then we took a family trip to Germany, and saw the other statue of liberty, went to the Unicorn store, saw Santa Claus, and had some bratwurst

 

Great progress! I sincerely hope to see this thing done and running. It's inspiring to see an FC being cared for.

 

i wish the movie uploaded, it fired right up! and ran ok. the gas was bad but i had no place to put it, and i figured a fast idling engine would use it up enough.

so anyways it runs, and it let me look the thing over and no leaks, coolant burped ok, and its just happy. i ran it for a while, and then decided to go to the gas station, its three blocks, and so the gas is bad, it runs like crap with load. i make it there put some gas in it (5-6 gallons?) and drive back home, and its running better. so i start driving further, and the thing has about 12hp, even in neutral it would only rev up to like 3500rpm.

i figure something is wrong, and not just bad gas at this point. the exhaust is a stock precat into the first half of the stock connecting pipe, then its all 1 piece to a cat and then a pair of 5 zildjian mufflers. its a little ricey for a stock car, but not bad and its quiet, too quiet. i unbolted the only thing i could, the precat to the rest of the system, and it got better, but its still only 16hp, not enough!

i also had to switch back to the Audi wheels, one of the tires on the t2 wheels exploded while it was sitting

 

I love Germany, spent a fair amount of time in southern Germany when I was younger, absolutely loved it.

Awesome thread, love seeing a car come back to life.

 

we did a cruise down the Rhine and it was really neat, its like the hotel comes with you. the trade off is that i like to be in a place for a while and just be there, and we didn't get to do that, much, just in Cologne.

 

when we got back it was good, the car ran. the bad part is that it had about 12hp. the exhaust was this one piece welded together thing that was quiet, but a little too ricey for an otherwise totally stock car. i unbolted it at the precat, because that is the only place it attached, and had 14hp!

i should also say with new mounts, and just fresh everything (gaskets, rubber), the car actually runs great, super smooth, very very quiet. drivers seat is a little tired looking but very comfortable. i had to smog my other FC, and ended up putting the downpipe hollow cat and a stock exhaust on this red car and was rewarded with like 190hp!

i still don't know what was wrong with this car in the first place, the engine was dissassembled in the back, but everything was in nice shape. the radiator was missing + plugged precat + bent accelerator pedal = engine apart in the trunk?

anyways old exhaust, not bad, but not what i wanted, and a friend had given me a stock catback so i put that on



Edit: now that i'm looking at the pics, this thing was a PITA to get off, the muffler shop had made something not quite right, and instead of fixing whatever it was they just kept adding hangers to the right rear muffler!

 

once the exhaust is on, power is normal (actually the downpipe to stock cat to stock cat back was great, lots of throttle response). so i drive it around a bit trying to break it in, and stuff. it runs fine except when you hit boost, it runs great in boost, but after it runs like poo. after a while this running problem becomes intermittent.

of course when i went to smog it, it starts running bad and fails... here it is failing smog!

 

and then the thermowax was acting up, so i had a thermowax cookoff... i also bought the last H.air in the free world its the AWS to intercooler hose


i

 

and then it sold! so new owner picked it up mostly done. the funky idle problem turned out to be a missing EGR valve gasket :embarrassed:

 

 

and Fin