The clean is complete. Nothing else done to the car apart from obviously an oil change. The motor feels much more awake, much more eager and the throttle response has sharpened significantly. Ive not done the 3rd gear 3k-8k pull yet, but im sure it will have improved. Ill also keep an eye on the fuel consumption to see if ive benefitted there also. Dont be put off by people on forums stating its not beneficial, dyno runs say this/that blah blah.
The reason I chose to do the job myself is 1, Im an Aircraft engineer and therefore very capable and very happy working on my toys. 2, have an aircraft maintenance hanger fully equipped with tooling, cleaning and the usual consumables needed. 3, I dont have a Unit 20, an MRC or a Doug to take my car too, the Audi dealers over here have not got an F'ing clue about RS cars!
For those of you guys who want to have a pop at this yourself, Imho, i would'nt unless you were pretty handy on the spanners, maybe had another pair of hands to help, and had a pretty decent work enviroment with sufficient lighting, workspace and ideally a compressed air source.
The job itself is very straightforward. I was mainly worried about the actual clean, and was sourcing all kinds of cleaning fluids, brushes, dremmel bits etc. Got pretty carried away tbh! However, theres really no need. I found the best results came from spraying into the inlets both a carb cleaner and some throttle valve cleaner, let sit for 10 or so minutes and get scrubing with a round wire brush, about a 1/2'' in diameter. After scrubbing I always vacuumed out using an air vac, ran a very fine magnetic screwdriver around the valve seat to pick up any broken bristles then same system again. For the final clean, I found best was to cut a small 1'' square of red scotchbrite and put one of these into each inlet with cleaning solution. I then took a long blunt tool and and moved the scotchbrite around with a little pressure on the valve, this gave an excellent clean and finish. Finishing off with a final Vac and blow out with compressed air.
The IM removal/Installation is very easy, as long as your clean and methodical, labelling connections, bagging up fasteners etc. I have Elsawin on my PC and follwed the guide pretty much. I didnt however drain coolant and remove the expansion tank, theres really no need, you just need to be fast blanking off when removing the coolant connection to the manifold. I also left the secondary air system components connected, this make the lower of the 3 torx bolts a bit tricky, but with a good variety of torx 30 bits (length wise) and bit holders, extensions etc - its dooable
I also bulleted the screw and it flew in. Another tip would be to leave in your existing Oil filter, as after the job you'll want to run the engine - 1, to check it still runs, and 2, to warm the oil before dropping it. Then you can discard it and fit a new filter with the oil change.One last thing, a headtorch is very usefull for this job, a decent blanket for protecting the front of the car and patience is all you need. Also, i would highly recommend getting hold of some ACF50 spray, while your doing the oil change and the undertrays off, give your rad hose connections, wishbones, clamps etc a squirt.
Thanks again to RS246 for my research
Cheers guys
