Jackos Bluey Mk2.. Build/progress Thread.. Pic Heavy!

[S3_Jacko]

Hello....

For those that don't know me, i'll start off with a bit of history.... 1st of all before you read all this, I am not a mechanic, a qualified vehicle technician in any way.. I am a data communications engineer and car enthusiast just like the rest of us.....

Further note: I do not track my car,drag them nor looking for a show car either. I'm only after a good looking, quick, comfy enough car to be used for everyday use and also the occasional blast up the Scottish highlands...

Bluey MK1

Started my affair with A3/S3s January 2010 when I purchased my 1st Audi.. An A3 2.0tfsi quattro.. Had test drove a Golf Gti, Focus ST, but when I test drove the Audi, the quattro did it for me and the A3 it was.. Had this car for an incredible 3.5yrs and is a measure of how much I liked it... I decided then it was time to sell and move onto the S3, as the A3, although a nice car and loved it, I needed that bit more.....

So anyway, I bought this



A 2008 (57) plate Sprint Blue S3 with 56k... I had been looking at a few facelift models, but this car was just an evening and weekend toy for me as I have got a company vehicle. Also felt the facelifts were just out of the allocated budget for that sort of thing and that it was more than enough for what I needed (at that time).... Fell in love with it instantly.......

So now that I had it and got used to it, I thought i'd add my own little creative spin on things.. Worked on that car over the space of 8 months or so and ended up with this....









I loved this car, was a real head turner and turned out pretty nice...
It had the following mods...

Custom RS honeycomb style grille (Which I bulit)
Shark stage 1 map
Custom styled TTS engine cover
Modified MTC cai with ITG racing filter
GFb dv+
R8 Oil cap
25mm H&R springs
18" Audi DTM alloy wheels redone in anthracite
Facelift MY09 Rear lights
LED numberplate bulbs

I was then starting to think things over a bit and there was 3 things that I didn't like about it..

1. The seats: They were white alcantara and an absolute nightmare to upkeep and maintain.

2. The mileage: The car was just turned 60k and I know this isn't a lot but for me it was time to move
on, I only do about 5/6k a year in my cars at most and only had originally had the plan to keep it for a couple of years.

3. LED drls: It didn't have any except from the prefacelift drls, but those facelift 1's just got me man ha


So then but a bit of anxious reservation I made the decision that I was going to part with Bluey a year earlier than I had originally planned....

I returned the car to standard and then it was onto the sale.. It was advertised on autotrader and lasted a whole 12hrs before someone came and bought it...A testament to the condition of the car.. I was a bit gutted though as I had just shellled out for a 6 week advert lol! So that was Bluey mk1 gone.....

New car

As I knew a facelift S3 was on the cards, I started collecting some parts for it while I still had the other 1... I purchased a forge twintake, I really like the look of it, also it is an enclosed intake and purchased a milltek catback for most rasp than the standard exhaust produces.

Originally I had my eyes set on a Red facelift, missed out on 1 by one day due to the geographic location I am in the country. I could only go see it on the saturday and the car sold on the Friday, bit of a gutter really. That was me left without my toy and onto the search engines on a daily basis looking for a replacement.. 2 weeks had passed and I found 1 that took my fancy, another sprint Blue.. now I always loved the previous sprint and colour was never an issue, but had reservations about buying the same car, only facelifted in the same colour as the original idea was for the Red.. Loved the Red as my 1st A3 was in Brilliant Red.. But then I had the realisation that its my money and my car and fk what anyone else thinks about it! lol!!.... As long as i'm happy with it at the end of the day...

So that was me, on my travels 5hrs away from Glasgow to go look at the car....

Had a look at it, I could see from the pictures that it was a bit rough around the edges to what my standards are for a car of this sort, but I knew it was a great base car and I could easily sort it out when i got my hands on it...

So looked round the car, scan and test drive, all ok and the deal was done...

I ended up with this.. A 2009 Sprint Blue S3 with 38k on the clock and a blank canvas for me to work on



So now I got the car home it was time for action.. I waited a week then took the week off work to get stuck right into it... My thinking about this was to get the car to a position where I was fairly happy with it and just enjoy it and drive it without having to work on it all the time....

I spent 60hrs on the car over the course of the week which was made a lot easier due to early planning and having a room of boxes full of parts to add to it...

I'll take this through a day by day guide of what was done to it on a sort of fast paced mini build thread, hope you enjoy reading as I loved working on it, it really was a labour of love though because by the end of the week I was shattered ha...

