My 2008 Sprint Blue S3 8P2 Thread

S3_Jacko

S3_Jacko

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Well guys thought its time to do my progress thread as a lot has changed on the car since I got it and need to get it started before it gets outta hand... Try and give you a brief account of whats been happening with my car since I got it.....

Well most of you probably know me by now since i've been on this forum now for a while..

My names Jack, from Glasgow and have owned an Audi quattro for the past 4.5 yrs. the 1st 3.5yrs I spent with a A3 2.0Tfsi quattro and have owned my S3 since July'13.... Loved my Red A3, but always wanted the S3 and thought it was the time to get 1 with last summer coming up..

Done my searching and found a good example of what I was looking for...

2008 Sprint Blue Pre-facelift S3
56k on the clock...
FBMSW
RNS-E
Half leather/alcantara seats

Was considering buying 8P3, but my budget would have only stretched to keep it standard.. so it was either that or 8P2 with some modding money... Car is only used at evenings and weekends, is just my toy and felt at the time that 8P3 was a bit overkill.....

So it was that day to go and view my car.. Travelled from Glasgow to Grimsby by train to view and inspect the car and was glad that the car was everything the owner had claimed it to be, as I had only seen it in pics... Deal was done and the 5hr drive home was 1 of the best i've ever had... I've trawled the computer for pics of the car on the day I bought it but think excitement got the better of me and have none..

A bit more about me: I am not a professional car tuner, fabricator or indeed mechanic (I'm a data communications engineer and car enthusiast) I always like to take projects on myself and try to feel the pride of doing this... Its my car and I like to try make it my own....

Sorry in advance at the poor image quality of some of the pics, they were all took on various iphones and in varying weather conditions, so they are the best I have..

Enough writing, now its picture time!
So heres a couple of pics of the car and my old car not long after buying it....







So once I got the car it was time to get my hands on it and do some cosmetic touches to the car that was missing... Started with the Brakes, then went on to do the lighting upgrades....
Brakes went gloss Black with the hubs going Matt and the Number plate light and 8P2 DRL's were upgraded to LEDs......








Resistors had to be fitted to the engine bay to cancel any canbus errors from the new LED DRL's






 
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After that, I decided to get the back 3 windows tinted in Light smoke and fitted the wind deflectors (Which were soon to be removed) these were quite funtional while they lasted to let fresh air in the car, but I felt they took too much away from the look of the car.....





Next I started to look at the grill.. The chrome for me is just too much Bling and decided to start looking into the Black Optics grill.. Got my hands on 1 (Which isn't easy) and decided to fit that....







 
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Next...wheels.. I started experimenting with some rims, wanted to do something slightly different from the norm and came up with the bright idea of trying a set of Audi A4 dynamik alloy wheels.. started learning a great deal about offests and basically all the dimensions of new rims to see if they would fit.. Figured out (Eventually) that they would, so managed to find myself a set in Liverpool.. Drove from Glasgow down to Liverpool and back to pick up the rims.. Tried them on the car and sadly didnt fall in love with them, so they had to go.....





Was always a fan of the Rotors, so after a lot of searching and hard work I managed to find myself a set and they were fitted and also experimented with a black front splitter with plastidip.....



Where to go next!? hmmm... Met up with a fellow ASN S3 owner who also has a Sprint Blue 8P2 and then had a look at his rear clusters.. He has MY11 rear clusters on his and had to have them (Thanks Turbonutz!!)... After doing a bit of research on the rear clusters I discovered that the MY09's were better suited to the colour of my car and managed to source myself a set......



 
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After this... I liked how the car was looking so I decided to start looking into performance modifications.. Done a fair bit of research on this also and decided to go stage 1, with MTC CAI with ITG racing filter... Checked my divertor valve also and discovered it was the later revision C that is prone to tearing so this was uprated aswell to a GFB DV+... these DV's get mixed reviews, but in my own opinion, I have driven stage 1 S3's with it fitted and without and you can clearly feel the difference when driving.. Fitted all my goodies and then decided to book my car in with Brotek for a shark stage 1 map as it was local... I decided to go for the Shark as I had read that it was quite a linear map as opposed to the aggressive Revo stage 1...

Was really excited to get the map done, however my excitement was short lived.... on the drive home the clutch was slipping pretty badly and the car was a bit all over the place, was gutted to say the least!.... However, after the next couple of weeks the car started to settle down and the slippage was a very rare occurance and only decided to appear when heavy driving the car starting from 5th gear... At the moment the standard clutch is still in but very driveable and the majority of the time has no issues what-so-ever, but a clutch upgrade is on the cards very soon......

Heres some pics on the transformation of my engine bay.....



