The Hot Mess: quattro converted + 07k swapped Coupe GT

[Afterthought]

Man this is nutz. So much work I can’t imagine the time you have into it .
Did you blast it all yourself ?
Do you know what shift linkage you are going to run?

Yeah I blasted it all in my garage. Threw up some plastic sheeting and went to town. The good news was that my new compressor kept up the whole time, but it was still a solid two 6-8hr days over a weekend to get it all done.

I haven't gotten to a shift linkage yet, I was planning on starting with a B6 01E linkage but I ended up selling it. I need to go back and look at what you did in more detail and see if building from scratch is an option. I think the only way scratch-built is an option is if I do it now before the tunnel is in place.

Well yeah, so the reason I was asking about the linkage is you may want to look into that before you weld the tunnel in. You can look at what I did but there is a difference between B2 and B3 I know , the tunnel or the amount of clearance.
Basically all I did, in short - I didnt get any linkage or parts with my GBE. So I found an 01E lever arm and welded the small chassis ball on it, then I made the small arm that is perpendicular to the shift linkage , and i made a bracket for it to attach to the trans. But if you have a parts yard nearby you may not need to go through all that. Chris (Varia) has done both methods and in his B3 he used a B5 S4 shifter box and linkage and he said its night and day way better. So you may want to look into that as you could make it bolt up to your tunnel now. not sure... researching the linkage is like researching 5 - lug swaps so I just picked a direction and went with it ha.
On my B2 project I would like to use an S1 shifter if I can find it and mod the tunnel

[vt10vt]

Well yeah, so the reason I was asking about the linkage is you may want to look into that before you weld the tunnel in. You can look at what I did but there is a difference between B2 and B3 I know , the tunnel or the amount of clearance.
Basically all I did, in short - I didnt get any linkage or parts with my GBE. So I found an 01E lever arm and welded the small chassis ball on it, then I made the small arm that is perpendicular to the shift linkage , and i made a bracket for it to attach to the trans. But if you have a parts yard nearby you may not need to go through all that. Chris (Varia) has done both methods and in his B3 he used a B5 S4 shifter box and linkage and he said its night and day way better. So you may want to look into that as you could make it bolt up to your tunnel now. not sure... researching the linkage is like researching 5 - lug swaps so I just picked a direction and went with it ha.
On my B2 project I would like to use an S1 shifter if I can find it and mod the tunnel

Great minds think alike. The linkage is definitely on the next round of things to look at, there's no S4s at the local yard but there's a couple 6spd Allroads so I think that should work. Been thinking about grabbing an Allroad trans and diff for the gearing anyway so maybe an opportunity to package deal? Lol

Getting the tunnel from the shifter back tacked into place is next on the list, then I should be able to deal with coolant pipes, shift linkage, and exhaust clearance and driveshaft/carrier bearing placement I think, so I'm sure I'll have some questions for you and the collective Audi brain trust in the next few weeks.

[highlander69]

Looking good

[dana]

looking sweet. That old coupe had no idea what was in store for it sitting in that yard in Middlebury

[vt10vt]

looking sweet. That old coupe had no idea what was in store for it sitting in that yard in Middlebury

I certainly hope it's happier now than it was with that 3spd auto.

[90quattrocoupe]

I would like to make a suggestion. Since you are not going to have a front air supply to your radiator, I would suggest a triple pass radiator. Fluid takes the path of least resistance. If you use a single pass radiator, you will not get the full cooling effect. The fluid in the radiator will always flow easiest from the entry point to the outlet.
I say this from experience. One of the problems with having a V8 in my coupe, is that there is basically a wall 4 inches behind my radiator. Not good air flow. The air bounced back off the engine and slows down the movement of air through the radiator.
The first radiator installed by 034, never cooled the motor, enough. On track days I had to back off to keep the temps down, even on cool days. The radiator was single pass.
I changed it out to a triple pass. The fluid is now forced to go through a specific path from the inlet to the outlet. Now the temps are never high. I have a 87 degree thermostat and my fans are set for 92 degrees. If I am on the highway, the cooling is controlled by the thermostat. The fans don't even come on.