 

[S3_Jacko]

Saturday

So like many of my cars I started with the wheels and brakes....

2 of the wheels were in a pretty shabby curbed condition and that was them off and into Wheel Pro Scotland for an oem colour match refurb....

I knew from the last car that gloss Black calipers was the best decision in my opinion for the colour of the car and set about doing this and also refurbing the hubs for the clean look behind the wheels...



Set about them with a wire brush, prepaint cleaner and high temp gloss Black caliper paint, with also a matt black paint for the hubs..

Brakes before:



Brakes after:



So then was the full side after to give you an idea... Both sides were obviously done



Clean wheel look after receiving the wheels back from the refurb the day before:





And that was that for Saturday.....

 

[S3_Jacko]

Sunday

Interior clean out day and other bits and bobs....

So Sunday I set about cleaning the interior, just basically cleaning all the windows, a hoover, cleaning all the door panels and dash.. The most notible change to the interior that day was the stitching was all changed from white to the RS style Red...



So I started a little bit of work to the exterior again.. Now I well prefer the Gloss Black B pillars and I know you can buy them seperately, but at the moment I have more important things to put my money to and decide to go for the cheaper wrapping option, which pretty much gives an identical finish anyway....



B pillars after:



Now you can see from the last picture there that the rubbers were looking a bit tired so decided to give these a refurb, to bring them back to life a bit...



After:



And that was the car pretty much done with for the day....

 

[S3_Jacko]

Monday

Tints day...

Took the car over to my good friend Ian from Strathclyde autotint to get the rear 3 windows tinted..

Before:



Went for the medium tint.... Which is a factory match to the S3 Black edition privacy glass

After:



Got home and used some of the excess cuts from the windows to tint the rear LED numperplate (Error free) that had arrived the day before.. This basically stops the car from lighting up the whole back of the road like fast and furious neons, looks a lot better and more understated that way



Fitted:



And that was that for another day

 

[S3_Jacko]

Tuesday

Suspension day

Took the car up to my friend in the local garage to get the 25mm H&R springs refitted.....

Before:



After:



So after the springs were fittted, those with standard S3 alooys on a lowered car will know that the wheels hide far too much within the arches and need to be brought out. So I decided to go for the most common setup used and went for 12mm front spacers and 15mm rear. Had to go to a motor factors in Glasgow however as the bolts that came with the spacers had the incorrect seating for OEM standard wheels and had to purchase a new set of extended bolts for the full car and this was the result...



Done for another day

 

[S3_Jacko]

Wednesday

Engine bay day.....

Time to clean up the engine bay and fit the CAI......

Before:



Midpoint:



After, with the engine bay cleaned and CAI installed:



Anyone thats fitted the forge twintake will probably be able to tell you what a faff it is to fit, totally worth it though in my opinion... Still have a custom engine cover that i'm in the process of doing at the moment and the R8 oil cap needs done, but waiting til the cover is finished, sorta like the cherry on the cake

So while I was doing the bay, I was waiting on this liitle bad boy arriving, purchased by xenonz UK...



I had fit a couple of these grilles to other cars in the past and knew they were a perfect fit, but to anyone eagle eyed enough will be able to tell that the badge holder should be gloss Black for OEM spec, so being a perfect fit and half the price of an OEM grille it was a good option for just a little bit of work needed....

Had it 5 minutes and it was like this



So that was done and had enough of that day

 

[S3_Jacko]

Thursday

Tuning day...

Now this is where it starts to get interesting... Took the car to Ecotune Scotland based in Glasgow for a Stage 1 APR remap.. Now Ecotune has a Rolling Road on premis where the cars are setup.

On the 1st run, standard car with forge twintake made 287.7hp with 290.1ft/lbs torque. Then it was time to choose the software, I went for the APR 3.1 software over the 3.4 as it has more of a progrssive torque curve over the 3.4... so the software was installed.



So this is where it gets really interesting.. 2nd run.. Now I was expecting around 320hp and that was what I was hoping for but I was in for a shock... on the 2nd run the car made 344.9hp 351.7ft/lbs of torque



Now I was a bit wary of this and asked them to explain, basically the words were 'Its a good clean car and that he'd love to see it with the downpipe and pump on it' The car is running slightly rich after 5krpm and i'm going to get a 2nd opinion on it sometime soon from another company with a rolling road as the figures might be slightly opimistic.. Only time will tell on that 1 either way, but it certainly feels a lot quicker than the Shark stage 1, so only time will tell on that 1....

