XcellR8edAudi

so my car is back and running awesome. had a little issue with it during the drive home from the garage that scared me.. but we'll get to that. feels good to be behind the wheel of her after 7 months of waiting now! lets go back a bit and go through a little progress!...
last you all knew, timing belt jumped, valves bent, zero compression, i was looking into NF heads and rebuilding the top end.. and so it began- here we go:
*NOTE lots of cutting and pasting from forums...

I had to get my priorities straight, figure out what parts were needed, and how much i wanted to upgrade during all of this rebuild. luckily, alex van gerbig of europrice was the sh*T once and told me he would do the work for me to get me going again. thanks again alex!!! You're the man!
i looked into rebuilding a head, 3 angle valve job, new lifters, guides, seals, etc etc.. price was a little more than i was hoping for.. then this..
i had almost given up searching around for an nf head, and then adam told me to just ask on audifans because maybe someone has one and just didnt list it, i never thought abotu the wtb ads, just checked the parts listed all the time.. so thanks to adam, i posted and got a couple emails within a few hours actually... the first one was from someone who was trying to get rid of a running driving 5000s quattro non turbo which comes equipped with the nf head, i told him i would get back to him, he said he'd be willing to pull the head but hed rather sell the whole running car for 250 bux and get rid of it rather than pulling it...

so the next email is the winner!!! I'm so excited right now.. since i was looking for a used nf to get machined and rebuilt, i figured i'd have to deal with finding the right parts to do the swap for nf on mc, but this one came through!

copy from email:
i have a fresh nf head that is ported with new guides and springs,exhaust valves,cam followers, studs, milled .030" and blausport cam. i pulled engine out of car after about 5000 miles because i found a 3b 20v to put in car. any questions call me.

so i went ahead and bought the nf head with the blau cam, was going to be sent out, new EM and IM gaskets, valve cover gasket, new injector seals, new gaskets for oil in and out, coolant, new oil lines, headgsket, thermostat, and a few other iems here and there, parts have been ordered, waited for things to come in but for now, the mc head has to come off!

a couple pix:
we were both knowing and expecting to see some crustyness, 18 years old that sat in a field for 2, kinda a scary thought. fortunately everythign went fairly smooth.

compression check first, zero compression, timing belt super loose, we could slide the timing belt off with our hands pretty much.. trying to turn it over the belts just looped around and around and nothing but a single sound of winding pulleys.. definately bent valves etc..

first we started on disconnecting whatever hoses and wires were easy to get to, moving to the fuel lines, radiator stuff, ic stuff, we decided to keep the front end on if we could, there is a decent amount of room to work when the mm hose is off and the timing belt cover is gone.

next the timing belt came off, valve cover came off, we could turn the cam pulley around and around by hand, which you're not supposed to be able to do, we had to sawzall the coolant lines, they were real crusty at the ends so we cut through them, had to chop the ehxuast since the 3" is welded right to my downpipe.

next we had to pull the head! bolts come off, head comes loose fairly easily but our next issue was raising the head out, with enough angle the downpipe would come out, but not too much angle or the wg would snag on the top of the firewall or the turbo would snag at the front of the car

we decided there was no way it was gonna happen with us just lifting it, so we set up the crane and started messing with getting the right angle, this actually was one of the longest parts of the day trying to pull the head out at the right angle. after a few tries with deifferent chains and straps, and not having enough clearance with the crane against the underside of the hood, we got the head to come out...
and this is the scaryness that comes with it...
ex. valves all f'd. so i will need some new sodium mc valves to put in the nf, (needed to swap em anyways so that works out) and the pistons had more damage than we were hoping for. hoping for just a few nicks an scratches we see this..
first, here's the bent valves, all of them look like this... :
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v430/xcellr8edaudi/ouchc.jpg">

<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March20038.jpg">

<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March20037.jpg">

i must have been at a fairly high rpm when the timing jumped to have the valve hit the piston like this.. damage to each piston..

