Matt Danger's B5 S4 Owner Log

Finally, I mounted the DPs and heat shields and went home.

Today I installed Bosch side fire spark plugs, Deka 60lb injectors, and 4 bar fuel pressure regulator. These all came in the Vast fueling kit. My roommate Ray showed up and helped me attach the motor back to the transmission. It was kind of a PITA but we took our time and kept rotating the crankshaft little by little until the tranny input shaft slipped into the clutch. I can’t imagine trying to do this when the engine in the car.

I’m waiting on a few crush washers that were missing from my fueling kit before I can install the K04s.

I cleaned the engine bay heat shields and also painted some more parts. I painted the Y-pipe again. I think it’s still going to look like shit though. I also pulled out my modded lower grills and painted them. They need to be re-sanded because you can see the imperfections through the paint. I suck at body work.

Today was another cleaning day. I pulled the valve covers and installed the new painted ones with new gaskets. I put a dab of sealer in each corner and in the gasket valley. In addition to the valve cover gaskets I also replaced the rear cam plugs. The only ones were leaking very badly.

I disassembeled a lot of the wiring and accessories on the motor and cleaned them. Coil packs, spider hose, f-hose, connectors, etc. I painted some random pieces too. I installed a new red F-hose and cleaned up oil feed lines.

The motor looks a lot prettier.

I replaced the rear main seal. It wasn’t too bad of an install, I hope it doesn’t leak.. After that I installed the resurfaced flywheel from Vast and the Southbend OFE stage 3 clutch & RS4 pressure plate. It felt good to finally install some new parts. I feel like I’m making forward progress.

Ordered a resurfaced flywheel & rear main seal from Prince @ Vast. $275 + $225 core. He keeps your CC on file so it’s easier to funnel your paycheck to them. Also ordered a bunch of random stuff from ECS for $260.

Then, tonight I went over to the shop and took a saw-z-all to my tranny mount.

After that I spent some time hacking off the old ABS sensor. What a pain! It was seized in the hub and no amount of pounding on it from the inside of the hub would break it free. I wish I had some chisels for my air chisel. Instead, I drilled several small holes around the top/side of the sensor and chipped away at it and pried it out. I also had to drill out and rethread the bolt hole that was seized.

Today, with the help of my father, I removed the the motor and transmission. It was not a complicated process and as many have said before it is a series of small steps. There is a lot of unplugging and looking around. With a mechanical ability and time and patience this could be tackled by anyone.

After removing the front core support, disconnecting the battery and removing the airbox, Y-pipe, intercoolers and draining the oil I raised the case on jackstands.

Under the car

• Disconnect and remove the cat-back exhaust
• Remove the drive shaft heat shield, 4 10mm bolts
• Remove the transmission tail cover. I forget the size of the 2 Torx bolts. Becareful not to strip these!
• Remove the 6 6mm hex bolts on the drive shaft to transmission. Jam a screwdriver in the center U-joint to prevent the DS from rotation. Use a long extension and be careful not to strip these! If the DS is stuck to the transmission go at it with a hammer.
• Unbolt the transmission mounts (2 13mm on each mount) and the engine mounts (13mm). Removing the transmission mounts gives you a little more clearance, but I didn’t find it necessary.
• If you have a drive train stabilizer bar (DTS) you only need to unbolt the center mount from the bar.
• If the front axles have triple square (12pt) bolts you must use a 10mm triple square socket to unbolt them. If you try to use a hex socket there is a strong chance you will strip it. I stripped one but fortunately was able to remove the bolt with a borrowed triple square socket.

In the cabin

The shifter linkage is easy to disconnect but it is adjustable so be sure to mark the two linkage rods before unbolting them! They may already be marked. The rubber boot also needs to be pushed out of the shifter box.

AC compressor

You’ll want to remove the AC compressor from the motor and swing it out of the way so that you don’t have to drain the AC refrigerant. Unbolt the oil pan bracket for the lines and also remove the front coolant pipe, oil filter and unbolt the hard coolant pipe that goes up behind the timing cover to the coolant reservoir. This should give you some room to get the compressor out. It is held with 3 13mm bolts. 2 in the front and 1 in the middle of the back. It’s difficult to see but if you look up from the side you can see it. Removing the lower charge pipe gives you some additional access.

Behind the motor

Every wire that goes from the engine to the firewall needs to be pulled through the firewall and laid on the engine. Look around for things to disconnect, there’s a lot of little things.

• The brake booster hose disconnects by pulling straight out of the grommet in the secondary firewall.
• Disconnect the power steering hard line, some fluid will drip out.
• The coolant hoses from the back of the engine go up under the secondary firewall to the heater core. You can either disconnect them at the heater core and push the grommet out of the bottom of the firewall or disconnect them at the back of the engine. The connections at the back of the engine are the same as the radiator (the difficult pressure ones). If they’ve never been disconnected before they will likely be on very tightly and it will be easier to disconnect at the heater core.
• The ecu box has a bunch of connections. There’s the 2 big ECU harnesses. Those are easy. The group of connectors down in the back of the box are “wiggle out” connectors. You don’t need to pry on them. Just wiggle back and forth while pulling upward. It’s a little difficult to get your fingers in there.
• The positive battery cable gets pulled through the firewall with the grommet. It runs down the frame rail in a plastic holder. That’ll pop out of the frame rail using a flathead.
• There are two ground locations: 1) underneath the passenger frame rail at the front next to the motor mount, and 2) on the secondary firewall underneath the ECU harness.

When removing the engine and transmission you will need to put a floor jack under the transmission to lift and support it over the cross member. You will also have to reposition the jack to get past the cross member.

When you start to remove the engine and transmission be careful not to break anything you may have forgotten to disconnect. You will probably spend a lot of time looking around to check clearances. Be specifically careful of items behind the motor that can get crushed between the transmission and the tunnel.

When the motor is about a foot or so forward you can reach back and disconnect the slave cylinder. It is attached with a hard line that can kink or break, so be careful when moving the motor/tranny out and when moving the slave around.

In my case, everything came out as expected with the exception of the front axles. They were a big pain because I was trying to remove them incorrectly. I thought they had to come out under the transmission then realized they came out the side of the car.

Once I got the axles out everything was smooth sailing.

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!