So then it was back home to fit the grille.. these parts were removed and also the front splitter cover to give you an idea of what was to come...

 

[S3_Jacko]

Friday

Front end finish and exhaust day...

Friday morning, that was me up to see my friend at the local garage again to get the milltek catback installed, with a little teaser pic of the grille



Exhaust on:




So on the Thursday evening the fog grilles were taken off and sprayed Gloss Black.. The chrome fog surrounds were removed as these were not going gloss Black. The front splitter was also sprayed gloss Black with the front lip being done in the Laps6 (I think it is) matt Aluminium... The original S3 badge was then bonded back onto the new grille with the plate mounts also bonded in..

The usual requirements are needed when fitting this grille. Foam removal and crash bar painted Black, preferably a hard wearing paint for stone chip protection...

Front end all finished:



Front end

 

[S3_Jacko]

Saturday

So by this point I was starting to feel the strain a little, but there was still 1 big job that I wanted to do

Heres a clue and see if you can guess ??



The back bumper was removed and the rear diffuser to paint gloss Black with an matt aluminium lip, sorta like the alu pack RS3's rear diffuser but incorporating that style into the S3 diffuser...


And that was enough for that day

 

[S3_Jacko]

Sunday

So basically Sunday was a day for putting the car back together and giving it a wash up due to the weeks antics



And here was the rear of the car as it was complete then

 

[S3_Jacko]

So a couple of days later the bug bit again and I had to do it... Installed MY11 Rear lights



And took the car for a spin and took a shot up in the hills just outside of Glasgow



So basically now, the next mod on the list is the Rnse retrofit... This car has an aux port so i'm gona incorporate that into it aswell, the concert sounds great with the Bose through the aux port but looks majorly sh!t and lets down the interior in my opinion... Custom engine cover will be worked on this weekend at some point and needs sent away for a little jazz up so expecting that to be on the car next weekend.... Uprated rear arb, new wheels and TTRS brakes on the cards for next spring, so watch this space and i'll update the thread as I go.... still waiting on the V5 with my own reg aswell to fit my short plates

As I said, it was a very busy week, a very busy highly enjoyable week... Been an absolute labour of love as I said as I was shattered and back to work on Monday... Hope y'all enjoyed reading as much as I did doing it...

 

[guile]

nice work that man. excellent choice in tasteful modifications and a great read to boot, well done...

ps i have a my10 and wondering what the diff is between 10 and 11 rear lights?

 

[weve33]

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this! Good job mate. Wish I had an eventful week like yours!

Keep the pics coming

 

[Sandra]

Excellent read Jack. The car looks amazing. x

 

[Dan-Jnr]

Nice car, like what you have done with it.

 

[S3_Jacko]

nice work that man. excellent choice in tasteful modifications and a great read to boot, well done...

ps i have a my10 and wondering what the diff is between 10 and 11 rear lights?

Cheers Guile... Reviewed your thread again and you have the MY09 lights, just the model year for the lights even though they were brought out the year earlier ha so that doesnt make much sense.... The only didference between thwm is that the MY11s are more tinted than the MY09s... The 11's would suit your Black car lovely!

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this! Good job mate. Wish I had an eventful week like yours!

Keep the pics coming

Will do man, glad you enjoyed, thanks

Excellent read Jack. The car looks amazing. x

Thanks Sandra, coming on pretty nicely

Nice car, like what you have done with it.

Cheers Dan

 

[smurfworth]

Nice one mate, as much as I dislike the facelift you've done a good job!

Glad you kept the grille silver too.

Those RR figures also seem a little optimistic to me

 

[S3_Jacko]

Nice one mate, as much as I dislike the facelift you've done a good job!

Glad you kept the grille silver too.

Those RR figures also seem a little optimistic to me

Cheers Josh.. The facelift feels totally different from the pre... Different engine, feels more solid in a way or maybe its placebo but defo feels a lot different in some way...

Do ya know, when I was looking at the grille, I could not find 1 person thats done the alu grille on the Blue, it was always Black.. Defo the right choice now tho on the Blue...

Yeah i'm not too sure about them, not too worried tho as the car feels awesome to drive, gona get it on another 1 though as I said so see what happens

 

[smurfworth]

Cheers Josh.. The facelift feels totally different from the pre... Different engine, feels more solid in a way or maybe its placebo but defo feels a lot different in some way...

