Prawn and BigAls A3 Track Car

[bigal 1]

oil pickup pipes however.... and long life servicing.. has killed 2 local customer TT's in the last 2 weeks.....

Dreadfull idea from Audi.. Its killing the engines now.. sludged/blocked oil pickups..

if in doubt, drop the sump and replace the pickup pipe.. £15 ish for pickup pipe plus some sealant and some time... well worth the investment to preserve your engine from no oil pressure and carnage it can cause.

Why is it that large companies get it so wrong sometimes, its beyond belief. I have spoken to three people in the oil industry, over the last few years and they state that if you pay £5 or £50 per gallon for oil it still STARTS to go off after 6,000 miles or 6 months and MUST be changed before to long. Its obviously a marketing ploy for the fleet buyers to reduce their overheads. fifteen or twenty thou between oil changes is mad. I've heard of A4 engines giving up after 70 thou . Its penny pinching and we have never done it. 6K on all the road cars and oil is changed. Between 1 and 2k on the A3 , when used as track car, 1 K on the mini. If you look back in the threads you will see the sump on the A3 was dropped after some 180/190t thou and it looked like new. Damn good reason for that.

 

[bigal 1]

and thanks Bill (and friends ) for looking after wee prawn

 

[Prawn]

1 K on the mini. If you look back in the threads you will see the sump on the A3 was dropped after some 180/190t thou and it looked like new. Damn good reason for that.

At it's current rate 1k miles on the Mini is about 4 years use really must sort that out and stop messing around with this german thing!

A3 was on well over 200k when I dropped the sump and it looked like brand new inside, the sump was shiney silver and the pickup didn't have a single bit of debris in it

i'll miss that legendary engine, but I am glad it was removed through choice and not because it died

 

[badger5]

and thanks Bill (and friends ) for looking after wee prawn

not a problem
regards
bill

 

[aragorn]

Its actually quite amazing what regular oil changes can do.

When i bought my first A4, i didnt know about any of the sludge issues. The car was on 150k and looking at the service history you could see it had clearly missed a few oil changes (they were all filled in with the same pen and the same handwriting with conveniently perfect mileages)

As is usual, the engine was manky inside. I had the rocker cover off soon after i bought it to replace the gasket and it was thick with black sludge. I cleaned the rocker cover, but couldnt be bothered opening the engine so i just ignored it.

I simply changed the oil every 5k for the next 45k and despite having low oil pressure from a worn out pump, when i stripped the engine down at 195k the insides were spotless. Not a spot of sludge in the sump, pickup was clear. The regular changes had cleaned the engine up nicely. It actually surprised me, but it really does show how much good regular changes can do.

 

[Prawn]

Subtle or lairy? what are your thoughts people?

Inspired by how epic my old car is looking in the hands of the frenchman:

I'm now considering removing most the the stickers, and doing some of my sets of wheels silver again.

This is how she looks currently (aside from the crash damage yet to be fixed:

And this is how it's looked in the past, a little more classy I think:

 

[<tuffty/>]

Do it!!!....

<tuffty/>

 

[nightroamer]

Subtle but classy does it for me.

 

[George The Diesel Head]

Subtle... maybe some stickers along the bottom of the door like the northloop one... but keep it simple. No-one will see small stickers at the bottom of your door when your're next to them at the lights!

 

[aragorn]

I like the wild look tbh.

Its a track car. It should look hard as nails and rough and ready.

It shouldnt look like some prissed up show queen that gets polished every morning.


Not only that, the wheels currently fitted dont fit in with the "OEM+" classy look you had previously.

 

[Lewis583]

I'd remove the exterior stickers but leave the cage asbo-orange, my 2ps worth

 

[Prawn]

those are my thoughts Lewis. a few small and suble (but still orange) exterior stickers, like the little northlook ones on the quarter panel, but nothing quite so bold this time around I don't think.

 

[aragorn]

Wuss.

 

[bigal 1]

Wuss.

I think the car should be orange and the cage black

 

[bigal 1]

I love this look. Not to over the top but looks as it means business.

 

[Neru]

hey prawn, did you replace any of the valves or springs?

 

[superkarl]

if you're gonna take the stickers off, at least do the wheels orange to match the cage!
i love lairy. good thing about dedicated track cars is you can go as wild as possible without looking like a helm.
show it off prawn, you dont wana blend in!

