Audi UR Quattro Rally Build
Posted by BRAIDusa
Paul Eddleston Super Moderator Location: Birmingham, Michigan Join Date: 09/06/2012 Age: Ancient Posts: 554 Rally Car: Subaru Outback Wagon EG33, 911 Carrera |
Throttle body, power steering, alternator. Pick any two!
Yes, that's the conclusion we have come to trying to locate all the ancillary components in the engine bay. Right now, everything wants to be on the left side of the engine in front of the radiator. Remember, on these cars the radiator is not in front of the engine but to the side on the left. Because we are using an aftermarket intake manifold the throttle body is very close to the power steering pump. In fact, if we orient it correctly it is inside the power steering pump. We think we can rotate it 90 degrees and still mount it, though only one of the mounting holes lines up right now. Some adaptation will be necessary but we think we can make it work. Anyway, it has to be that way round to clear the hood and there is not really any room for an adapter. Even then, another issue is the outlet from the power steering pump still interferes with the throttle body, even after sourcing a really flat banjo bolt. Also, the outlet from the head coolant manifold is behind the power steering pump and very difficult to mount a pipe on. It's also heading in the wrong direction as it needs to end up behind the radiator. The coolant outlet from the block is also very tight where it passes the back of the power steering pump. Can we do without power steering? 
Certainly, if we remove the power steering pump from the equation it creates some room but we are then left with an alternator stuck way out in front of the radiator and without much triangulation for the belt and no free length for the tensioner to push on. Maybe we should convert the power steering pump bracket to a second idler. 
Another problem came up though: we can't seem to find a replacement alternator with the 200 amps or so we think we are going to need to power the six driving lamps and everything else. So now we have no power steering pump, no alternator and a throttle body that's held on with one bolt! What should we do? Well we think we have an elegant a solution. Firstly, why not use an electric power steering pump? They are readily available used from a variety of cars including Volvos, Toyotas etc. They can be mounted almost anywhere you can get lines and wires too as they obviously do not need a belt to drive them. They will also work even when the engine is not running which might be useful around the shop or if the engine blows up mid stage. Here’s an example of a Volvo unit. 
Then we realized, if we are prepared to make a custom alternator bracket, we could use any 200 amp alternator from any vehicle. It just so happens that we have to make a custom bracket for the front engine mount on the other side of the engine and there is a nice alternator sized space doing nothing next to that. Why not source an inexpensive 200 amp remanufactured alternator from a Ford truck and mount it on the right side of the engine on a custom alternator/engine mount bracket? 
These two solutions, if possible, will then result in us having only an intercooler outlet pipe in front of the radiator which can’t be a bad thing for cooling air flow, right? Subscribe to find out if any of these work out or if we go back to the drawing board. Paul Eddleston BRAID Wheels USA www.BRAIDUSA.com Team Illuminata Motorsport www.teamilluminata.com |
Paul Eddleston Super Moderator Location: Birmingham, Michigan Join Date: 09/06/2012 Age: Ancient Posts: 554 Rally Car: Subaru Outback Wagon EG33, 911 Carrera |
Sorting out Radiator Choice, Placement & Mounting
This is the original radiator in the stock location. 
We want a much bigger aluminium radiator as this one probably isn’t big enough as it worked in conjunction with a smaller auxiliary radiator mounted behind the grill. We don’t have room nor are we inclined to use that. We found two companies that purport to sell a suitable radiator but neither returned calls or emails so we assume they are no longer supplying them. I guess we are making our own or at least getting one made for us. There are a couple of issues to consider: Any additional thickness will have to be in the front as the frame rails bend inwards just behind the radiator. 
The stock radiator interferes with the AAN’s oil pan. We think this is usually solved by replacing the old pan with one from something else but maybe, as we are doing a custom radiator, we can solve it another way. 
