The Project Pad

Well folks, it's about that time that I start a project thread on my 4000. Afterall, it is because of this car that I started to frequent this forum, so what kind of person would I be to deprive you all of updates on how it's been going!

I've been dragging my feet for a bit on doing this, but here it goes from the beginning to the middle to the present. I'm gonna break it up into a bunch of posts just to give all your eyes a rest from time to time

The overall plan of this ride is to turn it into a track toy and still be road worthy so I can drive it to and from the track, etc etc. Not sure if I'll go all crazy doing a cage and such, but we'll see where it takes me.

The performance todo list is as follows:

-MC2 Turbo Swap w/ chipped ECU(no longer happening...)
NOW: MC1 Rebuilt Lower end w/ 7a oilpan and AAN windage Tray

-NF big valve head w/ MC2 cam shaft AND 034 34mm SS Exhaust valves

-034 EFI Fuel Only Computer (Derek's old setup) + 42# green top injectors (NO LONGER)

NOW: 034 Ib ECU w/ 42# green top injectors w/ custom fuel rail, braided fuel line, aeromotive FPR

-Manual boost controller pushing it to ~17psi, later to upgrade to an EBC

NOW: Skipped the MBC and went straight with a EBC

-Garrett 2871 Turbo instead of stock K24

-2 piece MC2 exhaust manifold

-GC Coil overs

skipped, now Mance's CCK kit w/ Pro-Mounts

-GC Camber plates

-Porshce Boxster Front Calipers w/ A4 brackets over A8 rotors

-200 20v Rear Calipers

-B3 2 pc front uprights

-5 lug conversion

-16" wheels of some sort '96 OEM A4 5 spoke for DD and 17" OZ SLs for track duty

-200 20vt 016 Torsen Transmission

-V8 Torsen Rear Diff Swap


This list might grow as time goes on, but this is the initial plan. I'd like to get a real screamer out of this car, but don't know if I'll go real crazy with it... we'll see ... but onto the story of the ride....

The beginning:

It started back in about August of '05. I found an '85 4000S quattro in Durham, NC that supposedly had a blown head gasket, dead pass front window, dead rear window, no A/C and a radio that didn't work. After looking at pictures I decided, hell, I'm going to give this a go. I ended up picking up the car for $170 + $60 relocation chip in on my part since I couldn't pick the car up in time, and the owner was moving from his apt complex to a new place. Cost me another $170 to tow it back, but what have ya

I left bright and early one sat morning and made the 400 mi round trip venture from VA Beach and brought home this:



Car was a lil rough around the edges, but the paint was in remarkably good condition. I found out later that it has been treated to a MAACO special me thinks, but overall I can NOT complain one bit. There is no surface rust (knock on wood) and the underbody is in remarkably good shape. Car had 2 dents (front fender and rear bumper) but other than that, nada.

After about a month or two of the car sitting just like it was in my front lawn, I started to get to work on it to see exactly WHAT was wrong with it. After some diagnosing, I found that there was really nothing wrong with the compression in the motor (it was low in one cyl, but nothing to really worry that much about).

The one thing of concern was the fact that the oil pressure light kept turning on, and it is this reason that I think the PO was told the HG was shot by his mechanic (it's leaking oil, so i'm not surprised honestly he was told this) and why he stopped driving the car. After some conversations with my friend who's been our mechanic for 15+ yrs, we came to the conclusion that the Oil Pressure Control Unit was shot (relay under the dash). I solidified this theory by installing a mechanical oil pressure gauge under the hood of the car. Car held a constant 80 psi on warm up and 50ish psi when up and running. Only real noise that I started to hear that worried me was a strange knocking sound every now and again. After picking up my MC motor (more on that to come) Keith (RockinV8) told me he thinks I have a knocking wrist pin, so we'll see. If it self destructs, oh well... I got AAA and a motor being built to replace this one

My original post about this can be found here: http://www.motorgeek.com/phpBB2/viewtop ... 5140f7b725

So from here I started to tear into the car to make it road worthy! Game plan was to drive it for a bit while I prepped to drop the MC into it. So I took care of a bunch of mechanical and cosmetic things that were bothering me.

