Mazdarian

iTrader: (1)

Heya guys,

My name's Brian and I'm currently in the process of mapping out a daily driver / street fun build. My chassis' a European 1986 S4 NA FC, which - for now - I'm more than happy to keep NA. Besides that I'm shooting at getting the engine bay as devoid of parts as possible, and squeeze a little more out of the original 13B NA 6-port. Just a 'clean build' if you'd have to label it.

Now, I've already gotten some things done before starting this thread, so allow me to get you up to speed. After driving the car for the better part of a year following its purchase, during a tune-up I decided to flush the coolant system and top it off again. As to today to my belief that's the moment it went sour for me. At first I'd get occasional, non-persistent coolant-buzzers going off. No coolant loss was found, so I put it down to air trapped in the system. I bled the system but the buzzer - although infrequent and at random intervals - kept going off. Not a lot of fun driving while knowing that at any given moment you're going to be drowned in that annoying buzzer again.

After a few months though, I started noticing my coolant overflow tank level slowly creeping up and not going back down again. This immediately raised my suspicion, for there'd now be air being introduced into the system from some source. By now the buzzer kept coming on more frequently too. I took the car off the streets and started troubleshooting. Checking for leaks on all related parts to no avail, I finally opted to pressure-test the system. Sure as sure, the coolant system wouldn't hold pressure and I concluded the engine had blown a compression seal.

Being just a student on a limited budget and knowing the costs involved in a rebuild would mean I wouldn't be able to pull it off in any short amount of time, my heart sunk quite dramatically as I'd just lost my pride & joy for all to see. Yet, in realising it would be a long time build I found some measure of solace, for I could take my time and do it right. A rough idea evolved into a plan, and here we are.

Edit: For a while I've suspected the seller to have known about the leaky seal / impaired jacket, and with the trouble starting right after I flushed the coolant system a good few times, would it be possible the engine was patch-fixed in a way that was undone by me refreshing the coolant?

Mazdarian

iTrader: (1)

I'm going to keep posting images as attachments from now on, just to keep this tidy.

Anyways; before even getting my hands on the car I had to spend several days clearing out the garage and turning it into more of a private workshop. You wouldn't believe the stuff my dad had laying around collecting dust! With the shop cleared out and cleaned, I could finally get my last bit of seat-time in the FC, driving it around the block and backing it up into the garage for a while to come.

After parking it I got around to fabbing up an overhead light assembly that wouldn't look out of place in an operating theatre, and I kicked up a pair of raised workbenches for dis- and assembly purposes.

Still a shame the car blew a coolant seal, because the rest of it seemed healthy enough. The body has near to NO rust whatsoever, the engine performed great, and the grey leather interior - albeit used - is in great shape. After a year I hadn't done a great amount to it to make it enjoyable, so the pre-rebuild modlist isn't that spectacular;

- New airfilter
- New fuel filter
- New sparkplugs
- A pair of MSD coils
- Rewired fuel pump
- Tested TPS and AFM
- Oilchanges
- Imported an S5 tail light assembly, removed the diffusers
- Added a black Volvo 240 front lip to match the black trim
- Dropped the car about 40 / 45mm with a set of springs
- Imported a set of Work Euroline DH's size 18 x 9 / 10
- Redid the old stereo with a double-din pioneer headunit, 4 compound speakers and little 120mm sub.

Now, with the workspace done, I traced an engine stand and crane, drained all fluids from the engine, removed all secondary parts around it, and enlisted my old man's help to carefully wiggle the engine out. With the engine out I took the oppertunity to think out my plans a bit more;

I wanted the engine bay as clean as possible. Therefore I decided that first off the OEM airbox and fanshroud wouldn't be coming back. This would mean sacrificing a properly working OEM CAI of something more of a warm air intake, and losing fan efficiency due to its shroud being gone and no longer funnelling air properly. The black intake-duct and AFM would terminate in a fabbed up adapter to mount a cone air filter to be located roughly in the area behind the passenger-side headlight. I plan on feeding that area with cold air from the front bumper, through a system of ducts made from large diameter lenghts of that orange neoprene hose. It probably wont do as good a job as the original CAI did, but I hope it'll do enough. Any naysayers wanna chip in on that?

Concerning the fanshroud; I'm removing the clutch fan entirely anyways, and replacing the OEM radiator with an aftermarket one, mounting a large diamter spall-fan inFRONT of it between the radiator and the nose of the car, assuming this wouldn't hurt the radiator's cooling capacity over the OEM system.

So there's that. The battery's gonna be relocated to the spare wheel well in the boot, below where I mounted my amplifier behind the boot-lining. With the airbox, fanshroud and battery gone, It'll only come down to relocating a plethora of smaller parts to finish my idea.

Mazdarian

iTrader: (1)

After stripping the engine down to the shortblock and cleaning up the engine-bay, I finally received my humongous flywheel nut socket and made a start in the disassembly of the shortblock itself. First off; that flywheel nut. It took me and my old man, a monstrous breaker-bar lengthened with a stretch of stainless exhaust and a ton of elbow-grease to get it loose.

The flywheel itself was the next major hurdle. We fabbed up a beefed up pulley.. puller? to maintain constant torque on the flywheel linear to the e-shaft, went to it with a propane burner, then tapped the circumference with a brass mallet. It came off due to the hammer, although I had a monster argument with my dad - a machinist by trade - who just wouldn't accept tapping the flywheel with a hammer would loosen the tapered spindle connection with flywheel.

