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Hey there. I said to myself I was gonna create a build thread as soon as I officially had the car registered (kept me motivated to getting it done) and I got it finally registered this past thursday, so here's my build thread:
Around the beginning of February I bought this 01 A4 1.8 straight out of the auction for $1900 before fees and taxes. Did some research and found out that this was the most updated and strongest one among the B5 generation, so I'm glad I got it. 117k miles and it drives smooth.
Downside of getting this out of the auction was that it was in a previous accident. only major damage was the hood, bumper needed to be "fixed" and core support needed to be replaced. After getting it out of the auction, I had it sent to a body shop for them to fix the damages. 2 weeks later, it was finally sitting in my garage
(outside of autozone)
I love/dislike whoever the previous was. Previous owner left with the car a K&N drop in filter, yellow Noyka foglight bulbs and a new hood strut:
(new one installed)
But the shit I dislike is that he practically neglected the interior, so sticky shit was everywhere!
Car was dirty inside and out, but especially the INSIDE! This was gonna be a fun cleaning.
Pristine leather seats:
nasty ass center console
took all the pieces out and went to town on them:
the two front windows had that nasty purple tint. Scraped all that shit off:
general under hood shot
(Don't worry I cleaned under there as well)
The surround piece for the shifter had some sticky shit all over it, so I cleaned it. Apparently in the process, the paint decides to leave also
So what did i do? Prep it for paint
...and the finished product. Gonna redo it again but much better than it was before.
Also I added, more like forced in, a shift knob I had sitting in my room for years. Makes it look
like a short shifter
One night I was driving the car and I was messing with the climate control and the "off" button got stuck...FML!!!
So I took it out and apart. And yet again, there was some sticky shit on the buttons
3 of the buttons weren't retracting like they should, so I modified it by adding a spring from a g2 pen behind the button
3 new pens gave their lives for the stake of the buttons (RIP G2 Pens)
Next was the maintenance part. The car came with a CEL for random misfires and advanced timing. Heard/researched that it was a common issue, so after taking it to a shop to diagnose/ to confirm my suspicion of what it may be, turns out the Cam chain tensioner and 3 out of 4 coil packs needed to replaced.
Decided to do an oil change and since I was already at it, minus well replace the spark plugs as well.
Got the goods from ECS Tuning:
....and now, I present to you the Main course......le Stance.
Before this car, I originally had a e36 BMW for a couple of months before I had to sell it. I had major plans for it, which included the typical:
Style 5's/BBS RC's
My FIRST set of 2 piece wheels, BBS at that. after I sold the bimmer, I didn't want to part with the wheels, so I still kept them. So my plans for these wheels will be to fully polish the lips and paint the centers (probably the bolts too) and of course get them redrilled to 5x112. Many people have told me to get adapters for these but the offset is already sitting at 20. So even getting the thinnest adapters would put me at an offset close to 0....I've yet to see 0 offset wheels fit with the typical rolling/pulling on the b5. So why go through that? I'll suck it up and get them re-drilled. Plus these wheels, believe it or not lol, are pretty common, but I think I'll be the first to rock them on a b5
Compressed at stock height:
just minor rolling will make them fit just right
cleaned them up:
Wouldn't this be cool as hell?
This past Wednesday, I took apart my first wheel. Quickly learned how to do it, after I was done:
Then on Friday, I took apart the rest:
Sprayed the bolts with PB blaster
Unscrewed the nuts almost the way out. Then I laid the hammer down (i ruined a socket extension in the process):
Flipped the rim over and struck the face twice with a rubber mallet and voila!
The cleanest rim of the group on the right, the most dirtiest on the left:
Final product:
...and now they wait for me to do moar work.
This past weekend, after running an errand, the left fan was rubbing too close to the radiator and it decided to explode. So between plastic and aluminum, which won?
...plastic won this war
Decided to take out the front end off anyway. The body shop did a horrible job painting the front bumper and mounting the whole front on. I did make an request to shave the headlight washers off, I never saw a point for them, unless if i wanted to go offroading in the audi. So I'm gonna try to re-aline the front end.
(yes i know the core support is cracked in the bottom)
took out the headlight washers, for 5 extra HP.
So what's the progress now? I'm waiting till my off day (wednesday) to replace the radiator and the plastic fan blade. Also the PO added some cheap green coolant to the system so this is a good opportunity to do a proper coolant flush.
I have a car show I want to attend during the first weekend of April, so MOAR progress will happen soon. So what are your near/distant future plans??
Very near future:
Coilovers
Homemade skid plate
Style 5's mounted with painted faces and polished lips/ Re-drilled to 5x112
Add my 12" sub so the rear speakers can stop beating themselves to death
6k hid's and polish headlights
possibly fix my sagging headliner
replace stock muffler and its rusted ass tips with a pipe and dual tips i also had waiting for the bimmer
idk whatever i can think of i need to get done
Distant future:
Some kind of entry level tune for teh boost:thumbup:
Full exhaust setup
moar maintenance sh1t
boost gauge
very distant future:
Rs4 front bumper
I'm new to the VAG world, but I've done my fair share of research on the b5 a4, so it's like I had for years, lol. But I'm still open to suggestions.