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v430/xcellr8edaudi/ouchd.jpg">

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v430/xcellr8edaudi/oucha.jpg">

so alex talked to a few people, i talked to a few people, ad since the valves didnt hit the middle section of the piston and more just the crown of it, most people have said that it will be fine to just smooth and slap a new head on it..

so thats what we went ahead and did... in the mean time.. time for a little more power added.. went with the optima red top battery which i have confirmed fits fine under our rear seats with clearance for the seat rails.. i just threw an old rubber floor mat over it so i dont have to worry about anything.
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v430/xcellr8edaudi/march11001.jpg">
Mo' Power!!
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v430/xcellr8edaudi/march11002.jpg">
blau cam, ported, milled, MC head should show up soon with the replacement MC valves... everything is slowly coming together:
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v430/xcellr8edaudi/march16008.jpg">
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v430/xcellr8edaudi/march16010.jpg">
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v430/xcellr8edaudi/march16004.jpg">
the head came with a new head gasket as well so that was nice.

so then i had to order a bunch of small parts... and i ran into a problem with some fluid plumbing lines...
more things have been ordered!!!
i have done IM and EM gaskets, VC gasket, CSV gasket, Oil feed and return gaskets on turbo and block side, timing belt, thermostat, pentosin coolant, head gasket, gasket for EM/Turbo and DP/Turbo, i ordered some of these parts from the local parts store and mostly from thepartsconnection out in cali so those should be here mid next week when the mc head comes! i have a problem though.. i need turbo oil feed and return lines and the "waterpipe" they are all dealership items.. i tryed worldimpex (dealership parts) and typed in the part numbers...
034145771A
034145735F
035121497B
unfortunately the first two (oil lines) are about 140 a piece and the water pipe is 254!!

looked for a few aftermarket plumbing kits but they were all pricey.. i eventually went with some used lines from force five that werent so pretty when i got them but they cleaned up nice.

here's the small parts i ordered from thepartsconnection..

<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March22.jpg">

here are the crusty lines before and after cleaning them up after i recieved them from force5:

<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/April2005.jpg">
<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/April2009.jpg">

so that was more or less all the parts i needed to make my car run again, just the tearing apart and rebuilding needed to be done.

few more shots of things being removed..

<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March20035.jpg" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com">

<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March20040.jpg" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com">

<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March20009.jpg">

<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March20006.jpg">

random garage shot:
<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March20019.jpg">

continued on the next post because this is getting loooongggggg!!!!

MarkPan

:thumbsup;

XcellR8edAudi

one of my buddies jared (turbocgt) hooked me up with a free mc head to pull the new sodium filled exhaust valves from!.. thanks jared!

<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March21001.jpg">

stopped by the auto parts stor to pick up some last minute things from the list.... (which by the way is getting much shorter!) we picked up...
<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March24009.jpg">
intake manifold gasket
exhaust manifold gasket kit
and timing belt....

valves from mc head being pulled and swapped to nf head! then gaskets galore and mounting up the intake and exhaust manifolds again!.... the reassembly!!!

So I got word from alex that the manifolds were bolted back to the head, head went onto the block after some nice smoothing of the piston damage, fluid lines on... slowly things being bolted back into place and reassembly has begun

i brought a new air filter, so the airbox etc could go back on.. from there, most wires, grounds, hoses, and clamps were attched and tightened down, oil added, pentosin coolant added, timing done... new crank pulley... few other things here and there.

after that, alex welded the exhaust back up to the downpipe, only temp for now so i can bring it back tot he exhaust shop to have them get the top of the weld rught under the car body (tough to get at), that and the welder was acting up today from not welding anything, to blowing holes right through into the exhaust, so gonna be a little noisy on the starttup-

the goal was to get the car running before putting the front end back on just in case something has to come off etc..

after a lot of reasselbly... we ran into an issue..

