IknowHuhA6

I've been on a mission these past weeks. I absolutely had to have a boost gauge and didn't like the aftermarket vent gauge currently available for Audis so I went the road less traveled.

I didn't find a full write-up on wire pass-through's from engine bay to cockpit so I figured it out and wanted to share.

Please note this is for informational purposes only, and anybody attempting to follow these steps does so at their own risk of damage to your vehicle.

So here's what I did.

IknowHuhA6

Undid (3) 8mm bolts that secured knee panel (yellow arrows). The top one is under the fuse cover on side against door. The hardest part for me was struggling to figure out how to undo those pesky metal clips (red circles) that secure lower knee panel to the dash console. There are (2) to left of steering wheel and (2) to right. I'll post photos of these clips later.

After that I unclipped the wires that were in the way. These included the headlight switch, a vent wire and I believe there was a third, can't remember now. The foot well light was easy, just used my trusty hook pick. The OBD2 connector was definitely tricky, there were lots clips molded into the plastic connector that secured it to knee panel so some patience was required along with my pick-tool. I gently pulled back on clips and slowly pulled on the connector to release it from the knee panel. The back of the knee panel slides into metal u-channel that mounts over the foot-rest(Blue on photo).

IknowHuhA6

Next photo shows the pulled back cowl cover under the hood. I removed the washer fluid reservoir by undoing (2) bolts. Pulled out slowly in direction of yellow arrow, then out. When this pulled out all the fluid in reservoir drained on floor. So slowly helps keep the fluid from spilling all over the ECM just below the reservoir.

IknowHuhA6

Under the washer reservoir was the ECM that I uncliped from the black plastic base and tied it up and out of way. ECM is the brains of the car so bang this up and suffer major consequences. Handle with care. This photo was taken after I ran a few wires through.
Next photo you can see plastic base plate. You can barely see where wires are coming form. There is a grommet just below the ECM base plate on the firewall.

IknowHuhA6

I probably didn't need to but I removed the EMC base plate's top and there were fuses underneath. It's another fuse box! Wow they're all over the place on Audis. = )
You can see the metal wire I fished through from inside the car. I eventually taped the boost hose and few other wires and taped them to metal wire to pull them from engine compartment out through firewall. I slit the grommet slightly midway between existing wire hole and its outer edge. Didn't want to risk damaging any existing wires by trying to fish metal wire through same hole. Friend helped catch wire on engine bay side and guide it out.

IknowHuhA6

View from inside of car with knee panel removed. Here's the pass through with metal wire fished through. Oh look! There's the clip over the footrest I talked about earlier.

And then, Viola! New installed boost gauge. I paired it with an Aeroforce gauge that I found was available shortly after i started this project. Yay!
Darn the Audi comes up on boost pretty quick! Nooiiceeee!

BillBoost37

No video of the boost coming up? Man, I got my hopes up and all. Pretty please?

2014a6tdi

BillBoost, owing to your name, I feel like you should have already seen all of the boost gauges in the world...

Just sayin...

TH3PERFECTON3

would like to see a clip as well

IknowHuhA6

So just a clip of the car driving with gauge showing boost?
Ok I'll see about that this weekend and have a friend record for me while I drive. I'll try to get a WOT run. Interesting thing I noticed is that as I keep WOT longer, I can see the boost drop off (bleed off) boost though bypass since the gauge is connected to the boost plate by ECS.
So I'm hoping this problem will go away once I get my GIAC tune.