Leshkin's Sepang Blue S3 Money Pit Project

Another quick update: I had to switch back to my old wheels for now due to too much rubbing at the back. I think that the car settled a bit more since I have messed with it and the rears are rubbing way too much. I know that the chosen wheels fit on the S3, but my tyre choice was probably too ambitious and with a 235 rubber it's too much at my current ride height.

I've been thinking about raising the ride height a little as the car is a bit too low and I keep scraping on some speed bumps with the exhaust a bit. I will try to go up by 10mm and see if this helps things... Hopefully I won't have to go back to 225 rubber :)
 
Have to say that car does look a little on the low side... but that's personal preference really

Keep up the work and persevere with it!!
 
Nice wheels, I am starting to like them the more I see them on other cars.
I recently lowered my car on H&R 25mm springs, I find these perfect for the roads and speed bumps near me, doesn't scrape at all.
I'd go with raising the rear a little see if that helps with clearance.
 
Looks high to me ha, could always camber the rear wheels a bit to stop some of the rubbing. Was a bit ambitious with 235's and don't think you'll escape the rubbing completely in all situations.
 
You would say that though @smurfworth given how low your car is :)

I'd prefer to avoid changing camber just to fit the wheels tbh.. Will see how it turns out after getting the ride height sorted. I can always put them on the OEM wheels :)
 
leshkin said:
You would say that though @smurfworth given how low your car is :)

I'd prefer to avoid changing camber just to fit the wheels tbh.. Will see how it turns out after getting the ride height sorted. I can always put them on the OEM wheels :)
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Not as low as some but definitely enough, to be fair though the sportbacks can't be driven as low as the 3dr's as the wheelbase is a tad longer and when going over speed bumps the chassis has less clearance as the wheels touch the lower part of the speedbump if you get what I mean. That's probably the reason your catching the exhaust as I hardly ever catch mine.

May only need -0.5 degrees of camber to stop the rubbing, would hardly effect tyre wear at all. You removed the screw in the rear arch by any chance? As that's what causes most of the tyre rubbing.
 
smurfworth said:
Not as low as some but definitely enough, to be fair though the sportbacks can't be driven as low as the 3dr's as the wheelbase is a tad longer and when going over speed bumps the chassis has less clearance as the wheels touch the lower part of the speedbump if you get what I mean. That's probably the reason your catching the exhaust as I hardly ever catch mine.

May only need -0.5 degrees of camber to stop the rubbing, would hardly effect tyre wear at all. You removed the screw in the rear arch by any chance? As that's what causes most of the tyre rubbing.
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Yeah, they put in new speed bumps near my office and those things are massive. I end up having to slow down to a crawl and go over them diagonally to minimise the effect of the long weelbase.

Yes, the screw in the arch is out already and it's still pretty rubbish unfortunately :(

I decided to get the ride height adjusted properly and do corner weighting as well as full geometry setup at the same time by professionals next week, rather than mess with it myself. Will see what they say about camber... I'm not overly concerned with tyre wear as long as the car grips the road properly. Will report back on what the outcome of that is.

Regardless of clearance though, I love how the new wheels and chunkier tyre look... So Motorsport, much grip :-D
 
You're pushing it with a 235 tyre on the rear, and with the Michelin being a premium brand their 235 will be a chunky 235 and unfortunately these cars just don't have the clearance.

You could go back to 225/40/18 on the rear and keep the 235 on the front. Audi do that as a factory option on the RS3 where you can spec 8.5J front wheels and get wider tyres so I can't see it giving the quattro system any issues. Plus it is a predominantly FWD car.

BTW I think your car is awesome, very tastefully modded!
 
Your car is definitely lower than mine,but mine runs 245x40x18s all round,without problems.

A bit of negative camber allows the rears to clear easily,but the fronts were a lot more difficult.
 
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Sayam said:
You're pushing it with a 235 tyre on the rear, and with the Michelin being a premium brand their 235 will be a chunky 235 and unfortunately these cars just don't have the clearance.

