# B8 AUDI A4 BUILD THREAD - for those who like to tuck



## LOWFORM (Aug 23, 2013)

Hello friends,

First I would like to say THANK YOU to vwvortex.com for your auto save feature!:thumbup: You just saved me from having the type this entire thread over again.:banghead:

I thought I would share the progress on my B8 Audi A4 air suspension install. I'm currently running some 20x10 Rotiform SNA's. My original intention was to just use these wheels for my mockup, but I'm starting to really like them. My goal is to take the extra steps to get this car a little lower than most. I chose to run Accuair for my management (VU4, eLevel, iLevel) and Airlift performance series air struts. So far I'm really having a lot of fun with this car and I'd love to share it with you:

Below is a slightly exaggerated rendering of what I would like the car to look like what it's done. I'm running all S4/RS4 bumpers and grilles. My side skirts are OEM Audi that I believe are actually manufactured by Zubehor. Front lip is a Stvbek and the rest is still in limbo.









First on my list was to disassemble all the suspension and clean the heck out of it! I painted my brake rotors and sanded/brushed all the aluminum suspension.

























Okay, now on to the point of the thread! opcorn: 

I started with the front. In stock form the suspension allowed itself to travel to a point where it was just barely tucking rim.









With some trimming, grinding, and cutting I was able to get another inch out of it. At this point my upper ball joints have travelled to their fullest extent so it will have to do for now. I'm hoping this will set the engine cradle on the ground...and if it doesn't, I'll have to fab up some new UCA's with uniballs or some other type of ball joint that allows further travel. I also drilled some holes in the top of my strut towers and installed some rubber grommets so I could adjust the dampening of my shocks with ease.


























Below is a photo of the rear wheel tucking about the same as the front in it's stock form followed by another photo of it after some finess. Unfortunately I had to ditch the rear sway bar then do some notching, grinding, hammering, welding, and cutting. It was well worth it because I got the back end another 2" lower! At this point my Airlift shocks are bottomed out, my axle is resting on the unibody, and the rim is gently starting to come in contact my upper shock mount. The fitment of these wheels is so tight that the edge of my fender will peel the blue tape off my lip by not actually scratch the wheel. 

























Next I moved on to gaining access to the rear bag upper fittings. 

















That's as far as I've come so far. This project may move a little slow since I am squeezing it in when I have free time. Feel free to ask if you have any questions and I appreciate any feedback. I'll be sure to update this as things progress. Stay tuned....


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## KDDESIGNS (Jan 7, 2014)

Looking good so far!:thumbup:


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## [email protected] (Feb 19, 2010)

I approve of this !


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## hushdc (Jul 18, 2006)

:thumbup: You have inspired me to clean my wheel wells.


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## Vee-DubbVR6 (Jul 31, 2007)

^ Haha, I was thinking the same thing! :laugh:


Look forward to the progress! :thumbup:


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## trefive (Nov 15, 2010)

opcorn:

Hey, I think we've met before somewhere...


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## LOWFORM (Aug 23, 2013)

Thx for the replies fellas. 

Will, just trying to build something half as cool as your BMW


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## LOWFORM (Aug 23, 2013)

So, when it came time to fit my Airlift parts in the rear I was able to get the shock to fit by threading them all the way down and cutting the bump stop. However, the lower bag spacer was now too tall so I had to shave 1.125" off in the lathe. Fortunately everything still clears perfected and I was able to keep both of the roll plates on the bag:


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## macleanshaun (Sep 19, 2008)

This is good. opcorn:


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## sassmasterd (Feb 3, 2007)

Subscribed !


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## boradie sucht (Aug 12, 2012)

:beer::beer:


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## DoctorDoctor (Oct 18, 2006)

Can't wait to see the finished product! :thumbup::thumbup:


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## mentos876 (Oct 20, 2013)

sweet mother of god. this is sweet!


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## Iku (Mar 11, 2009)

Beautiful work.

What did you cut your access ports with?


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## [email protected] (Sep 1, 2012)

Looking good Aaron!:beer:


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## hyphytrain203 (Jun 9, 2003)

awesome work man!

i wonder if you could reverse mount the UCA's?


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## Dutchmastr9 (Sep 13, 2004)

bro youre fcukin nuts. I love it :thumbup:


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## EDM_v-dub (Mar 16, 2003)

:thumbup::thumbup:

Nice to see someone taking the time to do more than just bolt one of these kits in.


