Ok a little update to this. I noticed an oil leak at the turbo inlet and what looked like a little bit on the drain pipe- this could have been oil that had leaked down from the inlet but either way I wanted to check everything was ok.
The oil restrictor I was using which I bought from intengineering in the US didn't appear to be the correct thread and it seemed to have a bit of play in it and therefore some oil was being pushed out along the threads. I ordered a new restrictor from someone here in the UK and went about fitting that and a new oil filter to the turbo oil supply pipe. I then checked the oil drain which was a bit of a pig to do. The gasket seemed to be oil soaked so it looked as though it may have been leaking or getting caught up on the edge of the gasket and not going down into the drain pipe. The metal gasket I got from audi for the original ko4 turbo was the wrong size for this garrett so instead I used the card gasket that came with one of the fittings I used and this appeared to be a problem. I went back to the original metal gasket and removed some of the edge to get it to fit correctly and bolted all that back in place. I started it up again and there was no leak from either the inlet or outlet so that was good.
The previous few starts I had done concerned me a little bit because there appeared to be some white smoke coming out of the tailpipes and water was puddling a bit in the actual tailpipes. I had expected some burn off from the rebuild but was getting a bit concerned with the smoke. It wasn't anything major, you can see it in the first video below. The coolant level had also seemed to drop but I wasn't sure whether that was down to not having put enough in in the first place or the fact that the coolant hadn't fully circulated the engine. The whining noise from the secondary water pump which was in the first video I uploaded has now gone. I was unsure whether the pump was faulty so I tested it and it was pumping ok so I put it back in and the whining noise has gone away.
Anyway back on to the smoke issue. I was in a rush on Friday to do any checks but thought I would quickly check the compression of each cylinder. I did this cold whereas it should really be done when the engine is warm. I got the following compression from 1-4: 165,170,165,170 so the compression appeared to be fine. I might test this again later when it is warm as the figures will likely be higher. I was worried that there could have possibly been an issue with the headgasket which my dad had brought me back from the US with the rods and valves I ordered. There also didn't appear to be any coolant mixing with the oil as there was no discolouration or any signs on the dipstick or filler cap.
I couldn't work on the car on the weekend so it just went round in my head what the smoke could be coming from. The car had been sat for almost a year and a lot of that was outside when it was snowing and very cold even though it was covered up. It is likely that the petrol lines and tank may have had some water in them so I thought that this could possibly be burning off. Anyway, on the way home this morning I stopped by and picked up some more coolant and topped it up to the correct level and decided to keep and eye on it to see if it was dropping. I started the car up and let it run for a bit (video 2 below). It started around the 1100rpm mark and then settled at about 900rpm. No smoke came from the tailpipes and the water vapour that was evident before appeared to have gone. I ran it up to operating temperature and kept an eye on things. Coolant level was not dropping and there was still no smoke from the exhaust or any odd smell from them. You can see the difference between the two videos below.
I am going to run it a few more times today and test the compression again. Hopefully the smoke was just a build up of water in the lines. Once I am happy with that then I will look at running it up and down a bit with a view to getting an MOT done so I can properly get it going and tested. I didn't install a cat on the exhaust so I will be interested to see how it does on the emissions. I made a section in near the front which I could take out if need be and put a cat in so it is not the end of the world if I need to put one in.
Anyway I will update this as more gets done. Thanks for reading.
Andy
As for the detail etc, I have a bit of a problem whereby if something doesn't fit or look as it should then I will redo it or alter it. The rear bumper and exhaust is probably an example of that. Getting the bumper the correct shape and making it look as if it was part of the original car was time consuming. I don't want to think how many hours I spent on that, probably in the region of 50 until I was happy with it. The exhausts also had to be as wide as possible to get the look right because two oval pipes close together would have looked strange. They ended up as wide as they could be without removing the rear supsension and just having the rear wheels rigid!
lol