You could go back to 225/40/18 on the rear and keep the 235 on the front. Audi do that as a factory option on the RS3 where you can spec 8.5J front wheels and get wider tyres so I can't see it giving the quattro system any issues. Plus it is a predominantly FWD car.

BTW I think your car is awesome, very tastefully modded!
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Thanks Sayam! I tend to favour subtle mods, but not obsessed with keeping things OEM so the car is a reflection of that :) I've had cars in the past that I fell out of love with after a while, but this S3, just like the 8L I had before, is definitely a keeper for some time to come.

I'd prefer to avoid going back to 225, but if it comes to that, I may just get a pair of 225's for the rear. The proper quattro system like on A4 and up would probably have a fit, but on haldex systems it should be fine like you say. I'm hopeful that the added ride heigh will sort the rubbing out and give me a little bit of ground clearance as I would hate to put a hole in that shiny BCS system... I'll post up the results next week once the wizards from Wheels in Motion had a go.
 
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S3Alex said:
Your car is definitely lower than mine,but mine runs 245x40x18s all round,without problems.

A bit of negative camber allows the rears to clear easily,but the fronts were a lot more difficult.
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Exactly, the fronts seem to be OK, but I will probably raise it anyway, as I suspect that under full corner load it will rub. 245, that's impressive, gives me hope to have 235 all round then :)
 
Im on 19's but running a 35 profile tyre with no problems, maby about 10mm higher than yours is on them pictures so with the added height you should be fine


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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I've been putting off writing anything about my wheel/tyre troubles until I got them resolved to some extent, so here it is :)

As I mentioned previously, I had a serious issue with rubbing at the rear. It turned out that a combination of wider wheel, more aggressive offset, wider tire and soft ST X Coilovers all had contributed to quite a bit of rubbing at the rear. Problem area was the screw and the plastic tab it screws into, where the plastic bumper is attached to the rear metal wing. I also had a small amount of rubbing at the front, but nothing compared to how it was at the rear.

I initially raised the ride height by 15mm at the back and front, as well as redid the alignment, with 1.5deg camber at the back, which is the maximum recommended by Audi. This fixed rubbing under normal driving, but it still rubbed with one person in the back, which was not going to work for how I use the car. I increased the rear by another 10mm. This helped to get the car to a more usable state with passengers in the back with only very occasional rub on speed-bumps.

At this point, I accepted that my choice of premium 235 rubber was the biggest issue here, as the sidewall stuck out by about 7mm from the rim - the rubbing was just bellow the edge of the tread and the rear wheel arch tab. I could have gone for a more aggressive camber at the back, but I'm not a fan of wasting money on rubber that would result from increased uneven tire wear, so decided to replace them with a 225 tire. Saw a good deal online for Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3 and bought a pair for the back. Once fitted, all rubbing has finally gone.
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I'm actually quite happy with how the car sits and only now realised just how low it was before :)
Before
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After
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I'll probably end up selling the 235 Michelins and replacing the fronts to match the rear. Will see how the grip at the front feels before I decide :)

In hindsight, I was a bit too ambitious with the wide rubber and my ride height. Never mind, lesson learned :)


Forgot to mention - the new wheels a sooo much lighter than the OEM set! Just lugging them around, you can feel the difference - I'm very impressed.
 
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On a slightly related note - I've been having brake judder issues between 60-40mph before the new brake kit went on and was beginning to suspect that the issue was nothing to do with the EBC brake disks being "warped" as many, incorrectly, assume. Before I go-on, a little bit of history on my brake judder issues:

When I originally bought the car, it had a nasty judder under braking. I incorrectly assumed that this was down to unbalanced wheels. After getting them rebalanced a couple of times things improved slightly at motorway speeds, but brake judder never fully went away and was only getting worse.