Right off the bat I got to working over the dents in the front and rear of the car. With a lil help from an automotive suction cup and my trusty 2lb shot filled mallet, I was able to get a very solid repair of the front fender 8)


hammer in action


Then I moved onto the rear bumper. Not sure what the PO hit, but he managed to catch the front corner and rear corner of the car, and leave the rest completely untouched... but what have you






From this point, I then stripped the interior of the car out to clean the seats and floor from tip to tail. I have since stripped the interior out and picked up a set up black Quattro Script seats from a fellow AW'er and MG'er Carson (GTIVR62801). He hooked me up with a killer price that I could NOT turn down ($150 for front and rear seats!!!! :woowoo: )

But from the get go, here's what the interior looked like stripped:




as you can see in these pix, there are a $hit load of coffee stains b/n the front seats. I swear the PO spilled about 20 gal of coffee a day, it was shnarsty to say the least...

and like they say, the proof is in the water :barf:


From this point, I started to tackle the nagging suspension issues. After originally crawling under the car to replace ball joints, I found I had a few issues to take care of...

1) Torn CV boot. I completely disassembled the CV joint and cleaned it thoroughly, and then reassembled. No clicking what so ever (BONUS!)
2) My CA Bushings were beyond shot... thanksfully there's a mr billzcat who hooked me up in this department
3) my tires were SHOT SHOT SHOT... they were so dryrotted they crackled when you pushed on them, and the CA Bushings were so shot that the alignment was completely f'ed so it ate through to the bands on the front tires...

So the car quickly went under the knife:


Here's some pix of the CA bushings:


The whole CA Assembly literally shifted front and back about 1/4" min... that explained the funny clunking I was getting as I turned the car :bashtard:

So it came time to install some new bushings. Since I"m going to be tracking the car, I decided to upgrade to Delrin bushings. Mr Billzcat was kind enough to supply me with the necessary equipment, and these things are def of HIGH quality.

To prevent the habitual squeaking that delrin bushings do after some time, I coated these things with a HEALTHY amount of antiseize. This won't eat at the delrin like I was told some greases will, and will prevent the water from being absorbed into the delrin, which causes them to squeak... and of course... :pics:




Here it is all installed... as you can see, antiseize galore!


From this point, it was time for tires, because as you can see... they were shot:


From there, the last cosmetic thing I was going to do was remove the pin strip off the side of the car... it was peeling off and looking real nasty, so I went at it with an old credit card and a hair dryer. I followed behind this w/ paint thinner to remove the remainder of the glue... turned out real well if I do say so myself. Makes the car look INFINITELY better IMHO





And from this point, this is how the car has been used for the past few months. Bought it in August of '05, and it finally got registered the beginning of March '06. I really didn't start working on it til december due to time not existing b/c of grad school... but what have ya.

next chapter... the TURBO MOTOR

The TURBO Motor:

Ever since I picked up this car, I wanted to drop a turbo motor into it. I used to have a '90 200TQ, and LOVED that car, and what better to let its memory live on in my head but to use the same motor in a lighter car 8)

I posted a "WANTED" ad in Audifans and was contacted by many people. Of them, the best deal came from Bruce and Keith at Audiconnections (or whatever they're called now )

After taking a month + to finally get enough time to meet up with Keith to pull the motor from the donor, it was on... (thanks again Keith for the help!!!)

Here's a pic of the car that we pulled the motor from... at first, we were trying to pull this motor in the field because the keys to the wrecker were in VA Beach locked in Bruce's house :bashtard:

Here is Keith circling his prey:


And the trusty 4k rearing and ready to go to pull its new powerplant


As expected though, after we got about 1/4 of the front off the car the inevitable happened... we rounded off our first bolt due to rust. Followed by a slurry of cussing, it dawned on us that this car still had all 4 tires/wheels on it, and Keith had a nice torquey V8 ready to pull... So we hooked the donor up to the V8 and pulled it up to the shop, with keith driving the V8 and myself attempting not to let the donor roll into the back of his car

And here she is in the shop:


Keith torching the pesky wastegate bolts that were rusted in place to the downpipe:


Then the motor getting pulled:


and everything packed into the trailer (outside my garage):


While visiting I also decided to pick up some parts off Keith's 4000... yes ladies and gents, this is what $50 can getcha when you help Keith pull a motor for 5 hrs


I ended up picking up an engine stand from Harbor Freight ($40 on sale) and borrowed and engine picker from my buddy to get it out of the trailer and onto the stand... from there began the tear down

Here she is... ready to rock:


And beginning the teardown:


Something you really don't expect to find in your oilpan:

guess this lil fella and a friend tried to go play dinosaur or something and it got the best of 'em... still not 100% on how in the hell they got in there, but I think it was through the opening where the oil return line ran from the oil cooler... not sure though

More teardown pix:


Exhaust mani off the car w/ turbo and wg attached:


