Frenchy's Audi S5

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

Shake and Bake!!!

A great thread and the car is amazing!!!

[Frenchy_Pop]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

Roger, so it has been a while since I've posted any updates, but I guess that's to be expected when you have kids. She may be small, but she carries a big stick...
I've only done one major thing to the car since last year which was replacing the clutch with the Southbend stage 3 daily clutch. I didn't really notice any grotesque slippage on the factory clutch, although I had gotten into a practice of being very gentle with the car. The kit came fairly complete with pressure plate, and single mass flywheel (replacing my OEM dual mass flywheel). From the sales literature and forums I had read at the time, this would be adequate to handle the additional torque that the S/C kit was putting out. I had a local shop (new one this time) do the work for me over a few days. Some pics:




When I got the car back, I suddenly realized how much slippage was actually occurring on the factory clutch. The car felt tight and right.
After a few miles, I did suddenly notice a softening in the system. Discussing with the shop, I decided to additionally replace the slave cylinder as well as the factory clutch line with an ECS tuning S/S clutch line which also deleted a clutch delay valve in the OEM line.
After this second modification, I have driven the car all summer and did not notice the system get noticeably stiffer/tighter, but still performs well, and I am able to put my foot into the car without any slippage. Perhaps it was just the pressure plate breaking in, but I did not think it would have been so sudden.
A few more updates to come... perhaps this afternoon.

[Frenchy_Pop]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

Now after this I felt the car was ready to get on the road to do some fun driving, so I signed up for the Royal Rally as I had heard about it a few years back but never really felt like the car would be up for the challenge. When I say that, bear in mind that most of the cars that participate in this rally are pretty high performance machines, some of them, likely worth more than my house (Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bentley, Merc/BMW and high end Corvette's/Mustangs). Although this rally was not a race, which is explicitly stated, and teams will incur penalties for being too fast (beyond the ones with Johnny Law), there is definitely some more "spirited" driving.
In preparation for this, I had APR's tune for 93 put into the ECU (my ECU only holds one tune at a time) to get a little more pep in the step. Which it did! The tune allegedly takes the HP from 566 to 591 at the wheel, however I cannot confirm or deny these numbers as I have not had the car dyno'd yet.
What I can tell you is that the rally was a blast. Overall we did about 1000km's with sort of a scavenger hunt at each stop. Everyone was really nice and there was a plethora of different cars that were each awesome in their own right.
Some pics:

Starting Grid






One of the stops:




Overall, I thought the event was really well planned out. There were crew at each of the stops, waiting for teams to arrive to complete the task/clue. Despite driving like a bat out of hell, somewhere along the route, you obviously would pass many cars, but you would happen upon a fairly innocuous looking minivan. A hand would come out of the window and surprisingly not flip the bird, but signal you to slow down and then these crazy mofo's would hang out the side of the van snapping pics of your car as you passed at low speed. I was really impressed with the amount of coordination and planning that went into the event and will likely do it again.




One thing that the event did make me conclude was the need for a BBK. I really tested the car on the first leg and when we stopped, the brakes let me know just how unhappy they were with a puff of smoke and a terrible smell. If any one of you has ever smelled burnt brake pad, then you know how discomforting this smell can be. In any case, this will likely be a modification I make over the winter.

[Frenchy_Pop]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

One more update for today, which is not really a car update, but I am sure I will be forgiven. Around the same time as the rally, I pulled the trigger on a lift for the garage. No surprise that I had shopped for one for a while, and after much speculation decided to go with a Bendpak HD-9 setup. I did consider others, however my garage is only 10'11", and with the height of the S5 and the lights that I put into the garage, it didn't make much sense to get a different model that went higher.
The car fits on the second from top lock position, and at this height, I can more than stand under the car to do any work. Additionally, this model was more than adequate width-wise, and as you will see, there really wasn't room for a wider model.
I chose a 4-post model for theoretical storage purposes (in the case that one day I get another vehicle to store under or on top of the S5), and opted for a castor kit if I wanted to move it around.
I also paid slightly more for the pneumatic over hydraulic rolling bridge jack for when I do brake and suspension work, which came with an air-line kit which would will be slightly more helpful, but again not necessary.



Max height



At this height, the garage door itself is a problem. The whole project has been an exercise in patience, measuring, re-measuring, and geometry. The pic below shows the current max height with the door open. I've investigated a few different options to compensate and have ultimate clearance including swapping the door to be a hanging, horizontally opening door. Ultimately, for the cost of things, I will be converting to a high lift door and side-mounted opener to achieve the clearance that I need. At present, with the BBK need, I needed to stop hemorrhaging cash and have delayed that conversion till the spring as this is more than adequate for this winter.

Threading the needle



No, I did not anchor the posts to the floor. This was one of the benefits of a 4-post lift as it is not required. I did do the install myself, which was only a moderate learning exercise, but not beyond the skills of anyone with some mechanical aptitude.

[Feens]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

Great job, Your car looks amazing, i want to do a few things with my own S5 before next years Levingworth Drive, myself and the Wife plan on traveling down to it next year from Grande Prairie, Im looking at getting some Carbon parts for it like a front Splitter rear Spoiler and diffuser, seems to be hard to source stuff for the B8's also maybe an exhaust too, not sure if i could fork out for an SC kit, new 20' rims and some lows will probably be 1st on the list tho, Thats my plan for the car unless i get my way and Trade it for an E92 M3 or M4 lol

[Frenchy_Pop]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

Agreed. I'd love to hear where you get with the rear diffuser and front splitter. I know Reiger makes a rear diffuser (can't remember if it's carbon or just carbon printed) but it doesn't look very aggressive/effective.