Not knowing my options, I bought and installed a new set of brake disks/pads. The issue went away - result! Unfortunately it slowly started to reappear and got worse over time. Thinking that I warped my disks again, after a few road trips and spirited runs, I decided to get he disks skimmed by a local workshop, which came highly recommended. Once done, this fixed the brake judder problem and I was happy, for a while.

Very soon after the disk skim, I had the new BBK installed, but after just two or three thousand miles I started to notice that familiar judder coming back. By this point I was getting rather annoyed at the amount of money this was beginning to cost me as well as the frustration of having a nice car that I did not enjoy driving. After doing a bunch of reading and asking friends for advice, I found Marcus, who runs a place called Disk Skimmers near Cambridge. Top guy and knows his brakes :)

The moment he took one of the front wheels off, he showed me my problem! It turns out that my OEM wheels were refurbished at some point, using powder-coating. It was very good work, but the process also resulted in a very fine layer of coating left on the inside of the wheel which mounts to the disk. This fine layer of powder-coating was enough to cause an imperfect contact between the wheel and the brake disk, which caused the disk to start to deform slightly. We're talking microns here, but this is enough to cause the nasty judder that I came to expect from my car.

The solution was quite simple - light skim of the disks to fix the damage that was caused by the bad contact with the wheel. (This is normally as far as most disk skimming places go and fix the symptom of the problem, but not the cause.) The second part was to sand the mounting surface of the wheel down to get rid of the powder-coating, then a very light filing of the same to make sure that the mounting surface was completely smooth and level and ensure a perfect contact with the disk. The reason that the filing was required is because the alloy of the wheel will actually try to 'mould' around the powder-coating with every heat cycle. Marcus knows his stuff - http://www.discskimmers.com/ :)

I am pretty confident that my brake issues are now behind me :)
 
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How are you finding the new brakes, now you've done some mileage with them?
 
paul_zx6r said:
How are you finding the new brakes, now you've done some mileage with them?
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Love them! The performance driving course I did a couple of weeks ago involved some pretty hard driving throughout the day and the brakes did very well. The braided lines helped to get rid of the spongy feeling once things got pretty hot and the bite never really went away.

I did manage to find the limit of the fast road pads (blue) that came with the kit right at the end, which involved some seriously hard braking around a very twisty course. Once things cooled down a bit, it was back to normal. I'll probably go for Ferodo DS2500 pads when the time comes to replace them. I think you can even spec these pads at purchase, for extra cost obviously.

And that's the cool thing, about the kit - highly customisable, feels very OEM on the road and still works well when pushed hard. It has limits, just like any system will, but these limits are way higher than what the stock kit offers.

I do have one regret though and that's the finish I selected. If I was ordering again, I'd go for a painted finish over anodised. I was in a rush at one point and didn't have time to wash the car myself, so went to a car wash that I sometimes use - they used an acidic cleaning solution on the wheels and this stained the finish unfortunately. It's not terrible, but enough to bother me, so I'll probably paint the callipers at some point.
 
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Wow sounds like you have been enjoying them!!

Thanks for the detailed reply, I'm looking to do a BBK conversion but wanting to keep my rotors so maybe a bit stuck with brake choices, have you ever tried to put an 18" rotor over the brakes?
 
Definitely made good use of them :)

If you want the biggest bang for your buck, get a decent set of pads and braided lines. Best brake improvement for the money.

As far as this kit goes then I don't know about rotors, but they did fit in my facelift OEM S3 alloys with a few mm to spare.

Sent from a mobile device, please forgive typos :)
 
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Been mulling over the YSR kit but wondering if i need the 356 kit or would the 330 suffice seing as i dont do track days. Taken on board the solid colour over annodised
 
audi upgrades
manor13 said:
Been mulling over the YSR kit but wondering if i need the 356 kit or would the 330 suffice seing as i dont do track days. Taken on board the solid colour over annodised
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I don't really do track days either (although this is going to change), but having experienced the terrible feeling of almost no brakes with stock on one of my spirited drives I decided not to chance it and go for the same kit as @Alex_Wil

If you don't push your car too much, then save the money and get braided lines (maybe disks too) and uprated pads and the difference will be significant. There is something to be said for chunky callipers behind the alloys though :)
 
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Car looks epic, would speedline turnini clear them brakes without spacers?
 
paul_zx6r said:
Wow sounds like you have been enjoying them!!