Do ya know, when I was looking at the grille, I could not find 1 person thats done the alu grille on the Blue, it was always Black.. Defo the right choice now tho on the Blue...

Yeah i'm not too sure about them, not too worried tho as the car feels awesome to drive, gona get it on another 1 though as I said so see what happens

It's probably down to the lower mileage, everything is tighter an been used less.

Yeah, that was the reason I always wanted to keep mine silver, the black is boring when everyone has it.

 

[Fenriz]

Gorgeous looking car, I so want one of those.

 

[Jackx1]

Looks amazing pal, out of interest is the facelift any different to drive? More refined?

 

[grchmason]

Nice one mate, as much as I dislike the facelift you've done a good job!

Glad you kept the grille silver too.

Those RR figures also seem a little optimistic to me

It's so funny as I dislike your pre facelift weird how we all so ying and yang lol!

Great work fella car looks stunning!!!!!!!

 

[smurfworth]

It's so funny as I dislike your pre facelift weird how we all so ying and yang lol!

Great work fella car looks stunning!!!!!!!

It's the way it goes though isn't it, if we all liked the same things life would be boring.

 

[manor13]

looks good, Muzza had his car on the r/r @eco no long ago and got realistic results so you never know.

 

[Ironborn]

Nice work love it, but the color of the grille doesn't look very OEM

 

[hollows wife]

what did you use to refurb the door/window rubbers ? and are they still in top condition ?

 

[S3_Jacko]

It's so funny as I dislike your pre facelift weird how we all so ying and yang lol!

Great work fella car looks stunning!!!!!!!

Cheers Mate, coming along nicely...

looks good, Muzza had his car on the r/r @eco no long ago and got realistic results so you never know.

Yeah, i had a good convo with Muzza and a different correction figure was used on his from mine.. Spoke another few boys that were in around the time I was and the same correction figure was used on theres as mine... There figures seem to be pretty bang on... Both stage 2+ apr, but the facelift seemed to bring 10 more horses over the pre.. Different equipment maybe like the cai.. But 10hp is a bit of difference with a cai..

what did you use to refurb the door/window rubbers ? and are they still in top condition ?

I used chemical guys trim restorer on them.. Yeah still in pretty good condition...

 

[S3_Jacko]

Nice work love it, but the color of the grille doesn't look very OEM

Its matt aluminium... Rs grilles are matt aluminium as opposed to the chrome, the colour is bang on

 

[S3_Jacko]

Gorgeous looking car, I so want one of those.

Cheers man... You should do it.. You wont regret it..

Looks amazing pal, out of interest is the facelift any different to drive? More refined?

I'm still in placebo effect just now, its does feel different to me, but I cant quite put my finger on it... Its hard to tell tho, the new car has full leather as opposed to the alcantara in the last so thats a big difference right away, it also has a Black headliner as opposed yo the white in the last 1, that makes a huge difference and makes the cab feel a lot more enclosed... The car feels a lot more tighter and refined, but as Smurthworth says it has done 20k miles less so could be a factor in that... But to me theres defo a big difference... Felt the prefacelift handled a lot better tho, but I did have wider wheels on that.. Same 225 tryes tho so I would have thought the contact area wouldnt have been that far off the same on the 7.5j to the 8j... But i can feel a big difference and will only be able to really tell when i put new wheels on it

 

[347]

great looking car , and some nice enhancements .
the aluminium mesh grill doesn't do it for me , each to there own indeed .
What did you use for the ali trim on rear valance ?

 

[Granta]

car looks great, nice work! i have always preferred pre facelift sprint blues but this one might change my mind!

 

[S3_Jacko]

great looking car , and some nice enhancements .
the aluminium mesh grill doesn't do it for me , each to there own indeed .
What did you use for the ali trim on rear valance ?

Yeah mate... Not every single thing someone does will suit everyone thats what makes the car world so diverse... It does make a big difference after having the black on the old car so so long.. Nice and bright and suits the Blue well... The rear valance was painted Gloss Black with just the top lip done in the laps6 Audi aluminium paint...

car looks great, nice work! i have always preferred pre facelift sprint blues but this one might change my mind!

Thanks fella... My initial impression was that it is just everything the old 1 wasn't however, I still did really like the old 1 aswell... Just those few points that I didnt like about made me want to go onto the next 1... And the favelift does have some really nice features that the pre doesnt... Somewhere in the middle between the 2 would have been perfect...

