Before I start just a MASSIVE THANKYOU to everyone on audi-sport, all your help and information led me to this and I couldnt of done it without you.
Here we go, I bought the car in November 08 the a3 was a completely standard facelift 1.8t! the body work was a little rough but it had 58k on the clock with fsh! i managed to haggle it down to £3650, which at the time was a bargain.
It was either get a high mileage s3 or a low mileage a3, with money to spend on it! as i cannot keep my hands off cars and love to modify them it would have to be an a3!
First thing i did was to put 18'' Kahn alloys as i wanted bigger and aftermarket wheels as i like my car to look a little different, i know a few of you will disagree
!
i also painted the calipers with hammerite gloss red, whilst the wheels were off!
I then did a few cheaper mods including de-badging except the audi rings and removing the wiper on the back as i like the smooth look!
The s3 rear bumper followed. i didnt use the guide rails and trimmed the exhaust recess, it fits well with only a slight mis-fit.
A cat-back exhaust system was then fitted, its an custom exhaust as i wanted the it to fit within the recess, with s3 tips, costing £340 fully fitted with a life time warrenty!
Then i de-chromed the front grill surround again leaving the rings :thumbsup:.
Being a student, i obviously blew all the money i had left over for the car! soooo i left it for abit, then problems occured; engine speed sensor went, water pump failed and two split hoses. i took it to audi each time as i wanted the best for my car but they charged me over 1200 for the repairs
.
All brake pads and discs needed replacing, so with your guys help i researched and decided the 320mm setup would be the best option! Ebay was the best bet for calipers and carriers and got them for just under a 100, i purchased Mintex pads all round and Brembo discs, this cost just under 200.
Being on my placement year off uni now ment i had money coming in and ofcourse instead of paying off my overdraft i gave into audi-sport and have blown every pay cheque on my car lol!
A few bits i bought!
The parts arrived so dismantling of the car began, removing the bumper and headlights.
I chose to spray the inside of the headlights whilst they were off, following the guide on here! as i again wanted to be different, instead of buying a s3 front bumper i chose to get the rs4 look bumper. i bought a s3 grill to go in place as it looks sooo much better and again de-chromed it! I roughed up the surfaces and used halfords plastic primer and satin black.
To make most of when the lights were out i fitted phillips blue vision main beam, and ice white dip beam bulbs, which are much better than standard!
Thanks to prawns thread i bought a turbo revs intercooler and began to fit it!
I knew the intercooler pipes were uneven and looked a little bit scruffy so i thought i woukd modify the existing pipework and incorperate two 90 degree alloy bends were it met the intercooler. it was really easy to do and looks great, the pipes were about 30 pounds. a forge mass air flow sensor pipe was bought from forge and also fitted into the pipework.
As i wanted to change a few hoses i also thought i would make up my own ''cold side'' relocation kit to fit the new forge split-r i bought. it turned out much cheaper than buying the forge one and fits great wth the intercooler pipes- i added a forge tip and Kn N induction kit at this point.
I had to change a few of these pipes around as the hose kept popping off the throttle body (which had a quick clean too)
Alll was going well, then i tried to fit the bumper!
due to the very poor quality of the fibre glass bumper and the fact i hadnt put the intercooler as far back as it could go the bumper just wouldnt go on!
After a month of working on it here and there freezing in the snow cutting, breaking and re-fibreglassing the bumper it started to take shape after bonding steel strips to the wheel arch liners and along the top to strengthen the bolt on points it fitted well.
once the intercooler was repositioned all was good.
Time for the spray job, as the paint work was tatty I opted for basically a full respray apart from the roof and bonnet. 2 weeks further without a car and it was ready, I couldnt of been happier!
To finish it off I put aero wipers and a cupra splitter on the front.
Amongst all this a leather interior in great condition popped up on ebay locally, so I couldnt resist lol!
Finished engine bay thanks again for inspiration on the cover, u know who u are;
Rough cost;
Brakes £350 inc fitting. GFS car parts
Alloys and tyres £900
Hoses and pipes £200, from www.performancesiliconehoses.com/
intercooler £200
rs4 style front bumper £125
s3 rear bumper £100
s3 spoiler £40
exhaust £340 - Infinity exhausts
induction kit £60
forge tip £100
forge split-r dv £100
forge mass sensor pipe £40
phillips bulbs dip/main £40
grills; s3 top grill £60, rs4 bottom grills £100
leather interior £300
weitec coilovers £400 - DPM performance
spray job £1000
mainly all sourced from E----BAY!
Still to do;
Put the font grills in, I have genuine rs4 grills but not sure if I want to hack at them or to buy new mesh.
Fit the weitec coilovers....... waiting for a whiteline arb.
Fit s3 roof spoiler
Fitting of the induction heat shield.
And finally a remap, hopefully get it done at amd as ive heard great things about them.
future purchase will be a cat/down pipe!
Again a massive thank you to everyone on here, hopefully this will help others when wanting to mod theirs.
