James' B7 RS4 saloon

[James1984]

Cold air feed next, I started following the great guide in the FAQ but decided to do my own take on it, I'm not a big fan of the neoprene style hose so that was first to be replaced.
I found a hose from ram-air that was perfect for the job! It was a seme rigid pvc type with a strong wire reinforcement with decent looking ends
But unfortunately it only came in 80mm or 100mm

So I ordered the 100mm
First I measured the standard air flap and at its smallest diameter it was 65mm so it had to go!
I ordered a standard b7 airbox off eBay for 99p plus postage and threw the top half in the bin.
I also ordered a 100mm abs plastic connector for £7
Then I cut an appropriate hole with a hole saw in the airbox so it was as close to the lower edges as possible, and bonded the connector in with super strong glue that comes with an activator spray.

I then made a frame out of the original auxiliary radiator support to attach the air guide too.

And set about attaching the air hose to the air guide, the trumpet needed a bit taking off to fit behind the grills and is then secured with a M5 c-clip and screw from underneath and M5 button head screw through the side.

To finish off I piped the hose from the radiator back to the connection where people normally bent it to using a 19mm 90 degree pipe and some barbed connectors to avoid cutting any of the plastics, the headlight fits, just!

[James1984]

Christ, you weren’t holding back, I suppose needs must. I’ve got to remember that this didn’t all happen at once too.

Cheers

It's all ongoing, we had a baby not long ago so I just do what I can when I can, I haven't done much lately with Christmas etc

[Lukes3]

Good read mate looking good.

[James1984]

Good read mate looking good.

Thanks, im still on the strip down but im hoping it will go back together much quicker.

[James1984]

It's been a while since I updated this so I may aswel share what I have been up to"

After struggling with the bolts that connect the propshaft to the rear diff I finally got the rear subframe out which wasn't easy on my own!

At the same time I removed the front subframe, I supported the gearbox on one of my jacks and borrowed a engine crane to stop the engine hitting the floor, I then removed the subframe and removed the bushes, using my bush/bearing tool I managed to get the bushes moving and then with a whack of a big hammer they popped out, I'm led to believe that the front subframe bushes have loose tolerances which is why they come out so easy.

I wish I could say the same for the rear the bushes are dreadful and took around 3 hours to remove with lots of heat, cutting no banging but eventually they were out!!

The rear control arms got the same treatment and weren't too difficult.

I also removed the bushes from the rear lower wishbones and rear bearing carriers but didn't get any pictures of them.

Now that was all taken care of I dropped them off at a local powder coasters and got the price of £216 exchanged this

For this!!!

I also had them blast the rear aluminium parts for an extra £40 (standard £10 per item apparently)

[James1984]

Onto fitting the 034 bushes, this is pretty much opposite to the removal of the bushes in that the rears are simple and took about 30 minutes to fit, I had left them in the freezer for a day or so to make it easier, new lemforder diff bushes were added too.

Front subframe bushes took about 4 hours in total, much grinding of the subframe was needed.

[Covkiller]

Great work and thread. Keep the momentum up, it'll be worth it driving your RS4 in the summer

[James1984]

Started the wheel bearings this week, I thought I was going to have to take the old bearings to have the flanges pressed out but managed to get them out by tapping them with a large socket and hammer, which was a bonus! I gave the flanges a wire brushing followed by an overnight bath in bilt hamber deox c and another wire brushing.

I gave the contact surfaces between the steel and aluminium a coating of Duralac to help prevent against corrosion, the bolts were tightened to 80nm plus 90 degrees and marked so I wouldn't forget, finally the rubber bushes were fitted into the rear bearing carriers.

[James1984]

Great work and thread. Keep the momentum up, it'll be worth it driving your RS4 in the summer

Thanks! Hopefully should have it finished soon, I have found a bit of surface rust I would like to sort while the fuel tank and rear axle are off the car from the arch liners rubbing etc.