Thanks for the detailed reply, I'm looking to do a BBK conversion but wanting to keep my rotors so maybe a bit stuck with brake choices, have you ever tried to put an 18" rotor over the brakes?
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Hi I've got 18 rotors on mine with this kit and it's a very tight fit but they do fit, Just . In the end I put 3mm spacers on to ease my mind about catching
 
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Sounds like this kit will fit behind all stock 18" S3, but it will be tight.
 
BurgoS3 said:
Hi I've got 18 rotors on mine with this kit and it's a very tight fit but they do fit, Just . In the end I put 3mm spacers on to ease my mind about catching
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What size did you go for and are they a good kit ? Any issues ?
 
Moxy89 said:
What size did you go for and are they a good kit ? Any issues ?
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I wwnt for the 356 6 pot in painted red. Im just getting to the end of bedding them in and can have no comolaints, the power between stock is night and day.
 
BurgoS3 said:
I wwnt for the 356 6 pot in painted red. Im just getting to the end of bedding them in and can have no comolaints, the power between stock is night and day.
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And they went straight behind 18inch genuine rotors ? !!! Madness you have saved me so much stress
 
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A quick update - went to Storm Developments today with a plan to change the camchain tensioner as the engine is increasingly sounding like a bag of spanners (more than the normal TFSI lump sound). Andy took a second to listen to my engine and said that the head is way too loud than normal and it sounds like chronic oil starvation issue has caused premature cam wear and that my idea of replacing the cam chain tensioner is moot at this point :crying:

We discussed options of what can be done... Taking the overall cost of fixing bits that are obvious now and then having the risk of dealing with other bits that will likely need fixing later, like suspected shagged bottom end, it made more sense to assume the worse and just get a replacement low mileage engine instead.

I'm still reeling from the shock of having to drop a good few grand to properly fix this, but I see no other way out other than to bite the bullet and deal with the kick in the groin that this is going to be and move on.

I thought about getting a hybrid turbo in there while I have a chance, but Andy made me see sense and suggested that I look at getting an RS3 instead of chasing more power than Stg2+ from the S3 as it will end up a bottomless money pit :) I'm very happy with the current 360bhp/370lbft, so adding two more grand to an already large bill to get s light bump to that is not going to happen at this time. Will definitely replace the stock intercooler though and while the replacement engine is in pieces, anything that can/needs to be replaced, refreshed, cleaned or upgraded at reasonable cost will be done at the same time. I plan on keeping the car for a good while yet, so at least I'll have some peace of mind there after this.

Many people would ignore the loud engine and continue to drive the car as is, but I prefer to keep things working properly, so made my choice and will pay for it. Andy will look at sourcing an engine for me, so hopefully it's not going to take too long to get over this.

Anyway, a sad update, but in the words of a very smart man, "Life is like a box of chocolates... You never know what you're gonna get." Such is life of a car fanatic :)
 
Sorry to hear mate that absolutely sucks, especially when you're not expecting it! Must be so frustrating for you considering how well you look after your motor, Audi's are generally quite reliable when treated right but suppose you're always going to get the odd case regardless which is unfortunate..

Did Andy speculate at all as to why your S3 has oil starvation? Got my S3 in for a cam chain & tensioner replacement today so hope I have better luck than you! :sweatsmile:

Sounds like you're in good hands though mate so you will get the best outcome :) I'm looking forward to going to Storm Devs for a stage 2 map and DP fitment in the near future.
 
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Really sorry to hear this but at least you're with someone who knows what he's doing.

Good luck.
 
