1996 Audi RS2 Brilliant Black

Started by le mans, November 03, 2013, 12:29:22 PM

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le mans

#220
Seven Years

Today marks the seventh anniversary of my purschase of this special car and I'm feeling a little reflective!

When I bought the car it wasn't running very well. Starting was inconsistent and it had a bad misfire under boost. There was also an intermittent short circuit causing the ignition fuse to blow. The short was in the ignition coil wiring and diagnosed and repaired by Brodie European during it's first service there (the car actually broke down during a road test by them due to the ignition fuse blowing and had to be towed back to the garage!). I discovered after some months that the vacuum lines to the boost control solenoid had been incorrectly plumbed. I'm sure this wasn't the case when it was tuned in Wellington at the end of 2010 by STM (as can be attested to by the smooth dyno plot and healthy power figure) but at some point subsequent to this they were messed up. This was the main cause of the misfire under boost, although I suspect the ignition system was also tired. With further research I was able to correct this and start my steep learning curve with the Link engine management system installed in the car. Installing an aftermarket ECU is probably not something I would have contemplated doing, but I must admit I was curious when the car came up for sale and I knew about the ECU. Since buyng the car I've completed half a dozen online HPA tuning courses and spent countless hours making tweaks to the ECU and reviewing log files. During this 'tweaking' I discovered the ECU was using an incorrect intake air temperature calibration and was able to correct this. Quite recently I discovered that the injector dead time table was incorrect and was able to correct this with data I found online. The injector dead times have little effect at high load as they are only a fraction of the overall injector duty cycle at that point, but at low load (starting and idle for example) the dead time is quite signicant relative to the total duty cycle. Correcting this has made AFRs more consistent on start up.

Not too long after getting the car I had the original alloys repaired and repainted in 'shadowchrome' by Arrow Wheels and shod with fresh rubber. I replaced the slightly 'boy racer' after market blow off valve with a working factory diverter valve I?d removed from my RS4. I was fortunate to be able to get my hands on an original shifter purchased off a fellow vasker and previous RS2 owner. I also purchased factory fog lights. There was a bit of a saga with KW suspension that couldn't be certified without jumping through interminable hoops. After running H&R lowering springs for some time I've now settled (no pun intended) on the original springs with adjustable Koni dampers, which I feel is a more compliant and road friendly set up than the same dampers with H&Rs.

There have been numerous mechanical and electrical repairs made during my ownership, some of which I'm sure to have forgotten about! A radiator was replaced, the alternator was replaced, the oil pressure sender and multi function temperature sender (MFTS) were replaced. The fuel pump failed at some point and was replaced with a new one (that was fun breaking down on Ti Rakau Road in peak traffic!). A TFSI coil harness and Audi R8 ignition coils were also added to the car to replace the old factory system.

A rather gash aftermarket radio was replaced with a more elegant Becker and I?ve more recently put in a Blaupunkt. Both the Becker and Blaupunkt are very good but the latter has built in blue tooth streaming whilst the Becker had an adapter for this.

After an unfortunate altercation with gale force winds and a glorified tent, I decided to have a full glass-out respray of the car which was covered in part by insurance.

More recently (but still a few years ago now) the car was sent to Dave at Tunetechnic (previously Dave was the Link tuning guru at Torque Performance) who installed an ALM wideband oxygen sensor, Link 4 bar map sensor and retuned the ignition and fuel maps along with dual boost maps, switchable via a discrete digital input to the ECU. The factory knock sensors were also wired and tuned to the ECU but using a single retard table for all cyclinders due to a shortage of available free tables in the ECU. About a year after this Dave was also able to get the factory fuel computer working with the ECU based on some information I had managed to unearth from the interweb (where would we be without it?!).

Over all this time the car has been ably serviced and repaired by the team at Brodie European. As detailed in my ownership thread above, WestWorx did a great job of repairing the interior trim for me.

So there we have it! It certainly hasn't been all beer and skittles by a long shot, but I'm fortunately a 'slow burner' which has allowed me to maintain a degree of enthusiasm throughout my ownership. Whilst she?s not 100% original, she is quite the machine and the modifications are now well executed and mostly under the skin. She?s a keeper!

