Prawn and BigAls A3 Track Car

Took the car to Portsmouth on Sunday to catch up with a load of people I've not seen in a while :)



The cobbled streets of Old Portsmouth are NOT enjoyable in this thing :laugh:

In other news, I borrowed this on Friday night to take Victoria (my wife!) to the theatre:



And it's safe to say, I absolutely ****** loved it. it made me realise how much I've missed having a 'car'. Our current options are the A3, Toris Lupo, or my Berlingo Van. Neither of those are smart or comfy for long journeys, neither take more than 2 people easily.

Sam's 530d had done 195k, and only cost £1600, and it still felt awesome to drive. I reckon if i could find a slightly tidier lower mileage example for a little more money I could be onto a winner for a daily for the next year or two!
 
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Nick those 530 D are brilliant cars, a good mate has one and they are so comfortable and smooth they are ideal for a daily.
His has 244k miles on and is still smoking about!
 
Prawn said:
In other news, I borrowed this on Friday night to take Victoria (my wife!) to the theatre:



I reckon if i could find a slightly tidier lower mileage example for a little more money I could be onto a winner for a daily for the next year or two!
Click to expand...

Make a nice tow car for zee RaceCar :)
 
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It most certainly would!

I like them.

193bhp stock, easily mapped to 220bhp / 350lbft, fairly nice auto box (I usually HATE autos), 40+ MPG everywhere, big spec standard, massive space inside.

I think they look smart outside, and the interior feels much more modern than it's age would suggest:

media


Would make a fantastic tow car too!
 
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Stay loyal to the brand.... this car was a revelation to me, never thought I would see the day I was driving a diesel estate but this 1.9 Tdi Quattro is the best car I've ever had... mapped to 170 and still gives 50 to the gallon

10659307_10152474846563439_3116137969820841063_n.jpg
 
Congrats on the wedding Prawn, we have recently bought an A4 3.0 TDi quattro avant tip auto, B7 but similar to above, colour etc, also worth a look and would tick all the boxes.
 
Prawn said:
Engine go boom.

Bye bye AGU. It's been fun.

:sign unfair:
Click to expand...

Saw this on FB :disrelieved: Sorry to hear fella!

If it helps, I have most engine components here. . . Drop me a message if you need anything, I'm sure I probably owe you some where along the line!?

That said I've no doubt there'll be plenty of people willing to help you out!
 
So. it's deaded.

Finished dinner at 19:50, and Big Bang Theory didn't start until 20:30, so what better way to occupy half an hour than a quick blast in the car?

All was going well, I was on my way home again, down a nice little local road.

I rounded a corner at around 6k in 3rd, and floored it. it was pulling nicely, when suddenly, the knocklight went MENTAL like I've never seen before.

This was instantly accompanied by the most horrific noise, which can only be described as the sound of complete and utter destruction. :help:

And then there was silence....

 
Mate .... as I said last night reading that makes me feel physically sick.
Whats the first thoughts? Valves? New head and supertech the lot, she'll be back :)
 
audi upgrades
I coasted to a rest, in a very handily placed layby. Trackcars have obviously been blowing up on this stretch for years, so the placement of the layby must have been purposeful.

Bonnet up, quick visual check over and all was fine. Oil and coolant normal, and the cambelt was intact.

I put the car in 6th gear, and rocked it back and forth, the top end turned fine, so the keyway on the crank hadn't broken.

I very slowly pushed the car along in 6th gear to turn the engine over very slowly, and didn't hear any nasty noises at all, so I decided to turn the key just once and see how it sounded.

No compression on 1 cylinder. this was looking more and more like it had dropped a valve.

Thankfully, I was only about 5 minutes from where Tony lives. I called Tony, and being the legend that he is, he finished his dinner, and jumped in the truck to come and tow me home :)



This was NOT how I expected to end my Thursday. It's fairly safe to assume that Curborough on Monday was off the cards.
 
Back in the garage safe and sound. I was back out there at 06:45 this morning:



One last picture of the engine bay before I rip it apart:



Just time before work to pull the plugs and confirm or deny suspicions.

Plug 1:



Plug 2:





Plug 3:



All looking OK so far.

On to number 4, and it was NOT keen on coming out.

Now, at this point, common sense is saying don't force it. However, we know there is no compression. I've hear the sounds of raw destruction, it's fairly safe to say the head WILL be scrap, and the plug not wanting to back out damn near confirmed this.

So I pulled a bit harder and wound that ****** out, and all my suspicions / fears were confirmed:



Ouch.

Cylinders 1-4 from left to right:



To be continued after some thought.......
 
TTRS/RS3 engine. Get it done.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
 
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Sorry to see this Nick, Hope you get it sorted soon, Looks like it's dropped a valve as that's the only thing I can think of that would cause that much destruction.
 
Stock valve train yes Karl, 7600rpm Limit. it was probably around 6800 at the time of death.