We were lucky enough to find a superb radiator shop nearby, Four Seasons Radiator Service in Madison Heights. Their bread and butter is fixing radiators of all kinds but they also make custom aluminium radiators. They are the company who recored the radiator for our 85 Quattro a few years ago so we were very confident to use them again. They took our requirements and in just a few days produced this masterpiece. They even added a Spal fan and custom shroud. 
It fit perfectly but there was one small problem. Remember how we thought all the extra width had to be on the front because of the frame rail? Well we forgot about that when we asked them to add a fan and shroud. Simple solution though: notch the shroud: 
Now we haven’t lost our cool we can move on to the intercooler.  Paul Eddleston BRAID Wheels USA www.BRAIDUSA.com Team Illuminata Motorsport www.teamilluminata.com |
Paul Eddleston Super Moderator Location: Birmingham, Michigan Join Date: 09/06/2012 Age: Ancient Posts: 554 Rally Car: Subaru Outback Wagon EG33, 911 Carrera |
Progress with the Intercooler
Despite all the confusion about where things are going to go a couple of components are fixed: the radiator and the intercooler. So we pressed on with the intercooler. 
We wanted to place it as far forward as possible while remaining inside the grill’s envelope. This meant cutting our expensive bumper up. 
We couldn’t find an off the shelf intercooler with the correct inlet and outlet orientations so we decided we’d have to make our own. We ordered the biggest core we thought we could fit. 
The intercooler will sit on the front bumper bar but will also need an upper support bar. We fabricated one from an aluminium closet hanger rod. 
And then set about mocking up the tanks. 
Before finally making an intercooler! 
Which actually didn’t leak! 
And, surprisingly, even fit! 
Paul Eddleston BRAID Wheels USA www.BRAIDUSA.com Team Illuminata Motorsport www.teamilluminata.com |
Bob Legere Professional Moderator Location: Spofford, NH Join Date: 03/07/2007 Age: Possibly Wise Posts: 308 Rally Car: 1971 Opel Ascona |
Paul Eddleston Super Moderator Location: Birmingham, Michigan Join Date: 09/06/2012 Age: Ancient Posts: 554 Rally Car: Subaru Outback Wagon EG33, 911 Carrera |
Paul Eddleston Super Moderator Location: Birmingham, Michigan Join Date: 09/06/2012 Age: Ancient Posts: 554 Rally Car: Subaru Outback Wagon EG33, 911 Carrera |
Moving into storage temporarily...
They say “all good things must come to an end”. Well, this good thing has come to a screeching halt but not the end. We finally had enough of our landlord and upped sticks. We were already looking for a new building but the situation in our old space became untenable and we quickly decided we could just put everything in storage for a couple of months while we found a new home. Then the virus hit! So we still don’t have a space but we also don’t have a big rent bill every month so now we look smart. We’re not. The business is still going strong. Just not working on car projects right now. Here are some pics of the move: We decided to store it on the wheels from our 85 Quattro because the tires are 12 years old and shot and we didn’t think exposing $2000 worth of Michelin historic rally tires to freezing temperatures was a good idea. 
At least we got a chance to try out our new E-Track tie-down system in our trailer. 
Sad showroom 
New home. Ramp was a bit steep but three wimps managed to push it in, though we had to take it off the dollies. 
So now it sits surrounded by junk. Can’t wait to get a new showroom and get it finished. Paul Eddleston BRAID Wheels USA www.BRAIDUSA.com Team Illuminata Motorsport www.teamilluminata.com |
Paul Eddleston Super Moderator Location: Birmingham, Michigan Join Date: 09/06/2012 Age: Ancient Posts: 554 Rally Car: Subaru Outback Wagon EG33, 911 Carrera |
Introducing: Storage Unit Rally Build (We're still at It)
We hope everyone is safe and healthy and wearing a mask. We have been hunkered down in our various basements for what feels like forever but thankful that we live in a state that has fairly low case counts lately. We still haven’t found the perfect building for our business but did come to the realization that it might be possible to continue building the car in its current location: a 30’ x 10’ storage unit! While the only electrical power is a single light fixture in the center we found it has enough juice to power an LED worklight and a drill. We don’t think we will be welding though. Of course, there is no bathroom or running water so we will have to plan ahead. First some pictures of our “facility”: Going into its new home January 29th
We managed to get it up on its pin stands ready for surgery: 
We constructed this bench from an old kitchen table/chopping board complete with two Harbor Freight vices that cost less than $50 total! 
