Matt Danger's B5 S4 Owner Log

Today, after finishing the drive shaft install, I removed the front core support and some accessories in anticipation for removing the engine and transmission. I’ve done this many times so it didn’t take long to have it all apart.

I have been dealing with a slight vibration for the past year. The vibration only begins after 65mph. In September I thought the source might have been corroded rotors, but replacing those did not eliminate the problem. New wheels and tires (balanced) also didn’t fix it. I had concluded the source was the drive shaft, more specifically the drive shaft’s center support.

I ordered a rebuilt drive shaft from Wholesale Import Parts and went to my friend Darrel’s shop to do the installation. Unfortunately, after removing the old one we discovered the new driveshaft I had ordered was the wrong one. It was a few inches shorter and probably meant for a Tiptronic transmission. After some time on the phone with one of the WIP’s techs I was sent the correct drive shaft. I was very happy with their service.

Installed the new (2nd) drive shaft and ran the car on jack stands. The vibration has finally been eliminated!

I received a ticket for my non functioning rear plate lights on Sunday. Tonight I picked up some new bulbs and when I went to install them I discovered the source of the failure was massive corrosion on the bulb connections. One of the plastic mounts for the housing was also broken. I repaired that with some glue and cleaned up the corroded connections with sand paper. Good as new!

Replaced the fuel filter today. Looked like it was still the original filter after 145k miles… Getting the filter out of the housing was a huge pain. After an hour of prying it finally came out. The new one took 1 minute to install.

Then, tonight I got pulled over and was ticketed for my rear plate lights not working

As it turned out, the pump he sent me was very worn. The pump I got from Brian worked great though!

Today I started noticing a howl while driving. It’s coming from the rear and I suspect it’s the wheel bearing. Probably another casualty of winter parking lot drifting.

Swapped in Brad’s Bosch MAF. It finally fixed my CEL that I have been trying to diagnose for 2 months!

I also rewired the boost gauge to make the light work. For the first time in 2.5 years of ownership the boost gauge can be seen at night

A few months ago I picked up a set of new K04 turbos from a guy in Philly. The turbos had been dropped but I was confident that they could be repaired.

Got a spare driver’s side K03 from from my friend Brad and installed the wastegate actuator on my K04. It bolts up and fits the same as the K04 wastegate actuator. Below is the new driver side K04 with the K03 wastegate actuator installed (left) next to the old driver side K03 (right).

I took the turbos to my friend Rick, owner of BTF Racing. He looked them over and verified the repairs were fine. He said the sloppy welds on the turbo outlet weren’t a big deal. I had him run a tig around one edge of the outlet.

I also asked him to test the K03 wastegate to see if it would work as a replacement for the bent K04 wastegate. He adjusted the wastegate and said that the K03 wastegate actuator had a different spring rate than the K04 but they were close and I’d be fine.