Question here is... how do I get to the 2 nuts closest to the cold side of the turbo? I always hear people talking about having to bend a wrench, but for the life of me I can't figure out HOW to get in there to get those nuts off. I'd like to take the turbo off and clean it up a lil bit... might even send it off to get "opened" up a lil bit... not sure 8)

And everything is getting boxed and organized:


Now time to start tearing down the NF head. At this point I want to send out a HUGE thank you to Eric (EES here on MG). He shipped me his universal valve spring compressor no questions asked, no deposit. I thought this was absolutely awesome of him, and MUCH appreciated on my part (it's stuff like this that makes this a great community!)... this made things a million times easier than the cluster f' I was trying to do earlier. I was able to pull all the valves in the NF head and the exhaust valves out of the MC head in a hour and a half max w/ cleanup... but enough jibber jabber... :pics:


and the lil soldiers lined up w/ associated springs, retainers and washers... questino here, do the retainers/springs need to stay with the same valve? Or is it ok to kinda interchange them b/n valves? Just curious


And of course, this is going to be the brains of the Fueling on the car... Derek, I must say, this is a damn nice setup... good job! I'm unfortunately going to sandblast off the crinkle paint and get it powdercoated, but overall I was really blown away with the setup. Can't wait to get it in!!!


I have never gone this indepth in a tear down/rebuild before so this is a REAL learning experience. It's been real fun thus far figuring this stuff out, and can't wait till I start reassembling everything...

This is it for now, so stay tuned. I'm going to get on the horn w/ the machine shop today to get the engine honed and hot tanked and get the head cleaned up w/ 3angle valve job, etc... I'm also going to do some gasket matching on the head and IM... then begins the reassembly

Ahhh memories! Lookin good. Tis a fun projekt

Hey Justin where did you get that control arm bushing tool?

yodasfro wrote:Hey Justin where did you get that control arm bushing tool?

Being that I work for the DoD I can kinda reap the benifits of the enlisted guys w/o being enlisted

I go to the MWR auto shop on the shipyard and have access to all parts, tools, lifts, etc for free basically. So that's where I got/borrowed/used the tool.

It's a killer deal if I feel like driving out to work to work on the car though. I have to pay for lift time ($3/hr iirc) and to use the tire mounting machine ($3/tire), but all tools are free to use as long as you stay on the premisis... never tried to bring one home with me

Well that's pretty sweet!!!

i def can't complain... it comes in handy when I can change tires and balance them for $12... total 8)

Well I FINALLY got the motor back from the machine shop!

She had a bit a machine oil from the honing, but overall was in great shape. There is a slight ridge at the top of the cyl which I'm not sure about... need to get a cyl mic in there to see what my measurements are.

here were the helpful hints I got about cleaning the block and the painting itself... thanks guys

paint options:
http://www.motorgeek.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10598

engine block cleaning:
http://www.motorgeek.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10751

But in the meantime, I figured it was time to get this puppy painted up! Spent some time this past sunday (after recovering from my friends wedding) masking the block up and painting the primer:



Then went on the color... wanted to find the brightest most obnoxious color I could find... unfortunately, there wasn't too much available in a rattle can, and getting a custom color was out of the question due to costs. So it was between chevy big block orange or neon green... I just couldn't bring myself to paint the block green... so I went with the orange:



From there I added some clearcoat, which surprisingly gave the color a little bit of a pearlized look. So all in all I'm very happy with how it turned out!





Also, there's been a change in plans for the engine management system and boost controlling :-D

I originally was going to use a chipped ECU, Derek's old 034 Fuel Only ECU, and a manual boost controller... well, I happened upon a KILLER deal...

Ended up picking up a Ib system with wiring harness, a zeitronix wideband O2 setup (with boost, O2, lambda and EGT readings) and a elec boost controller for a price I JUST couldn't argue with.

I'm pretty hyped about it. I sold off the Fuel only ecu surprisingly quickly, with no $$ lost what so ever, so I really can't complain.

So after the 4th of july I will start ordering parts for the rebuilding of the motor. I'm hoping to get the motor built by the end of July (emphasising the word HOPING)... totally depends on how busy I get with grad classes and what not.

Then end of july/august once summer classes are done start tearing the 4000 apart to accept the ECU and motor. Will also be tackling a bunch of other things while it's apart like subframe bushings, tranny mounts (which are beyond shot), motor mounts, and I'm sure a few other odds and ends that I'm not thinking about right now :bashtard:

Looking good Justin. 8)

thanks buddy... slowly but surely... slowly but surely

I hear that.lol

no hot pink engine paint? what am i gonna do now?

mhb_1323 wrote:no hot pink engine paint? what am i gonna do now?

go custom! :bashtard:

looks good man 8) glad you could sell my old efi setup and not lose your shirt i put a lot of effort into building that one it'll make someone happy.