Some goodies were ordered and arrived :)




So now it was that time to get them fitted



And the the TTS engine cover was added




I decided to modify the kit slightly to better incorporate the standard air feed on the grill... Now i'm no fabricator as you can see, but I made an attempt of making an enclosed heat shield for the filter... not the best looking but its functional and I was quite happy with the way it turned out... also put my own touch to the TTS engine cover.......





Now to add heat resistant Gloss Black paint



All finished and how the engine bay looked then....



And how it looks now... R8 oil cap has been added since...



Once the bonnet is closed... The filter is pretty much sealed from any hot air getting into it.... Required a lot of measuring!!!

Come summer I think i'm gonna rip off the Blue and get that zig-zag section hydro dipped carbon fibre


 
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So now after all this winter had severely started to set in and wanted to try protect the car aswell... Done a bit of research into detailing and decided I would give it a bash...


The car was washed twice, clay barred, waxed with collinite 476... all of this took me 4hrs to do and I was fairly pleased with the results.....

Reflection:



Beading:


And the final results:




So now it was back to experimenting with the grill again because I was bored... I'd previously plastidipped the front splitter Black to see what it was like.. Liked it and decided to make this a little more permanent too with vinyl wrap... Standard grill surround was vinyl'd matt black and also the bumper was removed and I vinyl wrapped the front splitter (splitter took me 3hrs to do) and the standard grill was then refitted... My thinking behind this was that the front grill would tie in quite well with the rims, and I thought it actually looked quite good... It was different from what anyone else had done...





 
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So now spring was coming back in I decided that I wanted a new look for the car again that I was gonna be happy with for the next year... I had also always intended in lowering the car and wanted to find some rims that suited without the need for spacers that I would have had to ran with the Rotors to get the desired look I was after with the car... I came across a set of 18" Genuine Audi limited edition DTM alloys finsihed in Anthracite and after a bit of reseaching decided that these were the wheels for me.... So fitted the wheels and then it was time for the 25mm H&R spings....

After a bit of research I decided to go with the 25mm H&R all round setup over the front only Eibach pro kit as I think that the Eibach kit provides too much positive rake on the car to even out the arch gap between the front and back. The arch is clearly cut higher on the front, whereas I prefer the flat look of the S3 of which the H&R setup provides.... All in all, the rims are not to everyones taste, but I love them and absolutely love the stance of the car now......




Now time for springs.....


Before:


And After:

 
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So fairly recently the groupbuy had started for the RS3 grill and was a bit jealous should I say about all these 8P3 boys fitting their honeycomb grills (Thanks Brodster)... I had seen the mod previously on previous trawls througout the forum and thought it was my time to do this and set the 8P2 apart from the majority... After a bit of patience I aquired all the bits I needed and it was time to rock n roll, time for my next project... A lot of work (About 24hrs hands on over a 2 week period I was all set)... I am sooo happy with this and personally I think it looks ****** fantastic....





 
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So basically this is how the car is sitting now as you read this section... Its been great fun doing it, with some hi's and lows, but overall i'm very happy with what i've achieved


 
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Next plans on the list is to get the bonnet repsrayed due to a slight bit of lacquer peel due to stonechips, then full paint correction done for the summer... i'll be updating this thread as the car is going along
 
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yeh nice few changes since you got it eh? mines needs that grill! lol
 
audi upgrades
Car looks great!

Really like the RS style grill. I've been researching this mod a lot recently as I really want to do this on mine. I know you have said it takes 24 hours, is there a considerable amount of work to do it?
 
Looks spot on Jack.

Did you slice and dice a genuine RS6 grille!!??
 
stetheo said:
Car looks great!

Really like the RS style grill. I've been researching this mod a lot recently as I really want to do this on mine. I know you have said it takes 24 hours, is there a considerable amount of work to do it?
Click to expand...

Yeah mate... Theres a lot of work too it... But think it took that long with me because I done everything by hand and was overly anal about the prep work... Lots of measuring, cutting, filling, sanding and the paintwork took a while...

Muzza80 said:
Looks spot on Jack.


Did you slice and dice a genuine RS6 grille!!??
Click to expand...

Thanks Muzza...Yeah mate, was a RS6 splice with a S3 grill... Wasnt a genuine 1 tho.. Still a very good quality aftermarket 1 though like the xenons RS3 grill... I picked up a genuine S3 grill aswell at a good price so I wasnt cutting into my own, just in case...
 
Amazing job, especially the engine bay which looks great (agree about recolouring the zig zag).