next up was the initial test fire!!-

didn't sound like much at first then we realized the ecu wasnt plugged in, then the lights came on, fan turned on, then the test fire.. and bam! compression, sounded like a healthy motor again and not just a whining belt on a compressionless motor.. no fire though.

compression- check:-)
getting fuel- smells like rotten gas, but check Smile
spark- negative

there was no spark at the coil or in front... (plugs etc) we checked around, found a ground that needed to be reattached, test fire again, no fire. checked for loose wires, adjusted a couple heat sheileds and sensors, a few more test fires... starting to get frustrating looking for wires and having the sound of a dieing starter squealing at you... a few more tries, a little more checking the car and bentleys and poking around it was getting late... tried a different computer, checked the plugs and wires.

distrbutor cap seems "wobbly" on the distributor itself, usually they fit pretty snug, but i never had problems with it before.. a lot of people have said the distributor can be off a couple mm and will cause a no spark situation, so we will have to look closer at that, but this is no spark at the coil, what could this be? new coil perhaps?

sensors on the bloc/bellhousing seem fine, don't see any ground or wires unattached... we figured something like this would happen with a job this size.. usually u miss a ground or something small for a sensor or something that can cause a no spark situation.. hopefully it will be sorted out soon, too tired to pull codes and mess with anything else so we pack it up and ended there for the night after i quick "tacked up" the bumper and support...
the IC is not set up yet so assembly is not fully complete, but this would not affect the no spark issue

next up is troubleshooting the no spark issue, tightening up the front end assembly, headlights, bumperlights, license plate, few more small things here and there, swapping back to swing wheels and summer tires.. cant wait cant wait!!
i'm going to try to find a used coil and some sensors off a parts car up the road.. see if either of those fix the problem, I guess i will be pulling codes at some time as well unless osomething changes within the next few days and the car starts

i'm assuming the distributor is a little out of time or the two sensor wires are reveresed.. it's soo close. just gotta get to the garage one last time hopefully and she'l be back on the road!!!!!!

Alright so newest biggest update.. PLEASE HELP ME OUT ON THIS ONE!!!!

Alex and I just chatted for a bit, he went and worked on the car today, gave me a rundown of how today went... my comments will be in bold so u know how i responded to what he said and any comments i've added

You want the good news first or the bad news first?.. Bad news- You need another ECU, and you have some weird wiring issues, possibly more involved problems..
But the good news.. the car ran today.
it ran like it was missing on a cylinder, like a plug was fouled, it back fired and sputtered. I pulled the codes and got the hall sender code. The engine was idling at 500rpm or so and was laggy to throttle responses, back fired some, didn't rev quickly, is this how it behaved before When you were swapping ECU's before? (if you read back to when the timing belt jumped in the project history maybe page 5 or so, you can see i had the same issue with the car running poorly)
Ok so there is something else going on. I found two cut wires at the ECU plug, know anything about that? no, i noticed it the other day though when i plugged in the ecu though for the test fire
Well oddly enough just when things went a bit odd the tach and check engine lights both dissapeared, while the engine was running, then the engine quit shortly afterwards....
those two wires are grounds for the tach and the check engine light
so how were the tach and check engine light working all this time with no grounds. very weird.
I had to lengthen the wires, sections had been cut out, and tried both ECU's (oem and qlcc) no luck. I can get the ECU to do output checks, but not codes. The check engine light comes on when I insert a fuse on the FPR. Adam Mowafy now tells me that he also has 2 cut wires on his ecu plug.. anyone else? common?
Only thing I can think of is that with those two grounds cut those functions of the ECU were grounding through something else and that may have lead to killing both computers. Well neither will light the check engine light with the ignition on, that is generally a sign of a dead ECU. Also the car will no longer start...
I don't know enough about the 10vt CIS-E system to know what is going on, it's very weird. I will have to talk to some people that are more knowledgable with the system...
The no spark issue was the dizzy being slightly off, twisted it and the car fired up, but it was sputtering like a pig- sounded like a misfire, but I pulled each plug wire individually and it did make the engine bog, so it wasn't just missing on one cylinder Well it gave a hall sender code, that's a clue. The hall sender checked out when I was checking the ignition components though.
I mean I can start back probing and checking wire continuity from the ECU out to the engine, but that will take hours
so is the ecu completely fried? i would be surprised and dissapointed if it were
I mean I could make the ECU do output checks, so maybe it's not totally cooked, but I watched the tach drop from 4k to 0 and then no more start. then also the cut wires for the tach, seems odd.
when i got it started the one last time, it ran poorly, i thought this was due to bent valves and low compression, 350 rpms idle, 500rpms floored... then putting in a new ecu reset the system, car started again at the shop, but ran the same 350 rpms idle and 500 floored... sounds like how this is now, even though we have compression again
well I could rev your motor, I ran it to redline, it was just sputtering and hiccuping and backfiring, so i figured it was in need of plugs or it had a vacuum leak.. Plugs were done in the fall, vac leak possible but i'm not sure..
so someone help me out.. i'm sooooooo dissapointed right now i was overly excited with the thought of driving my car again and now it seems like i'm at the bottom of a hole again..