 

[Prawn]

hey prawn, did you replace any of the valves or springs?

Not at the moment mate, all stock on 108K. Welly runs a 100% standard head at ~450bhp and 7800rpm, so I think it'll be fine.

 

[Jason.s]

Stickers off, silver wheels, orange cage, orange Brembo`s

 

[aragorn]

Silver wheels are ghey.

 

[Jason.s]

Easier to sell on

Im never going to be able to sell my blue wheels from the A4 unless they go back to being silver so im probably just going to take the Contis off and sell those instead and do whatever with the wheels.

 

[aragorn]

Meh, i dont do things to my car so i can sell it on, i do things because i like it.

 

[Jason.s]

Yeah i liked them at the time then they chipped and became tatty and i quickly grew to dislike them. But there will always be a time you want to/have to sell something and if whatever the item is is slightly different and not to peoples tastes you`ll struggle to sell.

Of course this doesnt really apply to Prawn as he`s a wheel whore and resprays them more times than most of us do oil changes lol.

 

[Westy]

I love the tough love on this subject lads lol

To be honest I agree that a track car should be lairy. Have it subtle if you use it for work and you dot want to look silly driving to work in a stripped out car and a suit on!

I used to like the orange S3 wheels on your car but I'm not keen on the stickers.

 

[aragorn]

I turn up at work with my car with orange wheels, rings and stickers, if people dont like it they can fk off.

 

[666markyboy]

Did the crank not need touching ??? just replacement shells ?

 

[666markyboy]

That could be my 2 car Garage.... my A3 is the same colour as is my A4 Avant thats parked behind it

 

[westallc]

hey prawn spoken to you a few times on other forums

your car is epic and i love the wild look imo makes the car

we must catch up soon as im only in wokingham

clive (red octy @r-tech )

 

[Munch]

I'd say for road wheels, silver or anthracite

For track, lairy. Absolutely love the black and bronze, had my a3 been black I would have gone for it!

 

[Westy]

I'd say for road wheels, silver or anthracite

For track, lairy. Absolutely love the black and bronze, had my a3 been black I would have gone for it!

I'm with you on that bu with the Pro Race 1.2s we're looking at I'm playing it safe with anthracite as I may end up using them as road wheels one day.

In prawns instance though, he has a million differen sets of wheels so he's spoilt for choice.

 

[Prawn]

only 3 sets believe it not Westy!

2 sets sold with the daily, and one set sold as they were too narrow (7J)

I do have 7 complete sets of track tyres though plus the road ones

 

[bigal 1]

That could be my 2 car Garage.... my A3 is the same colour as is my A4 Avant thats parked behind it

Not many people know this. The photograph was taken in Oldham. (Manchester)

 

[666markyboy]

Not many people know this. The photograph was taken in Oldham. (Manchester)

Ha HA yeah right....

 

[Colly]

go for the porsche look orange wheels door mirrors and stripes across the bottom

 

[gregor571]

I liked your car and work from the beginig

 

[Prawn]

No massive updates from this weekend sadly.

I dropped the gearboxes off with GT Jonny, so hopefully I'll soon get back one working box with the LSD fitted.

I also cleaned up the newer rocker cover and gave it a new coat of orange. No pics at the moment as it's too bright for my camera

In slightly annoying news, something has eaten my new gates cambelt in the back of the car!

I left the engine in the boot of the car all week as I didn't have time to hoist it out when I got back from Bills last weekend. I was very careful not to let anything rub against it, but somehow something has got between the pulley and the back of the boot, and damaged the brand spanking new Gates Kevlar belt!

Oh well, that's dead then.

Will get a new OE belt and swap them over. Thankfully it's about a 10 minute job at this stage

 

[Lewis583]

Ouch bud, not good. As you said luckily it's still out the car and easy to swap over. Are those Gates Racing belts expensive?

 

[nightroamer]

Bummer, those belts are lovely too. Better now than later I guess.

 

[Prawn]

yea not the end of the world, but ****** annoying!

Not sure how much the gates belts are alone, I got it in the rod package, but I'm still ****** off I can use it.

Oh well, OE belt going to go on tomorrow

 

[moredoor]

Looking good Nick, bet this will be up and running soon. I like the stickers as they are but maybe a change in colour?