feck_on_a_stick

Sorry to hear you're having trouble. I can't say I'm ever confident buying stuff online, even though I do it plenty. I've just been looking at his feedback there. The fella certainly churns out plenty of items per month.

Nice. Adding to the list then

This is a great build dude. That engine just looks like it was mean't to be in there. Such a neat install.

Thanks dude. Yeah it's one of my favourite colours too along with Pirates Black and Liquid Yellow

lolol ok. It's now top of my to-do list Jeez, the things I have to do to be accepted on the internet....... Oh and quick random question. Do the MB6s come with a boot floor under the carpet? Mine doesn't and the carpet is quite saggy so wondered if they can be got, or if I've to make one.

This is my first time in this thread too, but then I'm new That's a lovely looking motor and exactly the sort of way I'm hoping to go with mine. Those Chronos wheels are lovely too!

I'm really excited about the engine but looks-wise I just can't live with that front wheel arch. I just looks stuck on for me. A while back someone did some photoshops of what they imagined it would look like and I thought it was amazing. A bit more subtle but still aggressive, which I suppose I prefer.

lol how do you change it to 24hr?? To be fair it's easy enough for me to tell when it's 8am and 8pm just by looking out the window So I was glad to get the car back on Friday night and went to take it out for a proper run on Saturday, only to find I'd two flat tyres. FML! I got enough air in to them using a cheapy Halfords compressor and took it to the local garage to get them fully inflated. As I collected the car from the mechanics in the dark on Friday night I'm hoping the tyres were deflated just from the car sitting for a few weeks, but keeping an eye on them. Yesterday I gave both my old ladies a nice good wash and quick going over with Aqua Wax. This weekend I'll hopefully get my skanky VTIS badge replaced with a new one

lol yeah the 1.8Ts seem to all leak eventually. I suppose most of these engines are at least 10yrs old now and most end up perishing somewhere. I've a friend with a Cupra R who is losing the will to live trying to find his leak lol You're right though about Audis using galvanised steel, but it seems that there are still a few areas of weakness on the S3 where they are particularly prone. Down round the door blade and roof rails are the main areas. As for the reason for this, I don't know. Some people suggest water particularly builds up along these edges and the zinc coating eventually wears allowing rust in. Audi had a 7 year warranty for it but now they sometimes agree to contribute towards repair costs if you fight your corner and jump through hoops. I couldn't be bothered and just left it in with a local body shop.

Of course In fact I still love the older V6 twin turbo RS4s as well

Yep, although I think I've been pretty lucky that mine were easy enough to find. A homemade boost leak kit using an aerosol lid, compressor and bicycle bits really helped too lol The flaired arches on the older S3 and the RS4s really help I think. Makes them nice and agressive looking. The newer S3s don't have such pronounced arches and I think look alot plainer. A V8 RS4 would be lovely tbh.

When I got home I finally got the manual out and tried to get the stereo lighting to match the rest of the car using the custom RGB numbers. Pretty happy how it turned out

I'm just back from collecting the car. The car was advertised with Integra cams, but it would seem the engine was opened before I got it.......I'll let you come to your own conclusions but all the defending of the previous owner that I'd made in one of my previous posts should just be ignored. Lets face it - He's a ballbag! On the plus side I've now been able to see what the car is capable of. It's actually pretty rapid, and I was finally able to hear a more pronounced VTEC changeover and the note change from the butterfly opening, so all is good with the world. Just a shame it's near freezing outside as I didn't really want to properly push it Here's hoping there are no more nasty surprises.......

That's some spec but I can imagine there's already a pretty limited market these days for MB6s, nevermind a turbo'd one. Those pics don't really help at all; either in the dark or far away. If I was selling something like this, especially on eBay with a wider UK reach than local Gumtree, I'd have a stack more detailed photos and plenty up-close. It's still a buyers market and he really has to make it look like it's worth every penny.

Yep, first time on rollers and lesson learnt As promised.....

