jchrisyoungren

This car was found here on Audiworld and some of you may remember seeing it advertised. I've been basically cleaning it and cherry-picking parts off of my old car that it's replacing. I'll post a couple pics when I'm at my computer. The reason I'm posting now is this:

Yesterday I drove it all day, no problems. Took it to SMOG and it wouldn't start. Long story short- no matter how many times you have fixed the same problem on identical cars, don't be hasty. I tried swapping in a "known working" fuel pump relay, as I wasn't getting power to the pump. It still didn't run. I ran a jumper from the battery to the pump and limped home. Is my "new" relay bad? I turned the key with my hand on the relay and could feel it clicking, as I turned the key, like a good relay should. Then I realized that I had actually swapped the relay NEXT TO the fuel pump relay. Swapped in my ACTUAL "known working" relay and everything is great. So, the obvious lesson is to be sure that you're swapping the correct parts(ahahaaaaa, yes I have been doing this for a long time), and if your relay "clicks" it doesn't necessarily indicated that its working 100%.

Sharkbite

Hahaha... Yes it helps to swap the "Correct" parts
I have ran into a similar problem on my build. A bit more severe. And completely shows my ignorance in the Audi world.

jchrisyoungren

So here's just a few photos.

Sharkbite

That bay looks clean! Good work! Keep it up.

jchrisyoungren

So, I SMOGed it yesterday. The tech was really happy that the car was clean. Then he shows me the results. Basically, the car burns cleaner than just about anything on the street. I've NEVER had an Audi that burned so clean. WAY below average and 0.0ppm CO!! It pays to replace your:

coolant temp switch
O2 sensor
vacuum lines

And all that stuff is more fun when it's clean!!

JDuVal

What Sharkbite said! pride of ownership shows!