B8 S4 project thread

[Simon]

Needs a 7.2mm spacer between the the Caliper bracket and the Caliper, some “massaging” of the hub to make it fit, there are brackets available in the US but I am working with a UK company to see if they can produce something for reasonable money. The plan is to use an A6 356x34mm disc, but theoretically with a custom bracket I could go bigger.

 

[Simon]

I had to buy some vernier calipers to measure the bracket but they all got sent to the people making the bracket for me and they have come back and confirmed that they can do that no problem. Hopefully I should have something next week.

I'm going to try and get down to my Dads workshop this weekend and get the calipers resprayed, it is too cold for me to do them in the garage at home.

 

[Simon]

so all parts have now been ordered so I thought I'd do a rundown of parts numbers and costs

B9 S4 Calipers 8W0615107/8f £480 (I might have said £440 earlier - I was wrong! from ebay so prices may vary...)
Porsche Macan Air guides left 95b615448b £5.76
Porsche Macan Air guides right 95b615447b £5.76
Porsche Macan Air guides clamp 95b99011b £1.94 (2 required)
Porsche macan cover plate 956b615311e £9.80
Porsche macan cover plate 95b615312e £9.80 (these replace the Audi stone guards to allow the air guide to cool the discs)
Zimmerman sport discs 100.3357.52 £154.80 (for the pair 356x34mm for Audi A6 Drilled & vented disc)
Zimmerman Sport discs 100.3334.52 £136.30 (for the pair 330mm rear disc for B8 Audi S4 Drilled and vented)
EBC Yellowstuff front pads DP42277R £122 (yellowstuff pads for the B9 S4 calipers)
EBC Yellowstuff rear pads DP41988R £107 (Yellowstuff pads for the B8 S4 rear calipers)
B7 RS4 SS braided front brake lines £44 (Hel lines - to make mounting the caliper easier not 100% required)
High tensile steel mount bolts 80mm £10
Custom mounting bracket £250 (this is optional, i'd rather pay this than run spacers on the caliper bracket.)

So a complete brake upgrade including front BBK comes to £1337, which is not bad considering. replacement discs are super cheap compared to the B8 RS4 or other Audi 8 piston calipers, or when compared against the ECS 2 piece discs. and theoretically if I change the bracket I could go bigger on the fronts.

The Porsche stuff would be good to do with any A4/S4 brakes as cooling is a real issue for our cars.

Simon

 

[Simon]

Had an email from Autodoc, the cross drilled discs are out of stock and there are no like for like alternatives so I have to go for a plain disc instead. Or the end of the world as it is a lot cheaper so if I change for a floating disc later I won’t waste quite as much money.

 

[Simon]

Parts are starting to come in Brake pads and cooling bits have arrived this morning and I have signed off the bracket so that just needs to be made now

 

[Simon]

I got my “custom” strut brace fitted today, if you can call a piece of aluminium box section with a couple of holes drilled in it custom... took a fair bit of buggering about tbh but I am glad I didn’t pay £100+ for it. Took it for a spin around the block and can’t really tell any difference but we will see when I push it on some familiar roads.

 

[Simon]

The custom brackets have arrived - lets hope I got my measurements right! hopefully the weather will be good enough for me to test fit this weekend, though the discs still haven't arrived from Autodoc despite being ordered on Jan 15th!

oh and I bought some paint for the calipers as well

I have hi temp primer and lacquer so these should be fine for the colour coat.

Simon

 

[Simon]

Two swings two misses...

so the brackets are wrong, just not even close to being correct. The good news for me is that they don't match to the measurements I sent to the manufacturer so at the moment it isn't my mistake. I suspect my brackets have been mixed up with someone elses and we both have the wrong brackets so it is just a case of getting them swapped over. I don't think it is a manufacturing error because the radial mounting centres I need are 263mm and the bracket I received is around 200mm, the depth of the bracket is over double what I asked for as well.

The second swing and miss is that when I ordered the bolts and spacers (the bolts I would need anyway, but the spacers were my backup option) I ordered enough for one caliper only. Good job I realised that now rather than when I was halfway through actually fitting them!

 

[Simon]

Just to add insult to injury today I've had an email to say the track day has now been cancelled...

At least that gives me some time to get the brackets sorted I suppose, every cloud and all that!

 

[jdp1962]

Just to add insult to injury today I've had an email to say the track day has now been cancelled...

At least that gives me some time to get the brackets sorted I suppose, every cloud and all that!

@Simon, where were you going for your track day? I had one booked for Goodwood last November that got cancelled when the second lockdown was announced. I was able to rebook for March when we came out of second lockdown. I've not heard anything since we went into third lockdown but the closer it gets, the less likely it seems that it can go ahead.