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## LOWFORM (Aug 23, 2013)

Thx for all the feed back!

Iku - do you mean to access the top bag port in the rear? I used a hole saw on the bottom then a die grinder with a cutoff wheel to connect the two circles. Followed by a die grinder and a flapper disc and some finishing with a hand file.

Tom - love working with you guys!

Hyphy - I like your thought process. I'll have to check that out tomorrow.

EDM - this Airlift kit has a ton of flexibility. I love the fact I can really dial in my total drop.

Hopefully I'll get some more work done this weekend. Stay tuned for pics. :beer::beer:


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## leftovers (Dec 29, 2010)

Great start! Subscribed.


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## 85vrcoupe (Oct 7, 2002)

I really like where this is going. :thumbup:


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## 03_uni-B (Sep 6, 2005)

hushdc said:


> :thumbup: You have inspired me to clean my wheel wells.


This! And looking good, keep up the work!


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## c0r3y.af (Oct 8, 2009)

Looking excellent so far :thumbup:


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## LOWFORM (Aug 23, 2013)

Progress has been slow but steady. I dropped all the belly pans (cleaned them of course) to run the air and eLevel lines. Today I had a little more free time so I started working on the front eLevel sensors. Installing eLevel sensors on a car with aluminum suspension is never an easy tank. I tossed around a few ideas and finally came up with what you see below. I drew the upper eLevel sensor brackets in CAD, cut them on a CNC plasma table, bent them and bolted them in. I was able to use a factory mount for the top screw, using a self-tapper for the 2nd mounting screw. On the bottom I drilled and tapped the lower control arm. Also, a nice thing about these new style eLevel sensors is you can re-index them (shown below) so they can work in any orientation.

















































In my down time I began working on my S4/RS4 bumper swap. In the front I cleaned everything up real well while it was apart, then plasti-dipped the front crash support and relocation my homelink sensor

































I also decided to play it safe and had 2mm shaved off the back of my wheels. That gives me a good 1mm of clearance between the rim and rear fender. Only problem...now the rim hits the rear upper shock mount! I guess that is something I'll have to modify tomorrow. Thanks again for following this build....much more to come soon!


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## sassmasterd (Feb 3, 2007)

Looking good man. makes me realize how much I been slacking lol Gonna have to get back under my car this week and do some work 👍


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## TheTynosaur (Jul 27, 2012)

Subbed


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## 03_uni-B (Sep 6, 2005)

We want updates!


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## LOWFORM (Aug 23, 2013)

Hello again everyone. I appreciate all the positive comments. Sorry for the lack of updates. Progress has been slow... but steady. 

I spent some time tossing around how to mount the rear eLevel sensors and decided to go with a variation similar to what Accuair offers on their B8 kit. Since I had to ditch my rear sway bar, I liked the idea of using their mounts for something. Below is what I came up with:

























Also, since I took 2mm off my wheels, they started to come into contact with my upper shock mount. Easy fix...busted out the grinder!









So, at this point all my suspension is DONE! Feels like I spent waaaaay too much time on something that is essentially bolt-in, but that's what I do best. Next I turned my attention towards the air management. Since I decided to hardline this using all AN fittings I went with Accuair's VU4 manifold with all NPT ports. This allows me to use my own fittings rather than their standard PTC fittings. However, it will be a little more of a wait before that shows up so I spent some time mounting my elevel ECU, relays and fuses. Originally everything was going to go on a bracket mounted in the spare tire well, but my creative juices started flowing and this is what I came up with:

The original concept. I decided to ditch the Stinger relays per Reno's suggestion at Accuair. Apparently they have been harmful to the ECU in the past, so I'd rather not play with fire:









































I started with a cardboard filler piece (show above), then coated it with fiberglass resin on the front side...then some fiberglass mat on the back side for support.









All wired up along with a final install pic:

















Tires still aren't in...it's killing me! So, I threw a front wheel on to get a visual of how low it will sit with my new side skirts and front end. Looking like I ought to be pretty close to the ground:









That's about it for now. Hopefully this weekend with be a productive one!


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## 85vrcoupe (Oct 7, 2002)

Can't wait to see it with tires on and it laid out on the ground :thumbup:


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## 03_uni-B (Sep 6, 2005)

Awesome update :thumbup:
and great work on the trunk setup, really clean work :thumbup::thumbup:


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## LOWFORM (Aug 23, 2013)

Hello everyone! Sorry for the lack of updates. With my limited free time, every minute has being consumed getting this car ready for Wuste. It's amazing how long the simplest takes can take, but that is what I have loved about this build...I never had a real deadline and I could really enjoy each detail and over think every step of the build.