decided not to swap sensors or ecus around thats not the way to fix it.. we pulled codes again still the same. only thing we could think of was distributor again. toxcheap, (myke) king of cis system cars helped out a lot torubleshooting at this point. thanks myke!!

alex is trying to track down the porblem and figure things out which is awesome, i wish the car wouldnt be such a biatch since he's the man for helping me out with all of this... this is what he has told me recently-
i know i'm just goign to get a distributor and try it to see if it is just an intermittant fault, but here is the current situation...

"Still having issues with your car. It's alive again, but it's studdering and backfiring below 3-4k rpm and at part throttle. Above that it moves fine, drove it around the circle 4-5 times"
"I only get one code, hall sender. The car shouldn't start if the hall sender is bad, so I have no answer. Only thing it can be is an intermittent fault or something random hiding somewhere that isn't giving a code." suggestions said: get a dizzy that is good and try that. That is the next step and then if that doesn't work- I will get a spark tester and see if it's missing while its running. I popped fresh Bosch plugs in and no change, fresh gas, dry gas and techron in the tank too, which helped the idle a bunch."

got an update from alex today... he told me-
The car is running largely better, the idle is still low and lumpy, idle valve doesn't appear to be doing much.
Though I believe the vibration dampener is shot or you've got rod knock that we couldn't hear over the back firing and sputtering.
It runs almost normally again.
so thats where i'm at.. still gotta go and put the front end back on, try to find an ISV maybe.. who knows.

it runs and drives, which is very key! still sorting out a few issues however, but for the most part it's all set.

my low idle issue, idles about 300-600 depending (it's random), it stalled out a couple times too after i revved it and let it cme back to idle.. thats a small and most likely simple issue, the other issue is the knocking sound i have going on, we thought it was a rod knock but we're pretty sure now its just the harmonic vibration dampener or whatever you want to call it on the pulley.. unfortuatly, audi doesnt do a 2 piece like vw, so the pulley has to come off to replace that, which means retiming the car again etc...
the car is runnin on the qlcc chip, ported nf head, and mc cam. i decided not to go with the blau cam from looking at jim greens dyno plots. evertually it will be an mc-2 cam maybe, but for now i'll run the oem one. the wg spring is not in yet, we wanted to have the car running rigth before we started adding power etc...

i owe a huuuuuuuuuge thank you to alex of europrice for helping me out getting my car going again, i know it must have been rediculously frustrating to deal with ym car and it's lack of cooperation, i was getting frustrated and i wasnt even do the work on it for the most part... so big thanks to alex!!!! Thanks

the front end needs to go back on, i decided to wait in case we do have to swap that dampener, and then the headlights go back on... then i just need to swap back to summer (a4 ronal swing) wheels, go get rear tie rods and pass. rear wheel bearing done, along with alignment, and i should be good to go!!!!