 

[rdfcpete]

Looks excellent Jack, I think there's some very tasteful mods in there. Started with the key components too which I like to do myself, well in

Intrigued by the LED plate lights, are these error free & reliable ones for 2009 vehicles that might have bypassed the radar?

 

[S3_Jacko]

Looks excellent Jack, I think there's some very tasteful mods in there. Started with the key components too which I like to do myself, well in

Intrigued by the LED plate lights, are these error free & reliable ones for 2009 vehicles that might have bypassed the radar?

Thanks man.. Always the best place to start, just refurbing the car and bringing it back to life a bit...

Yeah, well there a story with these... With my car they work perfectly, no errors what so ever... However my mate has the same 1's, but the difference is with his car, he has auto lights and he gets an error (although not all the time) he only gets this error right enough when he switches on his ignition in the dark...

So if you have not got auto lights then they will be fine... Heres a link for you with the 1's I got

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/270994969214

 

[S3_Jacko]

So time for a small update on this, as I had a few days off work to get a little work done.....



Anyway as Mr B had previously stated about the colour of the grille, it got me thinking.. done some thinking about this and decided the colour had to change slightly... I was on the fence with the grille and tried to convince myself that I liked it, but there was always something not quite right with it, meaning I wasn't 100% sure...

So I changed the colour of the grille and only kept the surround the same... made it a slightly darker Matt Aluinium and i'm glad to say I now love it.. Compared it to OEM side by side and is now pretty much bang on. The light levels really provide a nice contrast to the front end now...



The weird thing about the grille is that the honeycomb is still Aluminium and the closer you get to it, it lights up..

The Xenonz grille is a good fit and recommended for that, but as far as colour goes and oem looks, its far from perfect... Quite a few hrs put into it to get it looking like that... Thats only my opinion of it

While I was doing that, I took the opportunity to take the wheels off and pay them a bit of attention for winter protection... Not much involved in this, I wet sanded them, took off any slight inperfections and double coated them with wax...

Anyway now to the fun part... Sourced myself one of these bad boys as it was pretty much 1 of the items on top of the list....



My last S3 had a Rnse and this 1 came with the Concert.... In my opinion, a major let down to the interior...

So because this 1 had the Aux port as standard, i'm 1 of those with the ocd that I can't have a non-functional part installed... so got 1 of these and wired it up, the multimedia plug for the rnse



Once that was done, I added it to the loom... I was going to go down the road of sourcing the OEM loom tape but thats taking it too far and this is OEM looking enough for something that will never be seen..



I was in the mood for doing some wiring, I also installed the floor lighting for something different and located the gps receiver behind the drivers airvent just behind the fuse box for easy access to it if need be...



Right so me being me, couldn't just stick with this.. 1 of my buddies has a S3 Black edition with the gloss rnse and the piano black inserts and for some reason I find this more 'comfortable'.. I guess thats the only word I can think to use to describe it ha, so I changed that too and really like it



I kept the Alu inserts on the doors as it matches the Bose covers well and I quite like the way the doors look... So ended up with the finished interior....



Next on the list is to finish the engine cover, done some work on it recently but its trying to find the time.. Get that on with the R8 cap and finish the bodywork winter protection once I get some time... updates will follow as it happens

 

[347]

A good update , i wasn't a fan of the bright grill , but that new colour now is a 100% improvement in my eyes now and like you say it adds the right contrast to the front of car now . A job well done

 

[S3_Jacko]

A good update , i wasn't a fan of the bright grill , but that new colour now is a 100% improvement in my eyes now and like you say it adds the right contrast to the front of car now . A job well done

Cheers man... Yeah defo a big difference for the better

 

[smurfworth]

Front end looks good man!

Cruise control and buckets next, you'll be sorted then

 

[S3_Jacko]

Front end looks good man!

Cruise control and buckets next, you'll be sorted then

Ha cheers Josh... Wheels next..

Considered cruise to make use of the apr anti theft software aswell.. Doesnt look that expensive either... 1 of the lads has just bought his kit and is going to retrofit it himself.. Or at least try, so following that 1 with interest...

Was considering TTRS brakes too.. Might just go Brembo disks and uprated fluid and lines, thats all next year tho...

 

[gotaudia3]

very enjoyable thread!!! excellent work.....