Filx

Great summary Jon, some interesting reading and reflection on the learning curve with Link and the car.
FAIL - First Attempt In Learning

80 Vert

Nice work Jon, one of those irreplaceable cars that's for sure.
2010 T5 Transporter TDI  Tuned by Superior Tuning NZ
2003 Jetta Coupe soon to be R36TT
1991 Golf GTI 2.0 TSI swapped
1963 Type 34 Karmann Ghia, turbo 2.0
1990 Porsche 964 911 Carrera 4
1980 1303 Beetle vert, under restoration

RS ZWEI

1980 VW Golf GTI Track Car
1995 Audi RS2
2003 Mini Cooper S (Written off - rear ended)
2005 Mini Cooper S
2006 Skoda Octavia vRS Combi
2009 Renault Megane 230 R26 (Written off - rear ended)
2013 Renault Megane RS265 Redbull RB8

Period_Correct_

Nice mate. It?s an epic car and they don?t make them like they use to.
1971 Porsche 911T | 1990 Audi Quattro Turbo | 2003 Audi RS6 Avant | 2009 Renault Megane R26

robh

Really interesting reading.

Sounds like I'll be calling on you for help shortly with my ecumaster ecu on the Lotus ;) with us being local and all.

Daily Driver - VW Touareg V8 TDI 2012 "towing beast"
Too Many Cars - Lotus Elise S 2013 "tangerine dream"
Project Car - Golf VR6 Turbo "built not bought"
Wifes - Audi S4 Avant 2012 "I want a white car that sounds nice"

le mans

No worries, I?ve only played around with the Link but in principal they are all trying to achieve similar things. Give me a shout when you are ready and I?ll have a look if you want.

le mans

Sometimes it?s the little things...

Like this new ash tray (not that I smoke):


Old vs new:



And new hood pins:



Old vs new:



They are adjustable so need to take care to position them correctly before closing the hood or it can jam. Some plasticine spread over the latch allows you to check the position without closing it all the way. End result:



RobClubley

So satisfyingly, fixing little details like that.
1985 ur quattro
1992 Ford Courier - the sensible daily


Poonmobile

Current:
06 NZ B7 RS4 Avus Silver, 01 NZ B5 RS4 Avus Silver, 93 NZ VR6 Tornado Red 3dr, Renault Clio 172 & Renault Clio 197
Past:
MK2 VR6, MK5 GTI, 2 x MK5 R32, 8L S3 Imola, MK4 Golf V6 4MO, Polo GTI, 2x MK3 VR6, D2 S8, B5 S4 Avant, 03 NZ R32 Deep Blue Pearl, Renault Megane R26 liquid yello

le mans

#231
I am tremendously grateful to John (80 Vert/West Worx) for completing what turned out to be a very tricky sunroof repair for me. I think it?s fair to say he has had enough of old sunroofs for a while!

The sunroof had starting making some unusual noises and not opening and closing properly (the trim panel had become dislodged). I?d had the car at Brodies in December and told them about it. They discovered the rain channel at the back was broken but that turned out to be not even the half of it. I noticed the two pins that the sunroof trim clip onto had also broken off. I took they car to John and he removed the sunroof. We noticed the forks that drive the sunroof forward and back were bent indicating it had been under some strain.

Sunroof removed with bent forks visible:

le mans

John carried out a very effective repair on the rain channel and came up with a cunning plan to install two new pins for the trim to clip onto.

Repaired rain channel (which is now a spare):



le mans

#233
New pin installed for trim to clip onto:


When we were putting the sunroof back in we noticed that a small piece of plastic that acts like a cam to drop the sunroof when retracting had broken off.

Photo showing the missing cam (middle of picture in the slot):


le mans

#234
It was decided to put the sunroof back in without the motor and I would go off and see if I could find any spare parts for it. I was in the process of building up an order for the S8 from Audi Tradition so the sunroof parts were added to the list. Tradition had the rain channel and RH sunroof guide but not the left, which is the one that was damaged. I added those to the order and John planned to make up a new ?cam? for the left guide when I could leave the car with him again. The Tradition order duly turned up in late Jan.