Your opininons are welcome good or bad and any further suggestions I could spend my money on .
Here we go, I bought the car in November 08 the a3 was a completely standard facelift 1.8t! the body work was a little rough but it had 58k on the clock with fsh! i managed to haggle it down to £3650, which at the time was a bargain.
It was either get a high mileage s3 or a low mileage a3, with money to spend on it! as i cannot keep my hands off cars and love to modify them it would have to be an a3!
First thing i did was to put 18'' Kahn alloys as i wanted bigger and aftermarket wheels as i like my car to look a little different, i know a few of you will disagree
!i also painted the calipers with hammerite gloss red, whilst the wheels were off!
I then did a few cheaper mods including de-badging except the audi rings and removing the wiper on the back as i like the smooth look!
The s3 rear bumper followed. i didnt use the guide rails and trimmed the exhaust recess, it fits well with only a slight mis-fit.
A cat-back exhaust system was then fitted, its an custom exhaust as i wanted the it to fit within the recess, with s3 tips, costing £340 fully fitted with a life time warrenty!
Then i de-chromed the front grill surround again leaving the rings :thumbsup:.
Being a student, i obviously blew all the money i had left over for the car! soooo i left it for abit, then problems occured; engine speed sensor went, water pump failed and two split hoses. i took it to audi each time as i wanted the best for my car but they charged me over 1200 for the repairs
.All brake pads and discs needed replacing, so with your guys help i researched and decided the 320mm setup would be the best option! Ebay was the best bet for calipers and carriers and got them for just under a 100, i purchased Mintex pads all round and Brembo discs, this cost just under 200.
Being on my placement year off uni now ment i had money coming in and ofcourse instead of paying off my overdraft i gave into audi-sport and have blown every pay cheque on my car lol!
A few bits i bought!
The parts arrived so dismantling of the car began, removing the bumper and headlights.
I chose to spray the inside of the headlights whilst they were off, following the guide on here! as i again wanted to be different, instead of buying a s3 front bumper i chose to get the rs4 look bumper. i bought a s3 grill to go in place as it looks sooo much better and again de-chromed it! I roughed up the surfaces and used halfords plastic primer and satin black.
To make most of when the lights were out i fitted phillips blue vision main beam, and ice white dip beam bulbs, which are much better than standard!
Thanks to prawns thread i bought a turbo revs intercooler and began to fit it!
I knew the intercooler pipes were uneven and looked a little bit scruffy so i thought i woukd modify the existing pipework and incorperate two 90 degree alloy bends were it met the intercooler. it was really easy to do and looks great, the pipes were about 30 pounds. a forge mass air flow sensor pipe was bought from forge and also fitted into the pipework.
As i wanted to change a few hoses i also thought i would make up my own ''cold side'' relocation kit to fit the new forge split-r i bought. it turned out much cheaper than buying the forge one and fits great wth the intercooler pipes- i added a forge tip and Kn N induction kit at this point.
I had to change a few of these pipes around as the hose kept popping off the throttle body (which had a quick clean too)
Alll was going well, then i tried to fit the bumper!
due to the very poor quality of the fibre glass bumper and the fact i hadnt put the intercooler as far back as it could go the bumper just wouldnt go on!
After a month of working on it here and there freezing in the snow cutting, breaking and re-fibreglassing the bumper it started to take shape after bonding steel strips to the wheel arch liners and along the top to strengthen the bolt on points it fitted well.
once the intercooler was repositioned all was good.
Time for the spray job, as the paint work was tatty I opted for basically a full respray apart from the roof and bonnet. 2 weeks further without a car and it was ready, I couldnt of been happier!
To finish it off I put aero wipers and a cupra splitter on the front.
Amongst all this a leather interior in great condition popped up on ebay locally, so I couldnt resist lol!
Finished engine bay thanks again for inspiration on the cover, u know who u are;
Rough cost;
Brakes £350 inc fitting. GFS car parts
Alloys and tyres £900
Hoses and pipes £200, from www.performancesiliconehoses.com/
intercooler £200
rs4 style front bumper £125
s3 rear bumper £100
s3 spoiler £40
exhaust £340 - Infinity exhausts
induction kit £60
forge tip £100
forge split-r dv £100
forge mass sensor pipe £40
phillips bulbs dip/main £40
grills; s3 top grill £60, rs4 bottom grills £100
leather interior £300
weitec coilovers £400 - DPM performance
spray job £1000
mainly all sourced from E----BAY!
Still to do;
Put the font grills in, I have genuine rs4 grills but not sure if I want to hack at them or to buy new mesh.
Fit the weitec coilovers....... waiting for a whiteline arb.
Fit s3 roof spoiler
Fitting of the induction heat shield.
And finally a remap, hopefully get it done at amd as ive heard great things about them.
future purchase will be a cat/down pipe!
Again a massive thank you to everyone on here, hopefully this will help others when wanting to mod theirs.
Your opininons are welcome good or bad and any further suggestions I could spend my money on .
Last edited:
lol
