The Project Pad

What's up TPP, I have been lurking here since I bought my sedan about 2 years ago but never made a thread. It was a black/ecru 1995 S6 with 270k+ miles and a ton of rust issues. Brought it back from this:



To this, along with a ghetto Volvo turbo setup but then sold it to buy the next car.



Now for the Avant. My buddy Nick (I don't think he's on this forum) has owned this Avant for about 5 years. Last winter he mentioned he might be ready to sell it. We agreed on a price and I put the sedan up for sale for the sole purpose of buying the Avant. I was shocked, but my sedan sold in less than 24 hours. After a month or so I was able to pick the Avant up. It's not perfect by any means but a lot less ratty than my sedan was. Here is a semi comprehensive list of mods:

Engine:
- VEMS PnP, EFI Express tune
- DEKA 630cc injectors
- Aquamist water/meth
- EFR 6258 turbo
- 034 7A turbo manifold
- Custom downpipe with narrow and wideband O2 sensors
- 7a cams
- Phenolic IM spacer
- Fuel pump relay from 034
- Stromung 3" exhaust

Driveline/suspension:
- 6sp swapped
- Fidanza lighweight flywheel
- Spec clutch kit
- AK Motorsport snub mount
- Bilstein HD struts
- H&R springs
- AK Motorsport subframe bushings
- 17z calipers, A8 rotors

Body/Interior
- Black interior swapped
- Carbon trim
- Euro headlights and taillights


As you can see it's had quite a bit done to it and I'm beyond stoked to be its next owner. Needs some cosmetic attention and small things fixed. Speedo was intermittent when I got it, turned out to be a bad vehicle speed sensor. Chasing a misfire mostly at idle and some surging at low/part throttle. Honestly I am a total noob to VEMS and have no idea what I'm doing, but was wondering if that could be an issue with the tune. Never had a water/meth system in a car either so I have a lot to learn. Has anyone had experience with this? Car is currently on a base 6258 tune from EFI but no idea if the water/meth or climate down here in Georgia means it needs to be tweaked again.

Plans:
- Euro bumpers or repair existing
- Address the tune/driveability issues
- Coilovers
- Wheels
- Serious detail

Fixed so far:
- Hatch not opening (had to remove rear wiper and motor to access mechanism)
- Speed sensor
- Coolant reservoir going in this weekend

To make a long story short, on to the pics!!





Interior. Needs a cleaning.



GF amused by the 3rd row. Inb4 clean your door jambs! I did already.



Engine bay.




Thanks for reading guys!! Appreciate any input you all have and excited to have something to contrib

Wow, that's a highly desirable ride! Looking forward to updates.

Installed the FK badgeless grille I had in storage.



Gave the interior some love. This photo is of what was extracted from only the driver's side floor mat. The PO was a big mountain biker so while the interior was in good shape, it was just very dirty.



Results.

Congrats on the avant, looks really good.

Oh my god. 5 years later almost. I would like to record info about the car in a central location, even if no one replies it would help so I remember what has and hasn't been done as I approach half a decade of ownership!

I don't know if this is even worth doing (does anyone even use forums anymore???) but I guess I'll cliffs notes what's happened since then. Part of the car's history (until 2021 or so) is over on Stanceworks and I was planning on copy pasting that into here since the forums will go down soon, but looks like I was too late. If I am ever able to get back on, I'll edit the longer more detailed posts in here.

Ok, since then:

- Larger turbo, EFR 6758 (summer 2019)
- KAW springs on Bilsteins (summer 2019)

Tail of the Dragon, October 2019.



- OZ Futuras (Feb 2020)
- euro bumpers (March 2020)
- 310mm rear brake upgrade (April 2020?)
- motor goes kaboom (August 2020)

Photo from COVID times 2020, with euro bumpers and OZ Futuras:



Let a buddy borrow the car, long story short he hit a rock in the road and the rusty oil cooler mount failed. Ran over oil lines. Welded bearings to the pistons.




Engine was rebuilt in the kitchen with some mild parts (mostly by said buddy who was a tech)
- H beam rods
- calico coated main and rod bearings
- used crankshaft from someone on facebook
- new rings
- left head alone and sent it

That stretched on for a while. In May 2021 got it finally buttoned up and running. Pleaseeee check your ECU fuses if you have no spark. BTDT.

May 2021 -- installed KW coilovers



Summer 2021 -- rear end refresh. Replaced leaky rusty gas tank. New copper nickel brake lines. The diff carrier was so rusty I had to cut it out with a Sawzall because none of the bolts would move. It got new diff mounts, new diff carrier bushings. Kind of a ghetto refresh -- at the time I was trying to make it to the Tail of the Dragon for our local club's yearly trip. Wish I had done subframe bushings, painted subframe, control arms, etc.

Tail of the Dragon, Oct 2021



Note: the car is VERYYYYY rusty. At this point it was pretty dialed in terms of running. Put 4-5k miles on it. I got discouraged with how expensive and time consuming it would be to cosmetically restore the car and actually sold it to someone in March 2022.

Bought a manual swapped C5 RS6. Drove that for a few months.



Missed my Avant. Decided to sell the RS6 and get into a cleaner one. I bought a clean silver/platinum avant for less than I sold my black car for.




Drove that until March of 23 when I imported a legit S2 Avant from Scotland. Worked on it a bunch. Never really liked the driving position. Realized I had $30k in something that I didn't like as much as my old rusty black wagon. The best way I can describe it is you realize the "grail car" that we didn't get here is really cool on paper but not THAT cool. I ended up doing a trade plus cash deal for a '91 CQ, which will be getting a project thread too.



So at this point, I'd sold the S6 Avant. The guy I sold it to kept it for a few months, realized he was in over his head and sold it to someone else. Owner #2 honestly irritated me and would ask me from time to time about things on the car. Finally, in December 2023 I socially engineered him to sell it back to me. I go through cars pretty often but this was my favorite car I've ever owned. I am so stoked to have it back. Now we kind of get into the present time.

As I got it:





There were some pros and cons since I'd sold it:

Pros:
- new radiator
- new cam and crank sensors from PO throwing the parts cannon at a problem that wasn't a problem
- brackets created for euro bumpers
- PDR done on some dents and dings

Cons:
- jacked up to the moon on the coilovers
- he had a ball joint fall out of the spindle and the wheel shot off to the side. Totally mangled the fender.
- the transmission was effectively blown.
- All the paint correction I'd done on the front end was ruined. I don't know what he did or how but deep scratches all over the hood, fenders. etc. Shortly before selling it I sourced a NICE black hood and driver fender to replace the ratty ones that were on the car. Back to square one.