I think failing at that speed will have well and truly destroyed all inside.

I'm away this weekend, but hoping to pick up a complete AGU lump on sunday, and I'll pull my engine out on Monday and strip it down.

I'm most worried about the turbo being dead too, having likely ingested several chunks of valve and ceramic

Eek.

:racer:
 
Bad luck - however considering stock valves amazed its lasted so well tbh

Seen plenty of stage 2+ (280-300hp) BAM 20v's with popped valves ..
 
yea, it's had a good innings, and if we're honest we all know that I've been on borrowed time for quite a while now with a totally stock valve train.

After a chat to our friendly forum Badger this morning I think I'm most likely to go down the route of full supertech tripple groove inlets and exhausts, using Catcams Gold springs with the stock retainers.

This should save a few quid over full supertech springs and Ti retainers, but still give me uprated springs and valves on both inlet and exhaust side.

I'm on the hunt for a stock AGU lump currently. which I'll strip down and clean up in my own time, and send the head off to Bill for future proofing.

Bottom end wise I think I'll stay with stock pistons and bore, with a hone and fresh rings, but this time I'll take the crank out and do the mains also with ARP main studs.

Do we think it's worth spending the extra on an ARP head stud kit also? I'm unsure.
 
Provided you have the time to do my engine swap, I'll have a stock AGU lump available soon :p

*edit* donated free of charge, ofcourse
 
Last edited:
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Prawn said:
yea, it's had a good innings, and if we're honest we all know that I've been on borrowed time for quite a while now with a totally stock valve train.

After a chat to our friendly forum Badger this morning I think I'm most likely to go down the route of full supertech tripple groove inlets and exhausts, using Catcams Gold springs with the stock retainers.

This should save a few quid over full supertech springs and Ti retainers, but still give me uprated springs and valves on both inlet and exhaust side.

I'm on the hunt for a stock AGU lump currently. which I'll strip down and clean up in my own time, and send the head off to Bill for future proofing.

Bottom end wise I think I'll stay with stock pistons and bore, with a hone and fresh rings, but this time I'll take the crank out and do the mains also with ARP main studs.

Do we think it's worth spending the extra on an ARP head stud kit also? I'm unsure.
Click to expand...

If I was doing things again I'd certainly be going to ARP head studs... Only cos my head has been off so many times now though! :tearsofjoy:

Still, ARP studs will give you that flexibility at very least
 
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Definitely get the ARP hardware. Its not expensive and will save cost in the future, and you know your getting good gear rather than copy pattern parts.

Personally, Id keep the stock pistons in there aswell... or even some of the lower comp BAM pistons if you come across any for cheap. Aftermarket pistons aint worth the money/hassle when the stock are more than capable of the power levels we be aiming for on a TFSI blower.

Interesting choice on the cat cams springs though....what are the differences over the supertech springs?
 
I think the ARP studs seem like a no brainer when you price them up the more I look at it.

Piston wise I'll definitely stick with stock Pistons and bore, they've served me well to date and I don't intend to add huge amount of power at any point soon.

I'd always opt for AGU 9.5:1 Pistons over BAM 9:1 also, I'm a firm believer in higher CR provided you're not DET limited.

The main reason for going towards Cat cams springs rather than full supertech is cost. The full set of supertech springs with ti retainers is a lot of money on top of the valves, and using triple groove valves and stock retainers saves some money at no real performance cost.

Whilst I realise there's always an argument for spending a few quid more, you have to draw a line somewhere, and funds for this build are NOT plentiful as it's rather unexpected!

I'd like to end up with a fully refreshed bottom end, using my rods, and a fresh head with uprated valves and springs on both inlet and exhaust side. I think that should set me up for a good few years to come, and future proof it should I decide to go big turbo at any point down the line.
 
should have got an s3. bam engines are bullet proof.
 
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So, a few pictures.

Mowgli came round, and we got to work on ripping bits off the car. it's not a hugely time consuming job, but we were investigating as we went, and pulling all the splitter etc off takes a while, so we took a good few hours over it.

Front end off and a few ancillaries stripped away:



Down the pit to drain fluids and disconnect the exhaust and driveshafts:



A little while later, and the engine was out:



Turbo off, and a first look down the exhaust ports:



Yay! As expected really.

Head off just for curiosity:



What a wonderful sight!





So, nothing we didn't expect, and considering it was near 7k at the time of failure, I'm surprised at how minimal the damage is to the head and piston.
The turbo is showing tiny signs of foreign object damage also, which are hard to pick up on camera, so that'll be going back to BBT to receive some love.

Next up I need to strip the box off and get the old engine stripped down to extract my rods. These will most likely need re-bushing as the DM rods have a history of small end failures due to an inherent design flaw.

I hope to have another update on Saturday after a trip to Gloucester :racer:
 
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I don't 'like' this but it's good to see your straight on it and damage is not to catastrophic.


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