And a makeshift workbench from a foldup table. 
We are working with rudimentary tools and our emergency toolkit that normally is in which ever car we are driving. 
As you can imagine, with one naked 60W lightbulb, it’s pretty dismal in there so we plan to rig up a LED strip light to the hood that used to hang above the work bench in our old workshop. 
We realized that when we moved into the two 30’x10’ units that we packed them according to which room the stuff came out of. Consequently almost everything for the Quattro was in with the Porsche and vice versa. A bit of schlepping later and the Quattro was once again reunited with its innards. There’s not a lot of room to maneuver and it seems that every time we go looking for a part it ends up being in one of the bottom boxes. We suspect this might become quite frustrating. 
And here’s what we think we can make progress on in this space. BRAKE LINES FUEL LINES COOLANT SYSTEM PCV SYSTEM IDLE AIR SYSTEM OIL COOLER ENGINE WIRING LOOM INTAKE SYSTEM/AIRFILTER HEATER CONTROLS AND DUCTS VARIOUS BODYWORK BITS DOOR HANDLES Basically anything that just involves bolting parts on and maybe drilling holes. Let’s see how realistic this plan turns out over the next few (hopefully) weeks. Paul Eddleston BRAID Wheels USA www.BRAIDUSA.com Team Illuminata Motorsport www.teamilluminata.com |
Paul Eddleston Super Moderator Location: Birmingham, Michigan Join Date: 09/06/2012 Age: Ancient Posts: 554 Rally Car: Subaru Outback Wagon EG33, 911 Carrera |
Just a reminder: we are still in the "dry build" phase of this project. That means the shell is prepped but not painted. Everything else is going to be essentially test fitted before the car is disassembled for paint. Once it's cured we'll start bolting things on for good. That way we don't have to do any cutting, grinding and welding on a painted shell, hopefully. We mention this again now because you are about to see some weird stuff.
So, we thought we could probably manage to install the fuel system as we are using AN lines and fittings and they just need to be cut to length and screwed together. How hard could it be? We are using fittings from Finish Line Factory as we sell these and we don't like to sell things we haven't use. We also want to preface this part of the build by saying "We have never used AN fittings before" but we had a plan, drew up a parts list and then parts showed up so we thought we'd dive in. 
We installed the fuel pressure regulator on the bulkhead because there were some studs already there. Only one lined up with our bracket so we will have to come up with something to mount it fully later. Then we installed some 8AN and 6AN adapters and some hose ends to each end of the fuel rail and ran some hose to the fuel regulator for the return. At this point we should mention that we are using any old bits of hose for now, preferably the oldest or cheapest we can get our hands on because we don’t know what we're doing and also "Dry Build". 
Then we thought about our planned route from here through the cabin to the fuel tank. We were intending to put bulkhead fittings through the bulkhead then run hard line through the cabin to the rear bulkhead but no obvious route was revealing itself, plus there are a lot of other things that need to go through the bulkhead and "we don't know what we're doing". We therefore decided to scrap that plan and run the return line (6AN) through one of the frame rails (bear with us) and the feed line (8AN) down through the cowl and into the cabin on the driver’s side. This later was based on having to find somewhere to mount the fuel filter and pictures from original cars. 
