The Project Pad

Dude, your car is farting! lol. The engine and turbo sound really good. It's gonna be one sick t44!

loxxrider wrote:You are so right... she actually kinda knows how. I really am going to teach her now.

That is seriously cool. She's a keeper.

Cool bragging rights at car meets, too. My girlfriend tuned the car. Awesome...

Issues or not, the car is really sounding/looking great man! I hope I get to see it in person someday!

When you can hear a turbo that well on video/audio you know you got it goin on! Keep it up Chris.

nuugen wrote:That HX sounds like a 747 engine at full thrust LOL..

:woowoo:

Can't wait to see MOAR BOOST!

I can't wait either! Thanks for the comments everyone. As always, I love sharing this.

Chris, that would absolutely be the best bragging rights ever haha.

I got to work on the 200 for a bit today. I did all that I could without parts. I got the wastegate in and it looks great. Before I did that, I got under the car to try and fish the shift linkage out of there. That was hard, so I can't imagine how much cursing I'll be doing when it comes time to put it back in with the new bushing. I'm not really sure how I'm going to get that other little ball/socket (attached to a small rod) hooked up to it either. Here is the old bushing... thoughts on this? Looks old and nasty to me.



Anyway, while I was down there I found a few "DOH!" items. First of all, I found that the noise you can hear in the video was coming from some loose driveshaft bolts. I knew the noise had to be related to the driveshaft, but I could hear it in the shift linkage too and I didn't understand how the two could be related. It turns out that one of the bolts had backed all the way out and the metal thing that goes between the two bolts was slapping on the shift linkage at speed. DOH! Luckily I found the bolt in my driveway. I've been very lucky that way. I lost a transmission mount in the move from the old house to this one and ended up finding it in the driveway too lol.

I also found a loose trans mount (the one I didn't lose before) and loose triple squares on the axles. I don't know what the heck was going on when I put this thing back together last year. Either I was in such a hurry that I didn't remember to tighten stuff up, or I was somehow sickly and weak or something!

That bushing is TOAST. There is supposed to be rubber all the way around. You should not be able to see through it.
Easiest way to get it all back in would be to assemble the ball part out of the car as well. So the shaft that the ball and bracket bolt to should be removed from the transmission. Then assemble with it out of the car. Then slide the linkage on and bolt it in. 10 times easier. And actually possible.

Only place to get a replacement.
http://www.034motorsport.com/chassis-co ... 20049.html
Direct replacement. Done 2 of these. and they sure as shit aren't easy out of the car. But definitely possible. Grease and lube helps.

pilihp2 wrote:That bushing is TOAST. There is supposed to be rubber all the way around. You should not be able to see through it.
Easiest way to get it all back in would be to assemble the ball part out of the car as well. So the shaft that the ball and bracket bolt to should be removed from the transmission. Then assemble with it out of the car. Then slide the linkage on and bolt it in. 10 times easier. And actually possible.

Only place to get a replacement.
http://www.034motorsport.com/chassis-co ... 20049.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Direct replacement. Done 2 of these. and they sure as shit aren't easy out of the car. But definitely possible. Grease and lube helps.

Already have the bushing on order along with a brake light switch and a few more push-to-connect fittings

So you are telling me that rod/shaft thing bolts to the trans? I was under there dicking around for a solid 20 minutes and never noticed any bolts lol. It is rather hard to see anything in that area though, so I was doing it mostly by feel. You don't happen to have a picture of the setup out of the car do you? (anyone)

Which rod and shaft?
What I'm talking about is the ball that goes into that bushing. That ball is bolted to the shift selector shaft (probably not the right technical term) with I believe an 8mm bolt. Remove that so you can get the ball back into the linkage easier.

Does that make more sense? I'm so terrible at wording things sometimes. I'll try to grab a picture after work today.

OK, I'm not talking about that... I'm talking about the small diameter rod that goes from the little ball which you can see (only silver thing) in that picture above. The rod is connected to another ball/socket on the transmission case.

I still never noticed a bolt for the big ball, but that seems like it would certainly make things easier. A pic of that would be awesome!

There isn't a bolt for it. :( I actually ended up accidentally bending my shift rod last time I lowered the body onto the engine, so I ended up pulling it out of the car with it installed and ya, If I happened to miss the bolt too, I am going to smack myself.

There is not a bolt for the small ball. And there is not one for the large ball. There is one for the bracket that the large ball is attached to. Does that make more sense?

It does, I just need to find the bolt I guess.

Home now. Heading to the garage armed with a camera.

Not totally sure how I managed to get my hand or the camera into this location. But hope this helps.

Remove that bolt, remove that arm. Then install outside of vehicle. Install by putting arm back onto gear selector shaft.

Wow, that is not at all what I imagined I was feeling haha. Thanks for the pic! Hopefully I'll be able to figure that out now, and hopefully I'll be able to just man that little ball back into its socket as well.

I have the engine out of my 5k, I'll go out to see if I can see it from the front and try to get a pic of the top too.

Without "punching" from the side over the top of the trans itll be hard to get that arm off. Not impossible, but difficult. A puller cant really fit either...

loxxrider wrote:Wow, that is not at all what I imagined I was feeling haha. Thanks for the pic! Hopefully I'll be able to figure that out now, and hopefully I'll be able to just man that little ball back into its socket as well.

When I re-installed mine, I used a prybar, grease and the fire wall and it snapped right on.

That ^^^^ is exactly what I had envisioned doing. However, I manned up and just brute-forced the thing off with my hand.

Proof:



Now I also need new hood struts :/

loxxrider wrote:That ^^^^ is exactly what I had envisioned doing. However, I manned up and just brute-forced the thing off with my hand.

Now I also need new hood struts :/

You sir are an animal.

Chris, remind me not to arm wrestle you if we ever meet.

9001 post celebration!

I just got the shift linkage bushing in today from 034... THANK YOU GUYS! The gf then persuaded me to install it because she knew it'd make me happy to have it done. It went in relatively uneventfully other than some head-banging from adjustment.

The exhaust stuff was also a little hard to get lined up (still not perfect) because of having to connect the wastegate, downpipe, etc. all together. The flex connections help, but they are way too hard to move around by hand. There will have to be some tweaking done in the future.

I also installed my raffle-prize OOOO Audi ring decals, but I totally screwed up the application lol. That will have to be fixed someday as well. They look good enough from a distance

So tomorrow I just have to wake up, buy a few barb fittings and a hose clamp, and go drive!! I still don't have a brake light switch, but it's in the mail. I'm not going to let that stop me from driving the car for my last THREE days in the states...

Yep, three days. My start date got a little mixed up on the offer letter, and now I'm starting this weekend. That means I leave for Abu Dhabi on the 6th, arrive on the 7th, and start work/school on the 8th! I had a big going away pool party over the weekend and have been ridiculously busy getting ready for this trip ordering all kinds of stuff from power transformers to a big duffel bag.

CLIFFS NOTES: I'll be posting vidz from when I attempt to tune tomorrow now that I fixed the shift linkage and I'm leaving Friday for my job in Saudi Arabia. :dur:

Good luck man! That is going to be an epic experience!!! Can't wait to see the 'going away vids'!!!

Good luck Chris!