Anyhow, last time I posted I was waiting on my tires. I went with Toyo Proxes T1 Sports in a 245/30ZR20 and I love them! They stretch beautifully on my 10" wide wheels and drive very smooth and quiet. Below are a few photos:


























There were a few moments through this build that I would consider the highlights and getting the wheels on was certainly towards the top. There was always a certain amount of 'unknown' as to whether I would be able to tuck as much wheel with the tires on....and everything fit perfect! Clearance was ridiculously close, which is awesome! []

Next on my list was to install my Accuair eLevel. Accuair suggest you mount their module outside the vehicle, but only gives about four feet of cable to accomplish that. I wanted my eLevel neatly (and symmetrically) placed behind my back bumper (new S4 rear bumper, btw), so the only way to achieve this was to tediously cut, solder, end extend each of the wires in the harness. Because I'm neurotic, I also bought color coded wiring to match the colors supplied in the Accuair harness.


























My air management was going to be installed in a fashion visually similar to others, so I had to be sure to take extra steps with the details to set me apart from everyone else. My rack was all CNC cut from a design I drew in CAD. After I welded it together, I smoothed all my welds and did some minor body work prior to paint


















Now is where the fun starts. One thing that I always disliked about the Accuair VU4 manifold is the asymmetry of the harness. From a business point of view, I would probably do the same as them....but I couldn't deal with it personally. The top of the VU4 manifold is nothing more than a printed circuit board with the dump coils soldered in place. I cut all the wiring off and carefully extended each valve coil wire so they could neatly (and symmetrically) exit from the bottom of the manifold. This allowed me the pleasure of cutting off the plug and drastically cleaning up the look of the valve block. Furthermore, since this block was special ordered from Accuair with NPT ports (rather than PTC) I installed my chromed fittings 3/8"NPT to male AN#6 with a 37 degree flare. I also tried something new (for me at least) and used all black anodized AN fittings from Earls with my hardline. These little guys required my lines to have a 37 degree flare using 3/8" seamless aluminum .049 lines. As you can see in the pictures below, I exited my return lines behind the manifold so I could hide my Accuair mufflers (which are also awesome! [] ).



















































With compressors, I decided to go with dial Viair 444c's. They are a little larger, but I prefer their tone since it is deeper and not as loud as the smaller compressors. To further quiet the compressors, I bought the Airlift compressor isolator kit. This allows you to install mini coils under the 'feet' of the compressor which they claim drastically reduces compressor noise. To stay true to my OCD, I drew up my own design rather than using the brackets that Airlift supplies. My design allowed me to run the isolators with a smaller foot print, give me a platform to run my wiring through, and also provide me a place to mount a (chromed) bulkhead fitting so I could hardline the compressor while still allowing the movement it needed (by running soft line under the compressor for flexibility). Lastly, I TIG welded in some new bungs so I could put the tank fill ports exactly where I wanted them and had my compressor filters painted for that little splash of color.


























All the wiring was cleaned up and secured away for peace of mind and all my management junctions take place behind the rear seat bolster for easy access if anything were to happen in the future.


















There were a few other installers out there they had done wooden floors in their cars (like @becausebags) and I wanted to incorporate that into my car build with my own special touches. I went to my local household flooring supplier and bought some 3/4" thick costal maple flooring in an 'ash' color. This particular flooring flipped between grey and brown, so I spent about an hour at the store and went through about 10 boxes to find the most 'grey' pieces they offered. The salesman there was so helpful and didn't mind me sorting through the boxes...so that was also awesome! [] I took my flooring, assembled it, glued it, and let it cure overnight. The next day, using a template, I cut my perfect shape using a router. For the extra flash, I installed a thin 1/8" thick aluminum around the perimeter of the wood to help separate it from my carpet...this ended up being one of my favorite details.  


























Once I had my floor compete I was able to wrap up my hardline and get everything bolted down. Every bolt used was a chrome hex top with a nylon locking nut. Gotta love the details!


























