Not done much with the car lately, too cold. Although that is changing over the next few weeks as got quite a few things to do.
Whilst surfing I noticed Powerflex now do some parts for the B8 A4 Audi. They do a gearbox transmission mount to limit the movement in the existing bush.
http://www.powerflex.co.uk/road-series/product-details/Transmission+Mount+Insert+/11835.html
The Transmission mount is a 2 part affair with a large rubber bush taking most of the weight and load and a smaller bush that acts to limit the movement of the main bush. This is the one that is improved.
You can get an aluminum item from 034 Motorsport but that is roughly 3 times the price of the powerflex option and it seems to do the same. I had already manufactured my own ghetto part but I figured I would try a proper item for £26.
The powerflex bush comes in 2 parts and also in two flavours, yellow and black. Yellow is normal road and Black is made of a much more resilient material so is designated Race use only.
You can just fit the one part and then it's just 2 bolts to undo and a 5 minute job after the car has been jacked up.
I decided to fit both parts and see what that was like.
The yellow stuff is fairly bendy and has some give in it .
To fit the second part that locates between mount and the bush you need to remove the gearbox support cross member. Easy enough to do just 4 multi spline bolts, however you need to support the weight of the gearbox. Audi have thoughtfully supplied a large cross brace under the box where a strategic piece of wood can be located.
The spacer basically locks the joint up so there is very little movement.
You can see how the part fills in the voids in the bush.
And the results. Well there was no movement at all in the gearstick. Unfortunately there was a good amount of vibration coming into the car when it was idling. On the move no problem at all but at idle it felt a bit like one of those weight loss machines that vibrate . Not good at all.
So removed the spacer part and just left the insert.
This was a lot better, still no movement on the gearstick and just a very slight increase in the cabin vibration at idle, hardly noticeable unless you were looking for it. On a petrol you probably wouldn't notice any difference at all.
The best thing is that it's a 5 minute mod with only 2 bolts to undo just using the insert part and it's reasonably cheap.