Just a thought.

Greg W.

[vt10vt]

I would like to make a suggestion. Since you are not going to have a front air supply to your radiator, I would suggest a triple pass radiator. Fluid takes the path of least resistance. If you use a single pass radiator, you will not get the full cooling effect. The fluid in the radiator will always flow easiest from the entry point to the outlet.
I say this from experience. One of the problems with having a V8 in my coupe, is that there is basically a wall 4 inches behind my radiator. Not good air flow. The air bounced back off the engine and slows down the movement of air through the radiator.
The first radiator installed by 034, never cooled the motor, enough. On track days I had to back off to keep the temps down, even on cool days. The radiator was single pass.
I changed it out to a triple pass. The fluid is now forced to go through a specific path from the inlet to the outlet. Now the temps are never high. I have a 87 degree thermostat and my fans are set for 92 degrees. If I am on the highway, the cooling is controlled by the thermostat. The fans don't even come on.

Just a thought.

Greg W.

I appreciate any input at all! The Subaru team actually used to run a 2 pass radiator, and what they found was that the additional pressure needed to push the coolant through the radiator twice dropped flow to a point where it couldn't effectively cool the motor. If the radiator was front-mounted I don't think that would ever become an issue, but when you have ~16 ft of coolant lines (8ft back, 8ft forward) flow becomes the main obstacle to overcome. If I do run into issues turning this radiator into a 2 pass wouldn't be hard and shouldn't require rerouting of any of my coolant lines.

In terms of airflow, I'm not too worried, I'm going to be running some pretty beefy fans and the fans/radiator will be very well ducted with a nice big outlet on the rear of the car, so I'm not sure I'll be sacrificing much in terms of airflow vs a front mount, but really who knows

[vt10vt]

Keeping on it, slowly but surely.

The 4000 donor shell was really rusty, so between that and the effort to actually move all the frame rails over, I decided it was structurally better and also faster to just build out the CGT frame rails to meet up to the subframe mounts taken from the donor. The driver front frame rail is actually exactly where the quattro is (I think... more on that in a minute), the passenger front corner needed semi-intensive work and both rear sides will need pretty intensive work.

I realized that these issues were compounded by the fact that the CGT and quattro strut towers are not the same dimensions. Awesome.

I also had a conflict of the quattro dimensions and what I'm seeing. The number I get from the drawings do not match what makes sense when I measure against anything I have in front of me, so I'm going with measurements against what I have in front of me.

Gap between 4k donor parts and frame rails according to quattro dimensions:





And then set about where every other measurement I can take says it should be:



The difference in strut tower sizes:





Everything in place pre-frame rail work:



Rear subframe points on the driver side:




The front driver side frame rail is identical to the quattro in the front, so no worries there. The passenger side is much different, and it was better/easier to build from scratch. I bent a 90* and welded it along the bottom, in the side to the remnants of the original frame rail, and then put a top plate on it. Then I did a second piece the same way. The rear section will be built slightly differently.

Getting the first section started:





Halfway welded in:





Skipped some stages in pictures but here's the first section finished, second section mostly in and getting the cap:



Welded up, ground out and primered with the subframe mounts back in. I am pretty happy with how this is turning out as I've never really done sheet metal work before.





So that's where it's at. I started in on the rear passenger side rear rail tonight, then I'll do the driver's rear and then strut towers and then floor and then transmission tunnel and then and then... I'm tired.

Thanks for reading!

[varia]

wow! not an easy work to do!

[PRY4SNO]

Nice job, looks really good so far.

[vt10vt]

wow! not an easy work to do!

Thank you! I’ve figured out a lot of little tricks as I’m going but it’s really just time intensive. I’ve got a little wiggle room too because I’m not going for 100% factory correct, more like OEM-ish which makes it a little easier haha

[vt10vt]

Nice job, looks really good so far.

Thank you! I’m pretty pleased with how it’s turning out! I think it’s just as strong as the factory parts of not a little more so, you can see in a couple of the pics where I tied the existing frame rail to the middle of the new rail. I’m doing a lot of that plus gussets trying to at least not lose rigidity/strength.