here is a short video of the 5000 alive again... copy and paste...
5000 Alive
http://www.greenmountainaccess.net/~dicarlo/5000Alive.WMV

here is a short vid clip of the knocking sound which we were soooo worried about that was rod knock...

http://www.greenmountainaccess.net/~dicarlo/knock.WMV

here's another vid clip of the knocking after i revved it a little to see if the sound would change..
http://www.greenmountainaccess.net/~dicarlo/knock2.WMV

after some poeple viewed those vids most said no way it was rod knock and was belts or something else so i was happy about that.

so we went ahead and cut the a/c belt because mine doesnt work anyways.. and bam! sound was gone. alex said he remebered when he was putting it back on it flipped but he thought he had it right.. just a little kink in the belt. so the sound was gone and my car was running better except for the lumpy idle... which we fixed using the idle screw and just set a mechanical idle!

so my car is back and running... i have not installed the 1.8 bar wg spring yet. i havent installed the ready to go strapped bpv'd i/c we wanted ti running right.. within the next couple weeks, rear camber link, wheel bearing, strapped ic and bpv setup all done, then sping can go in. i have noticed a large difference with the nf head equipped with the mc cam, qlcc hits 1.8 bar but it creeps there, the spring will make ti do it quick.. hits 1.6 fairly quick though. the car is running great and feeling nice.

only issue i had that was kinda scary was first day back on the road headed home from the garage it shut off on me.. turned out to be a fuel issue, clogged filter, bottom of the tank after sitting for 7 months.. all the sh*t prolly just got sucked in.. some techron, drygas and a full tank of 93 solved it... along with som vigorous shaking of the filter!

so she is back!!! i still need to get the exhaust welded back up but i made an appointment to do that for sometime early next week. i think the small tack weld alex did has come free now so i have open downpipe on a chipped 5k =D lots of fun and lots of noise hehe...

gave the car a realll quick hand wax just cuz she hasnt had anything slapped on her in awhile.. i will do the full detailing session within the next few days or next week possibly... then we'll see.

nice to have it back in the driveway for sure.
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v430/xcellr8edaudi/may1044.jpg">

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v430/xcellr8edaudi/may1046.jpg">

thank you sooooo much to everyone that helped me through this whole thing, through all the torubleshooting and sourcing parts with me. i really appreciate it all and let me know if i can help any of you with your projects!!!!

SteveAngry

Sounds like you owe Alex some beer.

Steve
Michigan

XcellR8edAudi

yes. Alex is the man. we worked out a deal for parts and labor prices etc. but i plan on other goods

boxerfan

One is for California emissions and the other to tell the ECU that it is dealing with an automagic tranny.

You've had quite the ordeal with that head swap. What is the advantage of the MC-2 cam? Also, weren't there any problems with balance on the pistons or are they tight enough not to slap?

tpierce

congrats

XcellR8edAudi

a few pics etc from the project, no specific order.. feel free to ask me any questions about the swap, progress etc..

all ripped apart
<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March20048.jpg">

Head, manifolds etc off...
<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March20033.jpg">

MC head from jared i pulled the exhaust valves from.
<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March21003.jpg">

better shot of mc head, connected to manifolds, downpipe...
<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March20034.jpg">

bottom of original mc head, intake mani off now, slowly coming apart. everything was rusted up nicely.
<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March20046.jpg">

pic of my exhaust from the front of the car, we cut it right in front of the cat to pull the head.. good shot of the exhaust i had made last year though.. just gotta get it welded back on now!
<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/March20043.jpg">

another random garage shot.. car all ripped apart..
<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/xcellr8edaudi3/April3010.jpg">

so nice to have it back! wish me luck she holds together and treats me well..

boxerfan

What is Alex's web page?

XcellR8edAudi

www.euro-audi-parts.com