Love the wheel style /colour too, works well with the blue
 
S3_Jacko said:
Yeah mate... Theres a lot of work too it... But think it took that long with me because I done everything by hand and was overly anal about the prep work... Lots of measuring, cutting, filling, sanding and the paintwork took a while...
Click to expand...

Well the hard work was definitely worth it mate. I don't think I've got the bottle to dismantle two grills and combine to make one. Really does look good though. Maybe something I will pick up again in the future then.
 
Looks good Jacko! Really like the new grille... imagining how it would look on my black S3 haha.
 
warren_S3 said:
Amazing job, especially the engine bay which looks great (agree about recolouring the zig zag).

Love the wheel style /colour too, works well with the blue
Click to expand...

Thanks Warren... It was all about experimenting with it until I found something that I really liked.. Yeah defo right about the cover, just waiting on the better weather coming back in again and i'll do it and post an update on it...
stetheo said:
Well the hard work was definitely worth it mate. I don't think I've got the bottle to dismantle two grills and combine to make one. Really does look good though. Maybe something I will pick up again in the future then.
Click to expand...

Yeah its really only if your confident in doing something like that.. Defo worth the time and effort...

shinsplint said:
Looks good Jacko! Really like the new grille... imagining how it would look on my black S3 haha.
Click to expand...

Thanks Shinsplint... Yeah the grill seems to be getting a lot of attention and the car certainly gets a lot of heads turning now... Really works well with the Blue I think... Still needs to be properly finished... Needs a polish round the surround to really make the Gloss Black pop... Looks a bit Matt just now as the lacquer was wet sanded after it was finished... Need to wait a while for the paint to properly cure 1st...
 
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good lunch time reading mate. the hard work has certainly paid off! paint correction on the cards soon just to top it all off. cant wait to do it!
 
R90 STL said:
good lunch time reading mate. the hard work has certainly paid off! paint correction on the cards soon just to top it all off. cant wait to do it!
Click to expand...

Gonna take the car to the spot today and maybe get some pics of it out in the sunshine! N you've probably seen all them before, getting stage by stage updates in real time haha
 
S3_Jacko said:
Gonna take the car to the spot today and maybe get some pics of it out in the sunshine! N you've probably seen all them before, getting stage by stage updates in real time haha
Click to expand...

great day for it man! haha still good to see it all pieced together with a narrative
 
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I like what direction this car has taken. Nice subtle mods that suit it well.
 
Dan-Jnr said:
I like what direction this car has taken. Nice subtle mods that suit it well.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dan... Subtle mods are always the best mods... The mods that you need to be a true car guy to notice ;)
 
So today turned out to be rather sunny in Glasgow and managed to get some down time from work... Decided to take the car a quick blast over the hills just outside of Glasgow.... Managed to contain my excitement long enough today to stop and take some pics







 
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Looks great mate! I have a sprint blue 8p2 and this has given me inspiration as to which way I want to go!! In your post you said you installed MY09 lights, in your pics from today they look quite dark, are they still the 09s or 11s?
 
Had to resist commenting last night as you asked people not to while you were putting it together.

Nice transformation, sprint blue is definitely the best colour, out of all the wheels i prefer the standards and the rotors.

Anymore plans?
 
Granta said:
Looks great mate! I have a sprint blue 8p2 and this has given me inspiration as to which way I want to go!! In your post you said you installed MY09 lights, in your pics from today they look quite dark, are they still the 09s or 11s?
Click to expand...

Its still the MY09's thats on it... Think they look darker due to the shadow... Thats 1 of the great things I like about that, its changes colour constantly in the various light conditions.. Ha

smurfworth said:
Had to resist commenting last night as you asked people not to while you were putting it together.

Nice transformation, sprint blue is definitely the best colour, out of all the wheels i prefer the standards and the rotors.

Anymore plans?
Click to expand...

Haha Cheers Smurthworth... Had loads to put on as you can see, took me ages... No more plans in the immediate future.. Just waiting on the better weather coming back in and work on the engine bay a little... Full paint correction detail aswell... Hoping its gonna look like a piece of glass.... As I said the wheels arent to everyones taste but the stance is vastly improved with them rather than running spacers on the others and personally I love them... The pictures never really do them justice to standing next to them...

azialex said:
I do like them alloys :)
mine will be on before the end of the month!
Click to expand...

Yeah thanks... I did have some help making my mind up as you know! ;)
 
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Great work car looks real good, love the grille. Wish you had made a how to guide though.
 
Mr. B said:
Great work car looks real good, love the grille. Wish you had made a how to guide though.
Click to expand...


Cheers MrB.... You never know tho, I still might.. Its nice having something rare on an 8P2 for a wee while 1st... When I do that, everyone will be doing them...
 
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