[Feens]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

there is a company in the UK who do some Maxton Design, but they are Carbon effect.. and for the price id be expecting full on carbon, i seem to be able to buy aftermarket carbon parts for my e46 m3 way easier and reasonably priced considering, id love to go with an Air ride kit so i can adjust it as the roads up here in North west Alberta are Sh1te ... im a BMW guy so its hard to go all out on this car even tho i do like it, (my other half loves it) I like the Quattro system but im used to RWD antics and popping the back end out in spirited runs lol, its bad when nearly 360hp doesnt feel fast

[fbatwork]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

Out of curiosity how high is your ceiling in the garage?

[fbatwork]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

Oh - and really like your car!!

[Frenchy_Pop]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

Out of curiosity how high is your ceiling in the garage?

Hey sorry for the late reply, the ceiling in the garage is 10' 11". I can fit my car on the lift on the second from top lock position. I had previously calculated it would fit at the top, with a hair to spare (bc you need to raise higher to get off the lock) but didn't account for the depth of the light which I put in after ordering the lift.

[fbatwork]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

Hey sorry for the late reply, the ceiling in the garage is 10' 11". I can fit my car on the lift on the second from top lock position. I had previously calculated it would fit at the top, with a hair to spare (bc you need to raise higher to get off the lock) but didn't account for the depth of the light which I put in after ordering the lift.

Great thanks.

[onceover]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

A friend of mine installed a roll up door in his garage to solve the ceiling clearance issue. Not the most attractive thing in the world, but an effective fix.

[Frenchy_Pop]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

As previously mentioned, it is time for an upgrade on stopping power. After much deliberation, I settled on an RS conversion in the front, and the ECS Stage 1 conversion in the back. This kit was basically bolt on and was cheaper than the 6-pot Brembo version widely available. My understanding is that the 6-pot Brembo version is touted as superior than the 8-pot RS version (also made by Brembo). The only mildly substantiated reasoning for this is the bleedability of the 6-pot over the 8-pot.
In any case, I snagged the kit from ECS during their holiday sale, which was reasonably priced until exchange of course. If anyone does big part orders out of the US, may I suggest using XE.com as they offer a free money transfer service which at this time 3% better than the bank on rate with no fees.
The kit came quite quickly via Fed-ex and there are only a few feelings comparable to a pile of fresh parts waiting to be put to work.

[Frenchy_Pop]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

You'll notice a set of H&R spacers sitting in the parts pile. I printed off a fitment template that was available for the BBK and measured it against the custom Roti's I had made and there was a conflict. The choice here was clear that I would either need new wheels or spacers as the offset on these wheels is such that there would be conflict on any BBK.
I've never run spacers before, but there's definitely some stigma surrounding them. From all I could read on the subject, issues come up due to the fact that all spacers are not created equal. Problem number 1 is that some spacers are designed to be lug-centric, meaning that the spacer itself is centered on the lugs (putting additional stress on this component) which is a common failure in running spacers. In the rally I went on in September, there was an RX-7 that had spacer/lug issues (2 sheared off, 2 were gone, the 1 remaining was holding his wheel on). I didn't ask what brand or type of spacers he was running as I wasn't in the market at the time. Hub centric spacers seem to be a much better design as they are centered on the hub and depending on the size/brand of the spacer, they will generally have a hub extension machined on the outside over 10mm to ensure the wheel can be supported by the hub and not just the lugs as the wheel gets pushed out. Beyond this, it is imperative that the spacer be machined precisely flat otherwise there could be vibrational issues. I haven't run these spacers yet, but they do seem to be a trusted brand in the community and were slightly more than the dog-sh!t ebay ones that are prevalent.
As I needed to replace my existing lug bolts with longer ones, I spent the money for a set of titanium lug bots for some additional insurance. Pulling them out of the package, they honestly feel like toys, they are so light that despite being larger they still weigh less.

[Frenchy_Pop]

Re: Frenchy's Audi S5

As with any good project I took a number of pictures before and after, but very little during, which is why you may notice the side of the vehicle may switch as I thought to take pictures during the job. I'll try to make a brake job sound interesting, but really the most interesting piece is the comparison of the two. But here goes another brake job. The front brakes are relatively straight forward as it's mainly rip out the old and replace with the new.
Original Equipment


The first thing was to remove the caliper with the 21mm bolts on the backside of the bracket. This allowed me to pull the caliper off of the rotor. Some quick work behind this was to pull the OEM brake line off of the steel brake line using the an 11mm line wrench and swapping in the ECS braided stainless steel line and connecting it to the OEM line again, this way the line was long enough for the caliper to sit on the ramp while I mucked about with the rest of the job.
A clearance issue that ECS has taken care of is that the OEM brackets on the RS brake caliper don't provide adequate spacing for the larger caliper. I needed to pull off these brackets and substitute the ECS caliper bracket. Also required was to bend back the brake dust shield at the corners to clear the ECS bracket. The tin is flimsy enough that you can just do this with your hands.
ECS bracket installed with dust shield ears bent back. The RS caliper bolts directly to this using the replacement 21mm caliper bolts included in the kit (I believe these are stretch bolts and technically should be replaced each time)


A size comparison between the S5 and the RS caliper:

The RS caliper loads 4 brake pads, which is new to me as any caliper I've ever had before has only loaded 2, but I guess this makes sense as it would need to be a massive brake pad and 2 small ones on each side is logistically better than one large one. I did notice that while the Hawk HPS front brake pads come with 2 pads with brake sensors, the S5 only has a brake sensor plug on the drivers side. There was not one existing on the passenger side nor was there anywhere to plug it in.