 

[Simon]

I was booked with MSV for Donnington on Feb 26th at the point it was booked I was 50/50 if would go ahead so it being cancelled is not a huge shock. As much as anything booking it was to give me a deadline to get the brakes sorted.

 

[Simon]

 

[Simon]

Engineering shop has confirmed I have someone else's brackets. they are wrapped up and ready to go back on monday.

 

[Simon]

The final piece of the

puzzle...

 

[Simon]

Well it has been an age and one or two more problems on the way but I finally got these dry fitted yesterday and thankfully it all worked as expected. I didn’t need to shave the hub with the custom brackets which I feel good about. I couldn’t work out how the macan stone guards are a “direct fit” so a little more research needed there, but the Audi ones will work with a little bit of cutting.

took them off again so I could paint them and then they will be fitted properly with new SS lines and a complete change of brake fluid to a high temp fluid on April 10th, just in time for a track day on the 12th...

need to update the thread from my laptop to post pics so they will come later.

 

[Simon]

some pics

 

[Simon]

And some of painting the calipers

black primer to start with followed by a base coast colour

I almost stopped here, but I had started out with a plan...

and then finished with a lacquer to get them nice and glossy

 

[Nitro_CR]

Brakes look stunning Simon, loving seeing your build come together! Can't wait for the final product!

 

[Bobby G]

Brakes look great! Nice to see a good amount of thought going into a brake upgrade, by looking at the thermal mass etc!
So many 'big brake' kits you see gain very little thermal mass, and seem to be more for a bit of added bling!!

 

[Simon]

It really depends on your use case, for road use then you don't generally need much of a thermal upgrade, just better clamping for or pedal feel, for more spirited or track usage you need to be able to manage and disperse more heat more frequently.

You also need to think about changing pads difficulty, expense of consumable items such as pads and disks etc, that is why for me the b9 calipers work so well.

Looking better is just a bonus

 

[Audiforlife]

What are you doing with your old brake setup bud?

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

 

[Simon]

The old brakes will be up for sale, assuming the fitting goes well today, have already had problems with the custom brackets once the pads were fitted.

 

[Audiforlife]

I've got 8 pots on mine I want to get rid of. Currently fitted to a tdi avant

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

 

[Simon]

I am open to offers

 

[Simon]

Well they are on. Had to go back to the Audi brackets with spacers. When I did the dry fit I didn’t have the pads in, with them in the disks bind, the brackets are off by 2mm - and I can’t tell you how much that has ****** me off.

they do look great behind the wheels and having gone through a bedding in process they pull it up from silly speeds exceeding well. I have a track day on Monday so they will really get tested then.

 

[Simon]

Well the track day didn't go so well, I managed about 15 or so laps before having to call it a day with EPC and check engine light. I didn't have my VCDS with me so could't look at the codes, in the end it wouldn't have made any difference as it was reporting intermittant misfires on cylinders 4 and 6 at high revs high load.

Looks like coilpacks starting to breakdown which are fine on the road but in this high stress situation exposes the fault. I am just trying to decide which way to go with replacement - ie do them all or just the three on that side of the engine. The only real problem is that in order to find out if the problem has gone I will need to book another track day...


Brakes were awesome though

 

[Simon]

Some pics of the old girl on track before the coil packs disrupted proceedings

 

[Simon]

After much deliberation I am picking up some Genuine Audi colipacks from Audi today, I've gone for a full set. £25 inc vat each as they have been sitting on the shelf for a while, properly happy with that!

 

[Dave S4]

Hi Simon,
Great right up and will be trying to take on this task very soon. I have only had my B8 avant for about a month but been loving it every day! I picked up a set of the B9 6 pots literally last night so now need to look into disks and of course the bolts and spacers now! Just wondering if you could be so kind as to let me know where and which bolts and spacers you actually bought since you ended up having to use them and not the custom brackets? I'd obviously rather get it right first time and great to learn from people like yourself.

Thanks
David

 

[Simon]

I got them from eBay, just make sure you get the right grade bolts and washer, 10.9 as a minimum iirc.

I used autodoc for the discs, you need the a6 356mm ones.

 

[Simon]

There is a great thread in the b8 S4 section on audizine.com that covers everything

 

[Simon]

Finally got round to fitting the coilpacks I bought ages ago, idle seems smoother and I am sure a little lower rpm as well, seems to pick up a bit quicker but that could well be placebo. Just need another track day now to see if the problem has gone away!

 

[Simon]

well as much as I love this car a new business venture means it needs to go - anyone have any idea on how to value it? Still on 53k miles on the clock!