Thanks guys! It really sucks, but you get the crap that life throws your way, grit your teeth and work through the problem at hand - it'll work out in the end... Always does :) Andy sounds like a very honest man and knows his stuff, so I definitely feel like I'm in good hands there.

HHS3 said:
Did Andy speculate at all as to why your S3 has oil starvation? :sweatsmile:
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He thinks that the sump oil pickup line is clogged, which as you probably know is an issue with these engines if oil is not changed regularly. Given that in my 2 years of ownership, it has been changed at least every 8k, I blame the previous owner/workshop who either used crap oil or skipped a change when it was needed. That, or the stupid Audi concept of "log life oil" is the root cause.

Worst case it could also be a failing oil pump, which is a very expensive part on its own. If that is gone, then all the head/bottom end work would be for nothing and root cause would still be there. As mentioned, I want to keep this car for a while yet, so don't want to deal with this again.

I asked Andy if it's worth taking the sump off and checking the pickup line, but he said that it would be pointless at this point as the damage to the cams (possibly bottom end) is already done. So if we are going for an engine swap, we might as well save on labor cost by focusing on getting the new lump sorted and get it as best as it can be before installing it.

I'm sure I could try saving a few quid now by trying to sort the head out, but the bottom end is showing signs of knocking/wear when cold, so it would be a false economy in the long run. I'll see if anything form the current lump can be salvaged and sold to recover some costs, but I'm not holding my breath on that.
 
leshkin said:
A quick update - went to Storm Developments today with a plan to change the camchain tensioner as the engine is increasingly sounding like a bag of spanners (more than the normal TFSI lump sound). Andy took a second to listen to my engine and said that the head is way too loud than normal and it sounds like chronic oil starvation issue has caused premature cam wear and that my idea of replacing the cam chain tensioner is moot at this point :crying:

We discussed options of what can be done... Taking the overall cost of fixing bits that are obvious now and then having the risk of dealing with other bits that will likely need fixing later, like suspected shagged bottom end, it made more sense to assume the worse and just get a replacement low mileage engine instead.

I'm still reeling from the shock of having to drop a good few grand to properly fix this, but I see no other way out other than to bite the bullet and deal with the kick in the groin that this is going to be and move on.

I thought about getting a hybrid turbo in there while I have a chance, but Andy made me see sense and suggested that I look at getting an RS3 instead of chasing more power than Stg2+ from the S3 as it will end up a bottomless money pit :) I'm very happy with the current 360bhp/370lbft, so adding two more grand to an already large bill to get s light bump to that is not going to happen at this time. Will definitely replace the stock intercooler though and while the replacement engine is in pieces, anything that can/needs to be replaced, refreshed, cleaned or upgraded at reasonable cost will be done at the same time. I plan on keeping the car for a good while yet, so at least I'll have some peace of mind there after this.

Many people would ignore the loud engine and continue to drive the car as is, but I prefer to keep things working properly, so made my choice and will pay for it. Andy will look at sourcing an engine for me, so hopefully it's not going to take too long to get over this.

Anyway, a sad update, but in the words of a very smart man, "Life is like a box of chocolates... You never know what you're gonna get." Such is life of a car fanatic :)
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I should be able get you a brand new bare CDL engine that looks like this for around £2,100 inc VAT (+shipping) - let me know if interested. You'll just need to swap a few bits over like the ancillaries and put a cambelt on her. :)

Sold one to someone a couple of months ago whos doing a mad Cupra build at AKS.

These normally cost £6419 inc VAT and this wouldn't be an exchange unit, this would be absolutely brand new.

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Sorry to hear that. Hope you'll fix it soon.
@mjr901 you're a top guy. Hats off to you sir.
Those engines go for much more 2nd hand. I'll keep you in mind if i'll need something.
 
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Ofcourse - just give me a shout :)

This was the last brand new, non exchange version of the CDL engine left at the main VWG warehouse. He's a lucky man! Obviously not lucky in some ways....but at least he'll know this engine is new and if it breaks in the future, its his fault ;)
 
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