We used actual AN line on this run because we wanted to make sure we could actually thread it through the frame rail. This was one idea for the fuel filter location and bulkhead penetration: 
But we settled on this location because this is where the factory teams put them and it made the route shorter: 
Then we were stuck because we needed different AN fittings as we'd almost completely changed our design already. DOH! Paul Eddleston BRAID Wheels USA www.BRAIDUSA.com Team Illuminata Motorsport www.teamilluminata.com |
Paul Eddleston Super Moderator Location: Birmingham, Michigan Join Date: 09/06/2012 Age: Ancient Posts: 554 Rally Car: Subaru Outback Wagon EG33, 911 Carrera |
While we were waiting for fuel line parts from Finish Line Factory to arrive, we started fishing around for other projects we thought we could accomplish. Because of this we found ourselves contemplating where to put the air filter. The factory cars had it on the cowl with a trick ovalized Kevlar tube feeding cold air to the turbo. While we don’t envisage utilizing that level of technology that area did seem intriguing, not the least because it is a high pressure area for cold outside air and there is a hood vent right above it. We could just stick a cone filter on the end of the intake tube but then it would sit right below the hood vent for the turbo and get rained on. We therefore put this here as a sort of placeholder:
Then we turned our attention to properly fixing the radiator. The works cars used a brace rod from one corner of the radiator to the metal work near the rear corner of the engine bay. We thought we’d do something similar and scrounged up some aluminum tube that looked like a suitable size. We wanted to tap each end but couldn’t access our tap holder so made do in true storage build style: 
A couple of stainless steel bolts and washers later and this thing isn’t going anywhere: 
With the radiator in we test fitted the shroud and fan. We had previously determined that the shroud needed clearancing to avoid the frame rail because we added the shroud as an afterthought at the last minute. We now realized that the fan would also hit the frame rail if we mounted it on the modified shroud. DOH! Perhaps a shroud isn’t necessary after all. We don’t think we’ll use those through the core plastic ties though; unless we can’t come up with something more mechanical. 
Thwarted again we really needed a victory so we turned our attention to the brake lines. We already planned the system out and had purchased almost everything we thought we’d need. 
We had started this project late last year but only got as far as installing the stainless steel flex lines from the calipers before the car got invited to Radwood Detroit and we scrambled to get the engine in and put it on the ground. Now we were excited to complete the process but just needed to source some bulkhead fittings. We are trying to keep this build as metric as possible but we couldn’t find metric bulkhead fittings nor SEA versions anywhere. Then Ryan from Thompson Racing Fabrication told us he uses 3AN fittings on his rally car builds and suddenly the way forward was clear: 3AN brake line system! Again, we were stopped waiting for parts. Still, these look pretty: 
Paul Eddleston BRAID Wheels USA www.BRAIDUSA.com Team Illuminata Motorsport www.teamilluminata.com |
Paul Eddleston Super Moderator Location: Birmingham, Michigan Join Date: 09/06/2012 Age: Ancient Posts: 554 Rally Car: Subaru Outback Wagon EG33, 911 Carrera |
Storage Unit Rally Car Build: Week 3 - Fuel System Progress
Fortunately some fuel line parts came in from Finish Line Factory so we switched our attention back to the fuel system. We received some hose end barb adapters to transition from the fuel tank to the AN lines and brackets and a sleeve for the Walbro fuel pump so we scrambled under the car and installed those: 
We attached the fuel pump using an existing stud but later we will remove that and use two threaded inserts and mount it level. We just don’t have access to our grinder right now because “storage unit rally car build”. We also received a 90* bulkhead fitting from FLF for our 6AN return line. The hose end will probably need to be a 45 degree version but, guess what, we didn’t order any DOH! 
Stuck again we decided to open up the coolant hose part of the project and got busy with or calipers and started measuring up hose barbs on the radiator, coolant manifold, thermostat housing etc. 
