We mocked up a good... let's call it a bracket... for mounting the transponder. Close to the track? Check. Unobstructed view of the track? Check. Near the front of the car? By definition, it IS the front of the car... so, check.
We mocked up a good... let's call it a bracket... for mounting the transponder. Close to the track? Check. Unobstructed view of the track? Check. Near the front of the car? By definition, it IS the front of the car... so, check.
Stickers! Now it looks the part! Series sponsors are in the mail, so more to come. I might go full F1 and make up a bunch of fake companies too. Rustix Brand Fastener Adhesive ("Nothing sticks like Rustix!"), Must-Gos Restaurants ("Leftovers, the European way"), etc.
I have graphics ideas for both of the new sponsors....Only one of which is family friendly....
TurnerX19 said:I have graphics ideas for both of the new sponsors....Only one of which is family friendly....
Hah, well, it'd have to be family friendly if it's going to manage to make it through tech. I think? You were the tech guy, though, so you'd know better than I would! 
Oh, the thing survived the weekend. 200 or so miles at maximum beans, and the temp gauge didn't budge, the tires didn't explode, the brakes didn't catch fire (or get stuck on), and nothing fell off. Also, I didn't crash it. We had some rain, and that was a hoot. The school was excellent, and I'm looking forward to seeing those former students on the track.
Next: new tires and wheels. The wheels on it are, apparently, 26 pounds a piece! That is--and this is true--more than twice as much as an NA Miata's wheel. I can trim that by almost 11 pounds or so per wheel. And then... iunno... a splitter and wing? I might put one of those dog decals on the back, where the rear wiper is his tail.
In reply to confuZion3 :
I was only the "tech guy" under duress. No one else would, somebody had to, and in the background I hear "that guy knows how". Oh crap, here comes the hoard, er board.
confuZion3 said:Next: new tires and wheels. The wheels on it are, apparently, 26 pounds a piece! That is--and this is true--more than twice as much as an NA Miata's wheel. I can trim that by almost 11 pounds or so per wheel.
You can usually score some OZ Superleggeras in 17" for that car on the Audi forums or the Book of Faces marketplace. I've managed to get 7 of them in 18" for a coupla hundred bucks to fit the B5S4 I've been attempting to build for the last 7 years.
Well then. I had an opportunity to wrench on the A4 this weekend. I received the series sponsor decals for USTCC, and so I got to channel my inner 5-year-old and go HOG WILD playing with stickers. Before I put them on, I broke out the orbital polisher and went after the blemishes in the paint with a vengence. There's a little before and after of the back bumper for you... if you're into that kind of thing--hey, I'm not judging!
I got my AiM Solo 2 DL hooked up! I needed a CAN bus connection to the power train. It wasn't available at the port in 2003. The Audizine guys helped me figure that out. I found a twisted pair of wires right where I expected them to be (wiring diagrams are great). Green connector on the back of the instrument cluster, for anybody searching later.
I took a length of one of the other CAN bus twisted wires, cut it away from wherever it had been running, and tapped it into the cluster wires. It was unused because it probably ran to the door switches or something. I threw some pins on that for OBD 2, jammed them into the CAN high and CAN low ports on the OBD 2 port (they were unoccupied on this car), and plugged the AiM in.
Data! Hooray!
I also dorked out with tape this weekend! I laid down a bunch of blue painter's tape to represent the blue that I want to do for my livery. It will be darker and glossier when I do it in vinyl, obviously. I then laid down some yellow duct tape for the accent colors. Pro tip: cover the areas you want to do in duct tape with painters tape first so that it releases cleanly when you're done.
This is meh, but it was fun to mess around with it. I'll need a real design in the back. The random decals on the tape were just some I had lying around just to see if it would look different with stickers.
This one below is my favorite. The little dip of silver at the back is fun (and more true to the concept), plus the later iterations have too much yellow... or just... yellow in the wrong places.
This is the AI-generated image that sparked the design.
Fun fact: Hankook tires suggest that drivers have several degrees of negative camber to get the most out of their tires. Another fun fact: I have no way to get more camber on my car.
They sell camber-correcting control arm kits for people who lower their cars and end up with for-some-reason-unwanted static camber gains. Those add positive camber. I've been told that they may have the ability to add a little more negative camber (they are adjustable, after all), but the adjustments seem to be there to allow them to run longer than stock.
You know what I think would be hilarious? Building my own upper control arms. Somebody tell me this is a bad idea. Keep in mind, I just left the Jaguar build thread where Roddy is building an entire car from the ground-up (incredible work, Roddy!), so I'm kind of in that "emboldened by others' success"/"this should be easy" mode right now. But you know..... how hard could it be?
Don't answer that.
Couple rod ends, lock nuts and you'll be in business! Make it happen
Consider just shortening the originals. Upper control arm loads are surprisingly low, be not affraid.
Good idea, Bill. I had considered it--cutting a length out of the center, threading it, and inserting a rod and some jam nuts. I could thread in or out on the rod to adjust the length. I think they're pretty thin cast pieces though. I'll take a look and see. Is that the best way to shorten them--to take a cut out of the middle?
If I do steel tubular parts, it shouldn't be too hard either. This car has two upper control arms that attach to the top of the spindle instead of just a big A arm. I might need to make a couple bends to get the shape right, but if that works out, then there shouldn't be much to it.
Are the current parts aluminium? If so make your own from steel.
I think they're cast Aluminum. I have some 1.5" DOM tubing left over from my roll cage. Do you think that's excessive? This is going to be fun!
These might help for dialing in some negative camber:
https://www.034motorsport.com/034motorsport-density-line-track-spec-adjustable-upper-control-arm-kit-b5-b6-b7-c5-audi-a4-s4-rs4-a6-s6-rs6.html
Not sure if you've looked into these but just in case
Oh. That's... probably the ticket. Good find! I'd been looking at their camber correction kit, thinking that's all there was.
I'll give constructing my own some thought to see if I can figure it out. If not, then I'll swipe a set of those. Thanks for sharing!
Roll bar tubing is overkill by 300%. Look at Steve Stafford's Spitfire Mk8 project for arm inspiration. 3/4"x .060 is plenty strong.
In reply to confuZion3 :
I whole heartedly approve of the painters tape application
:
TurnerX19 said:Roll bar tubing is overkill by 300%. Look at Steve Stafford's Spitfire Mk8 project for arm inspiration. 3/4"x .060 is plenty strong.
Yes, my car at 2300 lbs is using 0.75diamx0.063wall tubing on the upper and lower a arms.
Picture
1.00diamx0.090wall will be more than enough for your uppers if you gonthat route.
In reply to stafford1500 :
Thanks! I read through your build earlier. Nice job!
The biggest challenge will be the pins that the ball joints lock into the spindle with. Kind of clever of Audi... they have the two ball joints plugging into the top of the spindle with a groove machined around them. Once in the spindle, you run a bolt through the whole thing, and that holds them in place by interfacing with the groove. If I had a lathe, I could pretty easily machine one of these pins. As it stands, I think the easiest way around that would be to just buy a rebuild kit for the kit that Luke linked to. That would get me most of the other parts I need anyway. It's unfortunate that a couple of adjustable uppers are $500+ when an entire front control arm refresh kit (like... 8 arms with bushings and ball joints) is only $150.
In reply to Indy - Guy :
Is that the car with the Swedish flag on the hood? It was your tape handy-work that inspired me to do my tape handy-work!
In reply to confuZion3 :
Yep
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