Comments are welcome
Around the beginning of February I bought this 01 A4 1.8 straight out of the auction for $1900 before fees and taxes. Did some research and found out that this was the most updated and strongest one among the B5 generation, so I'm glad I got it. 117k miles and it drives smooth.
Downside of getting this out of the auction was that it was in a previous accident. only major damage was the hood, bumper needed to be "fixed" and core support needed to be replaced. After getting it out of the auction, I had it sent to a body shop for them to fix the damages. 2 weeks later, it was finally sitting in my garage
(outside of autozone)
I love/dislike whoever the previous was. Previous owner left with the car a K&N drop in filter, yellow Noyka foglight bulbs and a new hood strut:
(new one installed)
But the shit I dislike is that he practically neglected the interior, so sticky shit was everywhere!
Car was dirty inside and out, but especially the INSIDE! This was gonna be a fun cleaning.
Pristine leather seats:
nasty ass center console
took all the pieces out and went to town on them:
the two front windows had that nasty purple tint. Scraped all that shit off:
general under hood shot
(Don't worry I cleaned under there as well)
The surround piece for the shifter had some sticky shit all over it, so I cleaned it. Apparently in the process, the paint decides to leave also
So what did i do? Prep it for paint
...and the finished product. Gonna redo it again but much better than it was before.
Also I added, more like forced in, a shift knob I had sitting in my room for years. Makes it look
like a short shifter
One night I was driving the car and I was messing with the climate control and the "off" button got stuck...FML!!!
So I took it out and apart. And yet again, there was some sticky shit on the buttons
3 of the buttons weren't retracting like they should, so I modified it by adding a spring from a g2 pen behind the button
3 new pens gave their lives for the stake of the buttons (RIP G2 Pens)
Next was the maintenance part. The car came with a CEL for random misfires and advanced timing. Heard/researched that it was a common issue, so after taking it to a shop to diagnose/ to confirm my suspicion of what it may be, turns out the Cam chain tensioner and 3 out of 4 coil packs needed to replaced.
Decided to do an oil change and since I was already at it, minus well replace the spark plugs as well.
Got the goods from ECS Tuning:
....and now, I present to you the Main course......le Stance.
Before this car, I originally had a e36 BMW for a couple of months before I had to sell it. I had major plans for it, which included the typical:
Style 5's/BBS RC's
My FIRST set of 2 piece wheels, BBS at that. after I sold the bimmer, I didn't want to part with the wheels, so I still kept them. So my plans for these wheels will be to fully polish the lips and paint the centers (probably the bolts too) and of course get them redrilled to 5x112. Many people have told me to get adapters for these but the offset is already sitting at 20. So even getting the thinnest adapters would put me at an offset close to 0....I've yet to see 0 offset wheels fit with the typical rolling/pulling on the b5. So why go through that? I'll suck it up and get them re-drilled. Plus these wheels, believe it or not lol, are pretty common, but I think I'll be the first to rock them on a b5
Compressed at stock height:
just minor rolling will make them fit just right
cleaned them up:
Wouldn't this be cool as hell?
This past Wednesday, I took apart my first wheel. Quickly learned how to do it, after I was done:
Then on Friday, I took apart the rest:
Sprayed the bolts with PB blaster
Unscrewed the nuts almost the way out. Then I laid the hammer down (i ruined a socket extension in the process):
Flipped the rim over and struck the face twice with a rubber mallet and voila!
The cleanest rim of the group on the right, the most dirtiest on the left:
Final product:
...and now they wait for me to do moar work.
This past weekend, after running an errand, the left fan was rubbing too close to the radiator and it decided to explode. So between plastic and aluminum, which won?
...plastic won this war
Decided to take out the front end off anyway. The body shop did a horrible job painting the front bumper and mounting the whole front on. I did make an request to shave the headlight washers off, I never saw a point for them, unless if i wanted to go offroading in the audi. So I'm gonna try to re-aline the front end.
(yes i know the core support is cracked in the bottom)
took out the headlight washers, for 5 extra HP.
So what's the progress now? I'm waiting till my off day (wednesday) to replace the radiator and the plastic fan blade. Also the PO added some cheap green coolant to the system
so this is a good opportunity to do a proper coolant flush.I have a car show I want to attend during the first weekend of April, so MOAR progress will happen soon. So what are your near/distant future plans??
Very near future:
Coilovers
Homemade skid plate
Style 5's mounted with painted faces and polished lips/ Re-drilled to 5x112
Add my 12" sub so the rear speakers can stop beating themselves to death
6k hid's and polish headlights
possibly fix my sagging headliner
replace stock muffler and its rusted ass tips with a pipe and dual tips i also had waiting for the bimmer
idk whatever i can think of i need to get done
Distant future:
Some kind of entry level tune for teh boost:thumbup:
Full exhaust setup
moar maintenance sh1t
boost gauge
very distant future:
Rs4 front bumper
I'm new to the VAG world, but I've done my fair share of research on the b5 a4, so it's like I had for years, lol. But I'm still open to suggestions.
Comments are welcome
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