With the nut & flywheel off, I fabbed up a mounting bracket for the engine stand and got the engine mounted, flipped it over and got to removing the oilpan. Once I got a look inside, I gawked. Never before had I seen an oilpan and sump area cleaner that this. The pan had NO dark oil, gunk, grit or whatsoever in it, and the sump area was bright and clean. Healthy engine huh? .. After that I removed the oil front stack, took the through-bolts out and popped the rear plate to be surprised even more; the rotor chambers were mirror-smooth. Good stuff here too.

The rotors themselves had - some - carbon deposit on them, so after picking the seals, springs and oil control rings out, I took a razor and carefully removed the bulk of it, then cleaned them further in my parts washer and sprayed them down with brake cleaner. I applied some parafin-oil afterwards, labeled the rotors and stored them in seal-bags for later. Same goes for the mid- and rear plate, the rotor housings and the e-shaft. All parts were checked for clearance and wear/scoring, none was found. The rotors even still had the anti-friction coating outward of the side-seals intact, so happy days!

The front plate however proved to be the culprit of this entire ordeal. It blew a compression seal and jacket in the detonation-area. I removed the stationary gear from it and strung the plate up on the wall for all to see.

To be continued!

Mazdarian

iTrader: (1)

With the engine disassembled, it's constituent parts cleaned and stored, and having documented which parts would have to be ordered to get it back together, I took my time working on the engine bay a bit more while figuring out what course to take with the NA 13B.

I'm probably going to kick down some sandcastles here, but I'm a big fan of rerouted harnesses, so that was one of the mandatory things to be included in the build. First up would be to disconnect anything hooked up to both the front- and engine harness, colour-labeling every connection, documenting where the part went in the engine-bay, and freeing up the harnesses for relocation.

I've seen some FC harness reroutes taking the front harness for a trip along the driver-side wheel well, and after careful consideration I've opted this as good a place as any. So, the front harness - now stripped of electrical components - was pulled back into the drivers footwell, and a new hole for it was punched through into the wheel well. From there-on out it'll be strung upwards along the inside of the fender, entering the nose of the car just behind the driver-side headlight to continue its original path. The main relay and some other small parts will be mounted below the dash above the pedals, and the engine-bay fuse box and other relays will have their leads lengthened to be mounted next to the coolant overflow tank in the nose of the car, covered by an airdam/plate.

The engine harness however, will be taking an entirely different route depending on the feasibility of initial idea: pulled back into the passenger footwell and re-entering the engine-bay through an opening high up on the passenger-side transmission tunnel, above the bell-housing. Now, I'm not yet totally sure about this due to heat 'n such, so if anyone wants to chip in their 2 cents on this, please do!

psyaddict

Hi and congrats on finding a nice fc, despite the coolant seal/front iron. But when buying a car like this, it's always good to add a rebuild cost to the budget anyway
And about the aftermarket filter, for me it seems better than stock when you bring a hose/pipe from under the passenger headlight, just like you said.
The engine looks really clean inside, my first one was really dirty and no reusable parts, but it didn't drive anyway, so that was what to expect i guess.

Mazdarian

iTrader: (1)

Thanks! and yeah, with the benefit of hindsight and the price I paid for the car I think I should have factored in a rebuild straight away. With said process now well underway I'm actually slightly glad it happened; you don't pull the engine, upgrade it, and clean up the engine-bay of your daily when it's healthy, except if maybe you own a shop or something.

On a side-note; a while ago I took the remaining plates, rotor housings and rotors for a swim in a ultrasonic parts cleaner. They came out pretty well!

Mazdarian

iTrader: (1)

So, a while ago I received my RTek stage 2.0 upgraded N326 ECU. For this thing to work on my car I'm removing the distributor/coils system and replacing it with a CAS and a set of coils with igniters. From Euro to US ignition, so to speak. The process of finding Euro wiring schematics, cross-referencing them to the US ones I got off Foxed, and taking notes on what changes to make on the pinouts was a lengthy one, but I've got the gist of it down on paper for easy reference.

To keep my head from blowing with all the desk-work involved in wiring, I took the occasional break now and then to work on further stripping down and redoing the engine-bay.

Pics related!

As far as the RTek's concerned; I figured it to be a cost-effective way of getting just a little more control out of my daily. I've got the tuning software - which was originally palm-based - running on my HTC M9, and with the RTek retaining the stock maps, my smartphone would be all I'd need to make minor tweaks and log some data when I feel like. The bluetooth connectivity I think is a nice touch too, I just hope it doesn't pick a fight with my radio XD

For the engine-bay; I've gone ahead and removed the original brake lines, wiper motor, and any brackets / small parts / nuts & bolts remaining, unbolted the steering rack (of which the pump already disconnected and stored, not to be installed again because of the sheer size of it), de-rusted and sanded the chassis runners and subframe, primered them, and repainted both. Came out pretty sweet I think.

TBC!

Mazdarian

iTrader: (1)

Thread revival

I've been away from the car for the better part of a year now, work / school / moving to a different city etc. but I figured now'd be the time to pick things up again an get her done before next summer.

An update so far;

The engine's still in pieces, but everything's there to build it up again, will start on this in a week or so

The engine-bay got torn down and stripped, prepping for a total respray.

The front subframe has been lowered due to this, so it'll be getting a touch-up too.

Done several smaller things meanwhile, some turned out good, some less so, but I'll post pictures nonetheless. Looking forward to it anyways.

cheers!