After I soldered my last wire, I plugged in my main 80 amp fuse and said a prayer. I extended all the wires on my iLevel, created my own wiring harness for the compressors, eLevel ecu, I hardwired my VU4 manifold and cut all my eLevel sensor wires to length...this was either going to be a glorious moment or a moment of pure defeat....and it all fired up perfect! The natural step (after I calibrated the eLevel) was to pull the car out of the garage and put it on the ground for the first time (don't mind the abomination of a Honda civic in the background). Awesome! []


















And...fast forward a week...some picture of it at Wuste in Las Vegas where it was displayed as a feature vehicle


































So...that almost completes phase 1 on this build. I have an exhaust going on it in the next week...then I'm going to enjoy it for a few months before I tear into it again for SEMA. After all, my family misses me  I appreciate all the positive feed back and hope you guys enjoyed this build as much as I have.


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## meanopause (Sep 15, 2008)

saw it in vegas. my favorite car out there :thumbup:


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## boradie sucht (Aug 12, 2012)

oh gawd


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## 85vrcoupe (Oct 7, 2002)

Beautiful work and well worth the wait :thumbup:


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## hyphytrain203 (Jun 9, 2003)

I am extremely envious of your patience/attention to detail :beer:

Everything looks incredible man!


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## 03_uni-B (Sep 6, 2005)

That manifold! and those hardlines! You just confirmed I will be going with an NPT block when I change things up this winter!


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## Clewley8 (May 21, 2008)

This is an awesome build thread! Love the Attention to details!


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## LOWFORM (Aug 23, 2013)

Thx guys! 

03_uni-B, I wish Accuair would make the NPT block part of their standard production line. I've hardlined to NPT fittings plenty of times, but it just seems so much more secure with compression or AN fittings.


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## 1SikCC (Aug 1, 2013)

imma be honest………i hate bagged cars who tuck!!!!! but you sir have definitely done it so right i have fallen in love with you car sir…. great build, craftsman ship, and setup. My hat off to you!!!


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## littleyan92 (Jul 6, 2011)

this is amazing. simply. amazing. :thumbup:


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## sammii (Aug 6, 2007)

A ma zinggg


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## Twilliams83 (Jan 25, 2011)

one i was able to grab from the window of my room at wuste. Loved it man.

B8 A$ by todd williams 83, on Flickr


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## Tony_0305 (Jul 20, 2014)

I love the look I just purchased Airlift struts and bag for front and rear for the A4 B8 with Accuair E-Level I plan to do something like what u did..


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## Ultimatetaba (Feb 18, 2005)

Wow, the detail is insane. Absolutely LOVE it dude! Looked awesome in person at Wuste


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## jbro1988 (Dec 24, 2010)

That is absolutely gorgeous!!! Love the attention to details...I think you are as OCD as me haha! Cleanest setup I have seen in a long time! eace:


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## johnny5gti (Nov 17, 2002)

wow..props man..what an amazing setup and build. the car looks flawless!


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## eurotrsh (Dec 25, 2004)

Damn dude. This looks great.


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## kid55 (May 6, 2008)

So much pride in your work,everything is so clean:thumbup:


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## LOWFORM (Aug 23, 2013)

Hello friends and thank you for the photo Twilliams. It's been a while since I've given any kind of update.... just enjoying the car and trying to avoid rock chips  If you're looking for a good article, check out my feature in the latest issue of Slam'd Mag:

http://slamdmag.com/2014/10/ocd-audi-lowforms-a4-makes-its-debut/


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## jcurotto23 (Jul 29, 2012)

This is amazing man. Huge props!


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## leftovers (Dec 29, 2010)

That's a cool feature/writeup. Congrats.


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## Shaggs McCreepy (Jun 5, 2014)

*A4..*

I just have to say, THIS is one of the baddest Audi's out there!! VERY clean! Way to go!!


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## ProjectA3 (Aug 12, 2005)

Just found this thread. Aaron your car is amazing you know that right. I love how you brought a whole other level of low to the euro scene based on your past automotive interests.

I look forward to you working with Jason and I on my A3 next.


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## DarkSideGTI (Aug 11, 2001)

Any chance we can get the pics on page 1 working again?


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## sam1bas (Aug 17, 2013)

Bringing up a dead thread, but I recently got an 09 A4 and have ordered a set of 20x10 et35 rotiforms and will be doing the Accuair/Airlift combo hopefully by summer. All of the rolling/cutting/welding you did for fitment, was all of that necessary or was some of it just for your personal preferences? This was such an amazing write up. Already have it bookmarked as a reference for when I get my setup done.


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