Apart from this, Ive done very little to it the past few months. As with most VAG cars they go through coil springs lilke nobody's business and I've gone through three this past 18 months. A little bit of rust started coming through just below the driver door blade so I had it repaired and the door and back quarter repainted I've a full set of Pagid brake discs and pads to go on next week and hopefully she'll show some improvement at the RR in a few weeks Future plans I've no clue about. It's not the most exciting car to drive round country roads and it's weight is a definite disadvantage, but it's a nice boosty machine and whilst it struggles with modern hatches I do love surprising some folks in it who expect it to be slower than it is. I can't see me doing too much to it over the next while especially as the MB6 has just cost me an arm and a leg to repair. If you've read all this, you deserve a medal lol

The next issue was a suspect boost leak. My mate (who built the S6 above) set aside a week where he put it up on his lift and had a real good look around it. It only took him 5 mins to discover the turbo pipe looked like it had split, so replaced it with a nice Forge one. The rest of the pipes were solid, although he also replaced a few clips just to make sure everything was firm. Whilst he was at it he also built me a new 2.5" stainless steel downpipe and removed the cats, which a previous owner had already guted. The design of the downpipe on the S3 is a weird one. It's very tight and must be why it splits in two to go either side of the propshaft, however, it must still be restrictive. A nice straight pipe is therefore bound to help This was only a rough mock-up. It looks pretty tasty now. The whole thing is made out of good quality stainless.......from a local milking parlour supplier lol Standard DP on the left

At the start of November last year I took it to to a RR day organised by my local car club. It ran 243bhp which I was a bit gutted about and from the results knew something wasn't right. The first issue was the haldex system. The S3 isn't permanent 4WD and is mainly FWD but fitted with an electronic Haldex system that transfers power to the rear wheels when needed. Looking in to things a bit more I realised that the rollers confused the haldex system in to thinking the car was losing traction and started transferring power all over the place lol I plan on taking the car back to the same RR at the start of next month and pulling the fuse for the haldex to just run it FWD. Glory bhp FTW!

I took it to Titanic Dubs for the craic. It's a fairly new car show and is held down at the Harland & Wolff dry dock which was constructed to build the Titanic. It's certainly no show car but I put it in just to park it in the show and get the nice lunch lol

A couple of pics from a local VAG meet along side my mates old hybrid turbo'd S6+

I then fitted a stronger Forge recirculation valve and a race N75 valve. Next on my to-do list was to look in to a replacement downpipe and decat. I had a proper look under the car and discovered that both cats look to have been opened and rewelded again, so it seems that someone has already gutted them. I then put my three digit plate back on it which has really cleaned it up. In Northern Ireland we can't put private plates on retention so I had to put it on my friends camper van for a couple of months between selling my S2000 and getting the S3 registered.

I soon realised that it felt a bit flat higher up the revs and spent an evening taking it up and down a road connected to a laptop to log boost, air intake and temps. The logs showed that it was losing boost over 5,000 rpm. I had a feeling that the standard TIP pipe was compressing under load due to whatever way it had been mapped, so ordered a Badger 5 80mm one and fitted it. It's alot bigger than the usual replacement TIPs. I'm not a big fan of coloured pipes, so keeping it still looking OEM, I got a black one. It's now a completely different car. I can't believe the difference it's made. My OEM on the left vs the replacement on the right.

Bit of a quiet day in work today so figured I'd post up a few pics of my other car. It's a 2002 and I bought it almost 2 years ago with just over 74,000 miles on it. There's now just over 79,000. Nogaro Blue with blue alcantara/black leather seats. It's the 225bhp BAM engine and was pretty standard bar an unknown remap! For an eleven year old car it's been very well cared for with very little to do. There were a few engine plastic trim pieces missing so I first replaced those and stuck in a drilled airbox for a bit of induction noise.

I've no idea what that means. What's a taz round? lol Remember I'm not that local I just got a text from my mechanic saying I'm afraid we have an issue of "idiot inside" rather than Intel inside, along with this pic lol At least the oil leak is found and so far it's going back together ok. Touch wood......

Hang on! The stripes are only on one side! What?! Why? Kill it!