[James1984]

Had a few hours on the car this week and managed to get all the remaining bushes pressed in apart from two which I'm missing, no during pictures sadly as I was having to work quick before the bushes warmed up as they had been it the freezer for a few days, the front shocks were built up with new arms and 034 Motorsport density line top mounts and the rear shocks were built up with new bump stops, new dust covers and lemforder top mounts, I also took the time for a few pics before I packed the parts back up and put them in the boot for safe keeping.

[aby1]

Had a few hours on the car this week and managed to get all the remaining bushes pressed in apart from two which I'm missing, no during pictures sadly as I was having to work quick before the bushes warmed up as they had been it the freezer for a few days, the front shocks were built up with new arms and 034 Motorsport density line top mounts and the rear shocks were built up with new bump stops, new dust covers and lemforder top mounts, I also took the time for a few pics before I packed the parts back up and put them in the boot for safe keeping.

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Absolutely fantastic work, car will look awesome when finished

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

[JamesBaby]

Incredible work, hats off to you mate. The fact that you can do all this yourself shows incredible skill. I just love seeing a car not only refurbished but made better, i.e the powder coating.

I would like to have a full bush replacement program on my car as they are 12 years old now and I know it would make a huge difference to the car.

I'm more afraid of disrupting the DRC metal pipes during such a process as thus far my car looks ok. Is it possible to do the subframe bushes etc without touching DRC components?

[James1984]

Incredible work, hats off to you mate. The fact that you can do all this yourself shows incredible skill. I just love seeing a car not only refurbished but made better, i.e the powder coating.

I would like to have a full bush replacement program on my car as they are 12 years old now and I know it would make a huge difference to the car.

I'm more afraid of disrupting the DRC metal pipes during such a process as thus far my car looks ok. Is it possible to do the subframe bushes etc without touching DRC components?

Sorry for the late reply i didnt get any notifications, id say its easily possible as the lines ran on the top of the subframe i think, the only bushes to out up a fight was the rear subframe

[James1984]

Time for another update! whilst crawling under and around the car I noticed all but one solid brake lines had corroded ends and could not be undone meaning the brake flexi pipes had to be cut off. I had originally planned to re flare the brake pipe and put on new fittings but there wasn't enough room to do this so I started to make new brake pipes which due to the complex shapes got thrown in the bin and a trip to TPS was on the card (I'm there at least once a week now) the brake pipes were much cheaper than I thought they would be and came in at around £150 for all six brake pipes, I was expecting double that.
Here's the only pic I have of the new pipes (fronts not shown)

The brake lines held up a few jobs between me attempting to make some and the new brake lines being on back order with Audi but I took a day off work last week to fit the lines and do a few more jobs on the car, never again!

As you can see the engine had to be lowered considerably to fit the drivers side brake pipe which you can see resting across the engine bay.

And a pic of the new lines into the abs unit

All the front lines are in now allowing me to move on and lift the engine back up for good!

[James1984]

Whilst I waited for the brake lines I decided to do a carbon clean, I have watched a few videos mainly of americans walnut blasting their valves and thought I'd give it a go, I bought a cheap blasting gun off eBay, bought a cheap Shop vac from screwfix and bought a BMW blasting attachment for the n54 engine which will also come in handy as my 67 year old dad has just bought himself a M235i.

First of all I assembled the gun, I can't take any credit for this as I found it when googling "cheap diy walnut blasting" I am a northerner after all.

Here is the BMW tool

I loaded the hopper with walnut shells and gave it a go, the shells get everywhere so if your going to give it a go cover up everything in the engine bay!

Here is the before pic

During

And clean

And all taped up to stop any thing getting into the ports

Whilst I was there I was there I blanked off the solenoid for the secondary air injection valves, the full SAI system has been removed along with all the vacuum lines to the valves, I'm also deflapping the manifold and fitting a stage 2 manifold so the only vacuum pipe should be from the manifold to the vacuum tank under the wheel arch which I might be able to ditch also and then the vacuum system will control the exhaust valves only.