Evening all, it's been a little while since I've posted on here, so I'll start with a few pics of how it's looking now. I don't have much left to do with the exterior, I'm happy with how it is looking now.
I got the wheels (19x8.5, reps I believe) very cheap as they were in very poor condition. I had them shot blasted and powder coated by my favourite powder coating place for £100 for all 4 (unbelievable, I know), who have done an amazing job!
A set of brand new Falkens were a must, they are the best I can afford to put on, and seem to perform very well. I'm running ZIE914s in 235/35/19.
Next were eibach 40mm springs, they have actually dropped it by 52mm at the back, but it rides very comfortably, just about clears speed bumps and nothing rubs, so I'm happy.
Now on to the main event, the exhaust! One of the big attractions of the 3.0TDi for me was the fact that it's a V6.
But being a luxury executive saloon, Audi has carefully engineered the exhaust in an attempt to hide the fact that it has an engine at all, let alone a 3.0 V6!
I had other plans, namely a 3" decat downpipe from darkside, and a home made back box delete!
Here is the downpipe, it came to just over £360 delivered, its beautifully made!
Removing the old exhaust was a PIG! I was hoping to keep the original cats intact to sell as they are worth a fair bit, but that didn't happen! Even after cutting them with a grinder (with no guard or handle attached so it would fit in the tunnel...), I still had to support the gearbox on a block of wood and a jack and remove the NS gearbox mount!
Fitting the new one was pretty straight forward, I had to make a special spanner to be able to tighten the back turbo flange nut, but other than that it was pretty simple.
For the backbox delete, I started with a 1m length of 2" stainless, 2x 30deg 2" bends and a 0.5m length of 3.5" stainless.
I mirror polished the ends of the 3.5" as I was using it for the tips.
I then cut it exactly in half, and then cut out two annulus from 1.5mm plate, with an OD of 3.5" and an ID of 2" to serve as adapters for the tips.
I then welded them on with stainless wire. I haven't been welding very long, so my welds look terrible, so they have all been ground back. They are pretty sturdy though.
With two of those made I cut off the old back boxes with a grinder, it was then a case of lining up the 30deg bends and welding them on to the 2" stainless, here is one of my welds, about the only good thing I can say about it is I didn't burn a hole though, and it probably won't fall off... More practice needed!
After a bit more fab work, two of this popped out
At this point it was a bit late in the day, and I made my first of two minor balls ups, I forgot about the fact that the car was on stands at the back, and not the front, and I welded the tips on level to the ground. So when I put the car down, both were pointing down by about 20deg!
The second balls up was not quite getting them both the same length, but I had plans to fix that. Here's how it looked.
And most importantly, here's how it sounds!
Overall I love the sound! Very loud and throaty on power, but pretty quiet and respectable off power. It does have a pretty nasty drone/rasp at about 2200RPM, if you are accelerating slowly, the tiptronic box loves to shift about there, so it's pretty annoying/embarrassing as it takes away from the more refined nature of the car. I plan to fix this by building a side pipe resonator, and trimming it to length so it either disappears or is at a much higher RPM. But I need to do some more research before I jump into that!
I want happy with the tips, they looked a bit 'fast and furious' just hanging out the back, so I spent a good 2h with a couple of different grinding wheels. I have profiled them to the bumper, and I'm much happier with them!
I hope you found that at least a little bit interesting, any questions fire away!
Ben
I got the wheels (19x8.5, reps I believe) very cheap as they were in very poor condition. I had them shot blasted and powder coated by my favourite powder coating place for £100 for all 4 (unbelievable, I know), who have done an amazing job!
A set of brand new Falkens were a must, they are the best I can afford to put on, and seem to perform very well. I'm running ZIE914s in 235/35/19.
Next were eibach 40mm springs, they have actually dropped it by 52mm at the back, but it rides very comfortably, just about clears speed bumps and nothing rubs, so I'm happy.
Now on to the main event, the exhaust! One of the big attractions of the 3.0TDi for me was the fact that it's a V6.
But being a luxury executive saloon, Audi has carefully engineered the exhaust in an attempt to hide the fact that it has an engine at all, let alone a 3.0 V6!
I had other plans, namely a 3" decat downpipe from darkside, and a home made back box delete!
Here is the downpipe, it came to just over £360 delivered, its beautifully made!
Removing the old exhaust was a PIG! I was hoping to keep the original cats intact to sell as they are worth a fair bit, but that didn't happen! Even after cutting them with a grinder (with no guard or handle attached so it would fit in the tunnel...), I still had to support the gearbox on a block of wood and a jack and remove the NS gearbox mount!
Fitting the new one was pretty straight forward, I had to make a special spanner to be able to tighten the back turbo flange nut, but other than that it was pretty simple.
For the backbox delete, I started with a 1m length of 2" stainless, 2x 30deg 2" bends and a 0.5m length of 3.5" stainless.
I mirror polished the ends of the 3.5" as I was using it for the tips.
I then cut it exactly in half, and then cut out two annulus from 1.5mm plate, with an OD of 3.5" and an ID of 2" to serve as adapters for the tips.
I then welded them on with stainless wire. I haven't been welding very long, so my welds look terrible, so they have all been ground back. They are pretty sturdy though.
With two of those made I cut off the old back boxes with a grinder, it was then a case of lining up the 30deg bends and welding them on to the 2" stainless, here is one of my welds, about the only good thing I can say about it is I didn't burn a hole though, and it probably won't fall off... More practice needed!
After a bit more fab work, two of this popped out
At this point it was a bit late in the day, and I made my first of two minor balls ups, I forgot about the fact that the car was on stands at the back, and not the front, and I welded the tips on level to the ground. So when I put the car down, both were pointing down by about 20deg!
The second balls up was not quite getting them both the same length, but I had plans to fix that. Here's how it looked.
And most importantly, here's how it sounds!
Overall I love the sound! Very loud and throaty on power, but pretty quiet and respectable off power. It does have a pretty nasty drone/rasp at about 2200RPM, if you are accelerating slowly, the tiptronic box loves to shift about there, so it's pretty annoying/embarrassing as it takes away from the more refined nature of the car. I plan to fix this by building a side pipe resonator, and trimming it to length so it either disappears or is at a much higher RPM. But I need to do some more research before I jump into that!
I want happy with the tips, they looked a bit 'fast and furious' just hanging out the back, so I spent a good 2h with a couple of different grinding wheels. I have profiled them to the bumper, and I'm much happier with them!
I hope you found that at least a little bit interesting, any questions fire away!
Ben