New rain channel and RH guide showing the cam down toward the bottom of the image:



When John was finished with the S8 (sans A pillar trims) we swapped the cars over and he got to work. He came up with the idea of using resin to make the new cam, filing it into the correct shape once it had set. He also did the same for a plastic tab that had broken off at the other end of the guide.

Here's a photo of the resin before being shaped/filed:

And after...


The sunroof was duly installed with the new parts and the repaired LH guide and trim pins and it works like new! What a result! Super happy with it, thank you John.

RobClubley

1985 ur quattro
1992 Ford Courier - the sensible daily

le mans

I've been wanting to try out the single port boost control method for a while because that is what the car used from the factory. When I bought the car it was set up using dual port boost control (and incorrectly plumbed - refer to page 7 of this thread), so the easiest thing for me to do was to correct the plumbing and go from there. Some articles I read on the subject said this method gave a faster spool than using the single port method.

The dual port method is often referred to as the 'T method' as it requires a T join in the boost reference plumbing with one line going to the boost solenoid and the other going to the lower waste gate chamber. The boost solenoid has another line to the upper waste gate chamber. The solenoid commands higher boost pressure by diverting boost pressure from the lower chamber to the upper chamber, equalising the pressure between the two. The waste gate spring continues to hold the waste gate closed and allows boost to build.

With the single port boost control method, as used from the factory, the upper waste gate chamber is open to atmosphere. The boost reference line is connected to the boost solenoid and another line is joined from the solenoid to the lower waste gate chamber. The solenoid commands higher boost by bleeding off air from the lower waste gate chamber and therefore equalising the pressure with the upper chamber. In other words if effectively does the same thing as the 'T method' but with a simpler plumbing set up.

I've considered reverting to the single port method a few times but have been put off by the relatively small area to work in where the boost reference lines are located (behind the RH headlight and flexible boost pipe from the intercooler) and it all seemed a bit pointless since some articles I've read said the dual port method was better. Anyway I finally got into it today, removing the RH headlight and flexible boost hose from the intake pipe to give me some room to get my hands in there. I removed the boost reference lines from the T piece and connected these up for single port control. The boost solenoid is connected up differently from the 'T method' for this to work correctly. The 'normally closed' port (port 1) is connected to the flexible turbo inlet pipe, the 'normally open' port (port 3) is connected to the boost reference line and the 'common' port (port 2 - always open) is connected via another vacuum line to the lower waste gate chamber. Here is the boost solenoid after reconnecting it for single port control (mine's a MAC solenoid, not the factory 'N75'):



You can see here the upper waste gate port is now open to atmosphere, just as it was from the factory:


I was a little anxious the boost tables in the ECU might need adjusting but after a drive out for lunch with the family it appears to be fine. The spool up also appears to be very similar to the dual port method. Here is a screen shot from a log taken today on a low boost map (1 bar) showing the car hit almost exactly the commanded boost in third gear:


Later on, having built up confidence on the low boost map, I switched to the 'normal' 1.4 bar map and gave it a squirt in 2nd gear.  It pulled really cleanly hitting 1.3 bar at 4000rpm and building to 1.35 bar at 4800 rpm at 65% duty cycle. It felt really strong and smooth and I didn't want to let off the throttle  >:D. Everyone had a good giggle.




More testing is required to confirm how it goes in higher gears and the high boost map but initial indications are that it will be spot on, so I will be sticking with the simpler single port method for the foreseeable future.





wilco

Who would have thought the factory would get it so right?   :laugh: 8)


le mans

#238
Nobody knows!

This is the document I referred to in initially in order to get my head around it: (https://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.audiclub.fi%2Faudifinns%2Fattachment.php%3Fattachmentid%3D7497%26d%3D1286058950&ei=2QcEVdf5D8jz8gXztIDoAg&usg=AFQjCNGLEVD-SWFatGUiBCj2hnDjP45JsA&sig2=nBoU1sa-Q9LhypbtZezxuA&bvm=bv.88198703,d.dGc)

I think the main difference for my application is that my car has a Mac valve which closes the NO port when it opens the NC port. From what I can understand the stock N75 valve simply opens the NC port and the NO port stays open as well.

Period_Correct_

1971 Porsche 911T | 1990 Audi Quattro Turbo | 2003 Audi RS6 Avant | 2009 Renault Megane R26