account (which I was going to order through a friends account)....so filled up my shopping cart and hit buy yesterday....woof, that wasnt cheap...but excited to start on that project next year

I did spend a little time Sunday afternoon planning a layout to test my new bead roller.....ended up on this for a design

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Found some time last night after work/before dinner to sneak out to the garage to test out the new tool....here are the results....definitely a learning curve on consistent corners and meeting back to your start/stop point

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

you can see where I missed in a couple spots here

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Then Then, my buddy with the lathe hit me up at dinner time to say he was going to head to the garage to work after the kid went to bed, so headed over there for a couple hours and got the other axle machined....ran out of time to plunge the holes for the rosette welds, but those should be easy next time i get the bat call

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

both lined up, very happy to see how close they are in length, call it good enough for gov't work!

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

....going to try and spend some time over the next few days finishing up little projects like the oil pan and steering shaft, that will make me feel better about starting on the headers when parts arrive.  Found out today that the wifey is traveling for work the week of Jan 8th, so that should allow me a fair amount of garage time!

Rad, you're moving fast on this thing!

Shavarsh said:

Rad, you're moving fast on this thing!

Thanks man, trying to make progress where I can and learn some new skills along the way 

Trying to hold myself accountable for finishing up projects when I am in between waiting on parts for next steps....so while waiting on the header materials to arrive I took an opportunity today to finish up my oil pan....also, header flanges showed up, installed those and think I know where I am going to target for merge collector placement

Header flanges, very happy with the quality of these

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

The 4x4 block is what I was positioning to think about the merge collector

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Quick recap of finalizing the oil pan modifications for steering rack clearance....decided to mig this, wanted to try and control head/warpage, so this seemed like the logical choice

This is the little pocked that needed to be filled in

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Oil soaked template with the unbend piece 

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Initial bend

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Frist fit up, not too bad

by fouckhest, on Flickr

Welded up and cleaned up

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Tacked the panel in, then screwed/clamped the oil pan to the table and welded the pan out...need to clean this all up, throw some paint on it and call it done!  Oh, and need to add a drain 

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Small update....been chasing pin holes in the oil pan, definitely challenging, but the TIG has proven handy to smooth out the welds and chase out holes.

Header supply shipment showed up from JMD, products look really nice and the 1.75" OD 2" CLR bends are very nice, I think they are going to work well.

• 6x 1.75" OD / 2" CLR
• 2x 1.75" OD / 3" CLR
• 2x 1.75" to 2.5" Slip-fit Merge
• 2.5" x 4ft straight
• 2.5" Merge/X-pipe (pained me to not make one, but I can make one as nice for the $$$
• 2x 2.5" v-band

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Also, was highly excited by highly disappointed to recieve my steering rack spacers, they look fantastic, bolted right up, installed my new tie rods/ends, only to realize I berkeleyed up a dimension and they are a total of 1" too wide, so 1/2/" each side....went back and looked at my photos and sure enough, I wrote down the OEM e09 rack was 27.75, but photos show 26.75.....so back to to NY they will go and get them shortened....womp womp....but somthing did look off with the rack placement as well, I didnt like the tie rod angle, so I need to revisit some rack placement dimensions and verify that taking 1/2" off each side is best, or should I go more b/c the tie rods were all the way in and still have ~1" toe out, so that is going to suck up close to that 1/2"

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Oil pan wrapped up, added a drain plug, fingers crossed the heavily modified end is all buttoned up, last water test only had one very small leak....

Drain plug....this is the OEM unit, sits nice and flush with the pan, should avoid being something that can get damaged during engine removal

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Steering rack end...you can see the top left of the pocket was the last place to get touched with the TIG....there is a bit of "wobble" to it on the table, debating securing it more and hitting it with the blow torch to try and releave some stress, but my welding table isnt a known flat surface....any suggestions?  There are a lot of holes, it seems to pull down really flat, so wondering/hoping it will be okay when secured

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

The last sbc oil pan I did folded up pretty bad. However when tightened down on the engine it doesn't leak as far as I can tell (Its been on there about 6 months). I'd support putting it on and moving on.

Shavarsh said:

The last sbc oil pan I did folded up pretty bad. However when tightened down on the engine it doesn't leak as far as I can tell (Its been on there about 6 months). I'd support putting it on and moving on.

Appreciate the reassurance!  With little force I can push it down to the point that its seems like it would seal....again, just looking for a little bit of encouragement lol

Hoping to get my next round of water test under way today

The nice thing about a sheetmetal oilpan is in can be pretty warped and the bolts can still pull it flat. Not ideal, but not a swapkiller.

iansane said:

The nice thing about a sheetmetal oilpan is in can be pretty warped and the bolts can still pull it flat. Not ideal, but not a swapkiller.

Appreciate the feedback!

Got some work done over the weekend, lined up some time saturday to use the bead blaster at a buddies shop, got the oil pan blasted and painted, sunday got it back on the engine and the engine back in he car....thats where progress came to a halt

....wife is out of town, of course I expected that I would be able to live in the garage while she is away had all intentions of getting started on my headers....but murphys law always wins it seems....monday got stuck prepping the house basement/shop for the pending torrential rain that we were going to get here in SC.....thought that would be manageable, only to realize a drain was clogged in my basement, so woke up yesterday to a flooded basement, which flows out into my shop....so yesterday was spent clearing said drain and mitigating water....

Anyway, here is my refreshed oil pan, used some high temp ceramic paint, says its good to 600°F

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Was delightfully surprised to get a message on IG from a guy showing me a photo of my car in the latest GRM....maybe that is their way of finally getting me to subscribe...it worked lol

GRM_2 by fouckhest, on Flickr

Also cool to see it on the same  page as Ryan Tureks Stout build, I followed that on YT, certainly another level of money is no object, but a cool build nonetheless

GRM_1 by fouckhest, on Flickr

...now hopefully find some time to get back to work on the car

Had a productive day in the shop yesterday, wanted to get started on the headers/exhaust, had to fix my gearbox cross bar/mount/support, then onto forward progress

Driveshaft installed, complete with SEMA approved center support, lol

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Then onto exhaust, welded v-bands to the merges, then on the other side a 45° 2.5" tube to give me something to attach a tab to hold the merges

Merges

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Quick/dirty mounting tab

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Merges installed....I tried my best to keep the v-band located simarly with hopes that will help drive as close as possible to equal lenght runners side to side.....also cut a bit more out of the floor board to be able to work more effectively 

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

The steering shaft is going to be a problem...ignoring that for now

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

.....working on the passensers side primaries today

Color me humbled....building headers is a challenge to say the least, definitely fun, but wow, I worked for probably close to 8hrs to accomplish what is in the post.

I have done a fair amount of research to document firing order and what orientation i want the primaries to run....made this little sheet to tape to the windshield as a reminder

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

I decided I wanted to start on the #4 cylinder runner first because natrually it would want to be the shortest, so I'll need to make it the longest...this is where I landed

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Next was to start looking at where to position the rest and build a little big back to front, so started with #1 cyl (bottom in this photo), then #3 (top right) because it will need to be a longer one as well....honestly, its hard to get any good angles to show the available space, but the second photo shows it a little better

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Just learned about 15min ago that I am supposed to be on holiday today, so just gained a full shop day back, bonus!