The Project Pad

Put a divided housing and quick spool valve in!

this car is gonna be a daily driver with mostly getting around traffic and the occasional HPDE. I am looking for the most responsive setup I can get from the hx40, which the 8CM2 will give me. Plus it came across my path with a price I really couldnt refuse. It's well worth the minor sacrifice in A/R considering my goal from the outset was to go with the BEP .70 A/R housing. Im not after dyno queen numbers but more after a fun as hell setup for romping on every day.

ok, understandable. a 12cm housing still spools pretty damn fast. im jsut mentioning it as the purpose of going to hx40 over the hx35 is to let it breath more up top. 8cm will choke up well before stock redline. id think a 12cm housing'd hx35 would spin up faster even with the slightly larger housing due to there being less rotational weight to get spinning. id be wary of going to a too small a hotside if you planning on using pump vs e85

The housing is in! it's quite adorable. I am really intrigued to see what this setup does. If it chokes out, I can always go bigger.

Not many updates as I've been tied up with work so much as of late, and I've been providing consulting services to fellow enthusiasts in need on my days off... nothing I dont mind doing though! However, this weekend was a slow one and I was able to utilize my boss' workshop to my benefit. Finally got sick of my whining stock fuel pump, lazy gas gauge that decides to stop working after half full, and half illuminated gauge cluster. Lets say yesterday was a bad day to quit drinking (for a month...)

Thanks to a non-forum member who bought JC (of Quattroworld infamy) 's old B-Wagen, I was able to score a lightly used Deatschwerks DW300 pump along with the modified basket, wiring, and fuel hoses plumbed in, making it a sweet plug and play affair.

I pulled the sending unit out and found the textbook sender failure, the copper wire had broken at the float arm. Simple fix, there is slack in the wire at the top of the unit, as though this type of repair was foreseen, allowing you to feed it down through the unit and re-soldier it to the float switch. The basket was a minor headache, mostly because you are flying blind in that damn tiny gas tank hole. I was able to use an adjustable coilover spanner wrench to engage the basket with enough leverage to twist it free, and I'd suggest that method to anyone with access to one. Actually, this Moroso wrench is becoming a very handy "weird oddly shaped twisting
thing" tool. It fits the A1 Racing coilover nuts everyone likes, it fits the Bilstein Sport gland nuts, and now, the fuel pump basket! very much worth the $20.

Here's the spanner I used:


The Offending Sending unit, all fixed up:


Das Deatschwerks Fuelpump (hell yeah for flying blind on fuel level and correctly guessing it was below the basket):


Once that fiasco was handled, I tore apart the dash and replaced all the 1.2 watt bulbs with 2 watt bulbs (purchased from AutohausAZ)
and replaced the HVAC unit with one that has no dead pixels. (the things new car owners take for granted!)

now I can see my dashboard!

the suspension build goes on! Here in the Great White North, we have salty winters that would make quick work of the typical open style thrust bearings regularly available for most coilover kits. I had found a nice set of bearings that had machined weatherproof races,but they didnt sit right on the A1 Racing spring seats. Thankfully I had a lathe available to me at my work!







Hellooo smooth steering action! Just waiting on some uprights

Just coat them in a pint or so of water proof grease, good to go!

Who is doing the uprights?

Ed's done the conversion for me. He says they're all set and should be headed my way!!!

I can't tell from your photos if you have a steel ring under the bearing? (between the bearing and the lower perch). You cannot run the bearings directly on the aluminum... they will press into the aluminum and lock up

Ed, you are correct. Im sourcing a pair now, as I realized after that the steel would gall the aluminum. consider it "Rev.1"

Didn't your bearings come with them? Stole this photo from Dan's thread showing the thin steel washers

amazingly, no. The product I bought I actually wouldn't recommend for the price I paid, especially if youre handy with machining. It is your standard qa1 thrust bearing with no washers and a decently machined race, but definitely not as high quality as i expected for 3x the cost of the regular qa1 style thrust bearings. It is a great product for someone who has no access to a lathe or a half talented machine shop, but really anyone with a good true lathe could machine a race like this for 1/4 the price the company that sells these charges... but hey, live and learn.

Got the uprights in from Ed today (Thanks! Look good!) and went to dry-fit the components to see what I've got going into my car. Much to my dismay the accepted standard A1 Racing 12452-H sleeves wouldn't fit! After taking a micrometer to them, I found that the ID of the pair I received is not 2.170 as advertised, but 2.130" I have an email into them telling them this won't fly... Curious to see what the outcome will be. Has anyone else had this problem with these sleeves? Or am I just the lucky one?

Damn, you are just lucky!

I've got a pair that fit that I won't need for a month or so if you want to "borrow" them, as in send me a new pair that fit when you get them...

Or just chuck them in the lathe and open them up.

I appreciate the offer Dan, thanks! I already got a reply from A1. apparently they mislabeled a batch of 2.140 as 2.170. They're sending me a correct pair tomorrow. At least they have better customer service than QC! Looking forward to the real deal parts.
Unrelated note. anyone have BTDT for ABS sensors that won't budge from the housing? I already destroyed one beyond recognition and would rather tackle the other side with a better tactic than brute force...

You are welcome, glad they are taking care of you.

50/50 ATF and acetone is the best pen oil I've used.

Agreed on the 50/50 acetone/ATF.

Or Kroil.

I'll try that acetone/atf mix, sounds gnarly. I like gnarly.
Dan, speaking of luck, I didn't even mention on here that Eibach sent me two different springs for my suspension! Someone in shipping needs glasses, since I was sent one 6" spring and one 8" spring! thankfully that was handled already as well.

You is so lucky!

on the east coast its pronounced "you's is"... I cant wait to get this done! The rear is going to come in a couple more months. I have a line on a Torsen rear diff that I think will find a home in my s4! I figure another good "while it's out..." justification type deal...

I bought everything I needed and could from a performance standpoint and made the rest to the best of my ability. But I bought and shelved parts for years and have a DD, not to mention garage space. It's a money pit any way you look at it so go big

That was my plan, but the LCA dropping out on me, followed by a disintegrated subframe bushing, led to the front end being put on triage!

No doubt, I was lucky mine held to together!

Glad they (finally) arrived.

Get some new copper sleeves for the ABS sensors if you haven't already

Ive ordered new copper sleeves fo sho. one already got mangled. I'm crossing my fingers that the ones in my current uprights are more compliant than the ones frozen into the uprights you modified for me... I have 2 extras I sourced from a pick n pull, but id really prefer to keep those on the extras shelf...