Our plan was to cobble together various bits of silicone hose to create some of the convoluted hoses we’d need as we were quite far from adapting anything stock. Fortunately Pegasus Auto Racing Supplies carries everything we seem to need. New to this whole thing we thought the best plan was to wet our feet with the main hose from the thermostat housing to the bottom of the radiator as this stuff is quite expensive and we didn’t want to waste more money on an abortive plan. We’re waiting for parts again. Paul Eddleston BRAID Wheels USA www.BRAIDUSA.com Team Illuminata Motorsport www.teamilluminata.com |
Paul Eddleston Super Moderator Location: Birmingham, Michigan Join Date: 09/06/2012 Age: Ancient Posts: 554 Rally Car: Subaru Outback Wagon EG33, 911 Carrera |
Ill Fitting Downpipe and More Brake Lines - Storage Unit Rally Car Build Week 4
While we were going through our boxes of parts we came across the AAN’s down pipe so thought we’d install that as it might impact the intake system we were thinking about. Of course it didn’t fit. It fouls the subframe as it descends below the axle. We need to cut and weld it anyway so now we will be doing that just a little closer to the turbo, or making one from scratch. No welding in the storage unit though. That would be a little ambitious, don’t you think? 
Some 3AN brake fittings came in so we made a brake line, our first! It was complicated (for us) as it was metric at one end and 3AN at the other. It was also tricky because we don’t have a 37* AN flare die but Ryan at TRF told us, as we are using copper nickel hard line, we could just flare them 45* and once we synch them up they will magically become 37*! Who’d have thought? 
So this is what we made: 
And this is what it looked like once we’d made it fit: 
We were so excited we had to stop and have a cup of tea! Oh, no kettle in the storage unit DOH! On a roll now we started laying out the under hood brake lines but immediately decided that this SAE tee had to be a 3AN so the job stopped again while we wait for parts. 
Paul Eddleston BRAID Wheels USA www.BRAIDUSA.com Team Illuminata Motorsport www.teamilluminata.com |
Paul Eddleston Super Moderator Location: Birmingham, Michigan Join Date: 09/06/2012 Age: Ancient Posts: 554 Rally Car: Subaru Outback Wagon EG33, 911 Carrera |
Storage Unit Rally Car Build, Week 5 - Coolant System
Our coolant hose components came in from Pegasus Racing Supplies: 
So, we wasted no time in cobbling together a custom front coolant hose: 
And offering it up to the car: 
Our plan is to clamp this all together with Gates Powergrip heat shrink hose clamps. We’ll probably use regular hose clamps at each end though. We were very happy with how this turned out so we began to look at the rest of the system so we could order more hose bits and bobs. 
We hope to be able to reduce this to a more manageable configuration once the parts show up. Paul Eddleston BRAID Wheels USA www.BRAIDUSA.com Team Illuminata Motorsport www.teamilluminata.com |
Pete Remner Ultra Moderator Location: Cleveland, Ohio Join Date: 01/11/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 2,022 |
As you have discovered, AAN downpipes do not fit small chassis... Simply source a downpipe from an RR engined ur-Q or from an S2. Find three in any junkyard in the US, right?
 Pete Remner Cleveland, Ohio 1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing) 1978 Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver. |
Paul Eddleston Super Moderator Location: Birmingham, Michigan Join Date: 09/06/2012 Age: Ancient Posts: 554 Rally Car: Subaru Outback Wagon EG33, 911 Carrera |
Do I detect a hint of sarcasm in your comment Pete? Paul Eddleston BRAID Wheels USA www.BRAIDUSA.com Team Illuminata Motorsport www.teamilluminata.com |
Paul Eddleston Super Moderator Location: Birmingham, Michigan Join Date: 09/06/2012 Age: Ancient Posts: 554 Rally Car: Subaru Outback Wagon EG33, 911 Carrera |
Storage Unit Rally Car Build: Week 6 - Odds & Ends
We installed some jewelry this week. Always nice when you bolt on some freshly zinc plated bling: 
We also dug the PVC system out of the boxes. 
Then the last bits for the fuel filter came in from Finish Line factory so we mounted that. 
Just sheet metal screws for now but when we strip the shell for paint we’ll drill holes for threaded inserts which we’ll install after the paint has cured. That way the holes will be protected. Paul Eddleston BRAID Wheels USA www.BRAIDUSA.com Team Illuminata Motorsport www.teamilluminata.com Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2020 12:22PM by BRAIDusa. |
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