We have FIRE! Started it up tonight for a few seconds. No cooling or exhaust and the throttle pedal is in the engine bay, but it sure was fun.

I'm actually working in my buddy's garage and his wife has more shoes than anyone else I have ever met.

 

lol awesome. This might be the quickest swap I've ever seen!

 

Exhaust and cooling hooked up tonight. Stock 2.8 exhaust bolted right up with one caveat. The forward O2 sensor on the passenger down pipe interferes with the coolant pipe on the back of the head. It's capped right now, and I'll add another fitting when I take the exhaust out again to delete the center resonator.

Custom radiator had to be fabricated, but I knew that going in. Bought an Ebay aluminum radiator for $150 and had a buddy of mine help cut and weld it until it fit.

Pedal assembly is in. Remarkably, the A6 pedals fit. I replaced the fat brake pedal for my skinny one and added the clutch pedal. I still need to solder a couple of plugs for brake lights and cruise control. My DBC car had the vacuum actuated cruise system and the DBW motor uses the ECU to control the throttle. The swap would be a lot easier with a car that was already DBW.

We filled it with water tonight and ran it to look for leaks. No coolant leaks, but we have an oil leak on the driver head near the cam chain tensioner. I replaced the gaskets when I had the cams out, but I think it may be seeping near the black solenoid. Anyone know if there is a gasket between the aluminum body and the black solenoid?

 

When you're doing the brake pedal switch, de-pin your old 2 pin connectors and put those into the new 4-pin. I didn't realize this when I did mine and it would've saved some headache with soldering.

What did you do to get the proper power to the ECU? I'm having power-related issues with my DBW swap and I think my wiring is suspect.

 

Good call on the brake light pins. I haven't started that soldering project yet, so I will use that for sure.

For power to the ECU, I'm using the stock body plugs in the plenum. I went through each pin for both engines. Everything was the same, save for some warning lights and gauges. I added the white plug for the throttle pedal and we were running.

 

Ok that's basically what I had to do too, though I do remember having to connect one of the black/blue wires to a switched 12v source, the ECU wouldn't turn on without it. Your ECU uses a J271 (ECU power relay) right? If you turn the key to off with a scan tool connected to the ECU, does it lose communication instantly?

Also, look into pin 4 of the black connector. In my case the interior side wire to that pin was significantly thinner than the corresponding pin in a DBW car, 1mm vs 2.5mm I think. I only noticed this because I cut the body plugs off a DBW car to compare.

 

I'll have to take a look at those. I don't think there are any power issues for the ECU though. It starts right up.

I didn't get much done today as I wasn't feeling very well. I did manage to get the condenser mounted to the radiator though. I also got my oil leak sorted out. There is an o-ring between the black solenoid and the aluminum body of the cam chain tensioner. I cleaned it all up and added a little RTV. No more leaks.

 

We are going to need video pretty soon...

Exhaust note on start-up, rev, outside and inside, and a fly-by.

 

It's pretty quiet, considering it's still the stock 2.8 exhaust system. It's also sill up on jack stands, and hasn't moved under its own power yet. Don't worry, we'll fix that soon.

I've been having some trouble with the MAF. It seems to idle WAY better with the MAF unplugged, so I think mine is bad. I have a used replacement coming today at 3.

Anyway, yesterday I pressed new bearings into the hubs for my aluminum uprights. These are sort of bolt in bearings, but Audi got it wrong. When you buy the part, all you get is the bearing and replacement bolts. You unbolt the bearing from the upright (would not be a simple task while attached to the car). Then, you beat the bearing out of the upright (still not fun). To make matters better, once the bearing/hub are out, you still have to use a press to press the hub out of the old bearing and into the new one.

Anyway, I want to weigh my car when this is all done, because I think that I will be lighter than an S4.

Today I plan to bleed brakes/clutch, hook up brake lights (thanks Mad Cow for the idea of re-pinning the plug), install sway bar and fans, torque down subframe mounts and put her back on her feet.

 

Do you know what you'll have to do to compensate for the new weight up front?