Its always good to see a I5 being rebuilt.

derracuda wrote:looks good man 8) glad you could sell my old efi setup and not lose your shirt i put a lot of effort into building that one it'll make someone happy.

yeah I was def happy I was able to get rid of it w/o a hassle... gotta love audifans! the buyer actually sounded just like I did when I bought it... that seems like a lot for a used system... lol. I told him to call Javad (since he vouched for it and was the one who sold me on it as well) After I said that, he just agreed. He also picked up the 3 extra injectors I had, so def a win win for me!

you could tell a lotta work went into that puppy though, nice job... I was really impressed. I did chuckle at the floppy disks with the programs on 'em... I don't think I even have a computer that has a floppy drive to use anymore... :tard:

quattrofrog wrote:Its always good to see a I5 being rebuilt.

it'll be even better when that I5 is singing around the track all in due time though!

funny thing is,... it maybe used, but how does that wear it out? there's no moving parts in it, and the harness was prebuilt. i paid over $800 for the ecu itself way back in the day, so i'm the one who took the depreciation hit even after building and tuning and basically making a bolt on setup for someone else

derracuda wrote:funny thing is,... it maybe used, but how does that wear it out? there's no moving parts in it, and the harness was prebuilt. i paid over $800 for the ecu itself way back in the day, so i'm the one who took the depreciation hit even after building and tuning and basically making a bolt on setup for someone else

yup, but you do realize how cheap we 20vt types are

I was def very impressed with it, and honestly i'm curious if I coulda gotten more for it... haha... if I woulda kept it, rest assured you would have heard a bit from me when tuning it... with the Ib, I'm gonna be on an even bigger learning curve! As long as I can get some basic maps to run off my 42# injectors till I get the motor broken in I'll be fine... after that I'll give the tuning a go and continue to :frustrated: cuz keith moved to ohio

No I didn't :wink:

karthurtq wrote:No I didn't :wink:

ah $hit... you telling me that you know your way around a Ib system Keith?? (can't call ya lil since I'm no bigger than you are ) Yeah, you and I are going to be talking in the upcoming months for sure 8)

Well, Guess it's time for a lil update since it's been over a month since I last posted.

What's been done so far you ask? Not a whole lot unfortunately. I've been parts gathering and doing a lot of researching on additional parts.

I have successfully done a minor port and polish on the NF head. Got all the ports smoothed and cleaned up. Kept it with a 80 grit finish in all the intake runners and 120 grit in the exhaust runners.

Also, I put in an order with Javad on Monday for new 34mm stainless exhaust valves :woowoo: I figured, I'm going to build this head once, and that's it, and I didn't want to worry about dropping one of the MC valves (with 170l miles on 'em) and destroying the motor after all this work/$$ I'm putting into it. I opted for the 34mm so I didn't have to have new valve seats installed. Though it only woulda cost an additional $75 at the machine shop, it honestly wasn't worth it... I think the 34s will do the trick quite nicely

So hopefully those will be showing up thursday or friday. As soon as they do, the next day I will be driving to the machine shop to have the head worked over w/ a 3angle valve job, new valve guides pressed in, have the surface that hits the block decked, and then have the head reassembled. Also, I'm going to have the machinist measure the bores on my block to make sure I'm all w/in spec. I shoulda done this before, but I didn't for some reason. Additionally, I'm going to be leaving my new-to-me flywheel with him so it can get lightened to 12lbs or so 8)

Once I assure that everything is w/in spec on the block, I will put my $322 order into autohaus and taylorauto for all the necessary gaskets, belts, etc to get the motor ready to be rebuilt and reassembled!!

Additionally, this week sometime I'm going to start pulling the 4000 apart :-D Let the carnage begin!!! :bashtard:

And hopefully within the next week or so I'll be able to go out and meet up with the local guy to pick up the remainder of the fueling stuff as well, and then sometime within the next few weeks I'll be getting my package from a fellow MG'er who hooked me up royally w/ ARP head studs, a new WP, new timing belt, and an Evolution BOV :woowoo:

Hey just do need that brushed alum. bumper bling I think I still have a set for the front not sure about the rear????

the trim that goes over the bumpers?

nah, I'm all square with those. I replaced the one in the front that was smashed and bent the rear one back to the point that it looks close enough to perfect

Justin, your car reminds me so much of mine... I will be doing the same kind of engine swap soon plus a few other things. Keep up the good work.