# Beyond 440HP K04 Allroad Build



## onyrmom (Oct 17, 2010)

I was out Googling one day, thinking, "Boy, I wonder if anyone was stupid enough to blow a crapload of money pimping out an Allroad...", when I came across this post:

440hp K04 allroad project complete! Step-by-step pictures inside.

By the time I finished reading the thread, I said, "No WAY this Obelix guy is stupider than I am!!! I WAY more dumber-er than that guy!" So, I took my 04 Allroad with a blown Torque converter and airsac suspension saggier than an 70-year-old scrotum, and ripped it apart:



Unlike this Obelix character, I don't have my own shop, so it took me a while to staple together a Tyvek allroad condom to do the work in 

Actually, here are the real reasons why I embarked on this monumental amount of dumbness, before I show more of the project... 

It started with a P0741 code from the torque converter, which is of course the "Hi, we're ZF and we're too lazy/stupid to put good quality rubber in a seal system WELDED INSIDE the most inaccessible place in the entire motor/transmission assembly. Hell, we're making money, so screw you!" error. It's also known as the "No Drivability Concern" error from Audi...so no recall (God forbid!). Here's a good article on the problem:

ZF Torque Converter Clutch Seal Failure

I just dealt with the whole 8MPG less-all-of-a-sudden problem, thinking I'd just gimp along until something reaaaallly went bad on the car, and LO AND BEHOLD, I walked up to the car one day and it looked like this:



At this point, I was faced with the fundamental question all VAG product owners ask themselves at some point: "How stupid am I feeling today?

Given the "We're VAG and we still are using the same ridiculously bad sunroof drainage design that was leaking water all over the inside of '71 SuperBeatles" recall ... 

and the "You don't need all those coil packs to actually work ALL the time, do you?" recall ... 

and the "Hell, we have piping break off of our gas tanks all the time, it's no big deal. Plastic is better than metal, right?" recall ...

I was sorely tempted to just dump this damn crapwagon on some unsuspecting fool and just walk away from the whole thing. But all of a sudden, "God Bless America" started ringing in my head, and I was filled with the desire to spend a bucketful of money to HELP BRING BACK OUR ECONOMY!

So I whipped out my trusty Sears Card and maxed that sucker out buying parts for my Krautvagen!

Back to the project, I've gained enough smarts over the years to mark all of the plumbing before monkey-yanking things apart...



I had originally put the APR 91 Octane program on the ECU, which made every damn seal on the motor start spewing oil all over the engine compartment - there's some kind of comparison to Paris Hilton in here, but I'm too tired to nail it down. But I can tell you that the intake plumbing was always full of oil once I increased the boost.... which is of course not-so-hot for the turbos and everything else in the motor.



A shop that shall go unnamed has a PCV catchcan kit ("It's not a catchcan!", they insist) that may help with this - but I'll be happy with $100 of Orchard Supply Hardware plumbing rather than pay seven times that much for their custom-fabbed aluminium cyclonic vorticial oil vapor separation system and catchment assembly (aka catchcan).

A tech note: I did not have a vented oil filler cap, which I have heard will help with this particular problem. But I can assure everyone that my rings were fine (95% leakdown on all cylinders)- it's just my opinion that anyone who sells an APR chip mod for a motor with even a moderate number of miles on it, saying it's "Safe and causes no complications down the road" is full of crap and is banking on your future maintenance dollar. 

Like I mentioned, the motor had good leakdown on all cylinders after 130k miles, so I went easy on the motor part of the job - just new seals, rings, and bearings on a simple hone and polish job with stock rods and pistons. Yeah, I know that rods are a good idea, but I'm just not going to be tracking my car...no launches on slicks, no 150-shots.... no 100+ degree track days at Buttonwillow...

But back to the job.

I can assure all of you that the way NOT to take apart your allroad is to pull the engine out while the trans and subframe are still secured in the car. 

1: Undoing the downpipe/header connections made me want to hang myself after only a few minutes. There's no easy suggestion for this - I was finally able to get the last bolts undone using a 3' extension with a flex joint on the end while lying under the car swearing at myself for two hours.

2: As it turns out, undoing the rear subframe bolts will drop the transmission just enough that you can get at the downpipe bolts more easily, but you have to be TREMENDOUSLY CAREFUL NOT TO BEND THE TRANSMISSION PAN WITH YOUR JACK. I cannot emphasize that enough. Use a 2x6 or something to spread out the lifting force across either the entire pan, or the subframe itself.

3: All of the bell housing bolts holding the trans to the motor are just that - bolts - except for one last one on the bottom driver's side - it's a bolt AND a nut, while all the others thread directly into either the bell housing or the block.... DO NOT BREAK YOUR BELL HOUSING BY FORGETTING TO UNDO THIS BOLT/NUT COMBO!!!

I'm sure all of this is already in the 2.7L forums, but I can tell you this is exceptionally hard with the Allroad tiptronic. It's much better to just unbolt the driveshafts, unplug a bunch of cables and tubes, undo the bolts at the top of the front struts and just drop the whole trans/motor/subframe as a single unit. Lesson learned....

Another thing: you're going to bust a bunch of little plastic crap. Accept it. Set aside $100 for clips, straps, and other crap you'll need to replace. Get an ETKA install and use it to pull the part numbers out of the Electrical parts special catalog. Installing ETKA is project of it's own, which will get it's own post....

To Be Continued...


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## onyrmom (Oct 17, 2010)

*Beyond 440+ HP K04 Allroad project- the wonder years....*

Here's a shot of the motor with it's dirty plumbing (still thinking about Paris Hilton...maybe Mischa Barton?)



So, at this point, I've pulled the motor out, and it's sitting on the floor with all the piping and the electrical trunk piled next to it. Next, I call up my trusty local Snap-On guy and pick up the right set of tools to pull the driveshafts off--- those damn 12-point sockets are recoculous.



Anyhow- Got the front subframe and suspension out- and after pulling the front struts apart, realized that putting Slime in the leaking airbag six months ago wasn't such a good idea. I didn't take a picture because of "the horror, the horror", but imagine lime jello pudding (pudding, not gelatin) that has sat in a dark, sealed rubber bag for six months. This is not what it looked like:



So, off I go to the Arnott website (www.arnottinc.com), and order myself a set of four of their super air springs and their Bilstein shock conversion set:

Arnott allroad suspension parts

$2300 later, I've got a four-corner suspension set on it's way. I can't recommend Arnott highly enough - Adam Arnott will actually answer your emails, and they are exceptional to work with. If you have a problem, they'll deal with it...no questions asked. 

While I'm on the subject of suspension, someone mentioned on a forum somewhere that there's an MBZ compressor that is the same Wabco part as the VAG part. This is true- I purchased one:



The price is aboute $280, but it is totally NOT WORTH THE EFFORT. It comes with different air fittings, and as you can see, I had to remove the fittings, tap the aluminum and plastic compressor housings, fit in brass replacements...totally a loss with all the labor involved. Just buy the Arnott replacement- it's the same Wabco pump, and it'll come with the right fittings.

Disregard any BS forum posts you might see from people claiming suspension computer errors after installing the Arnott compressor - they're idiots. It's a straight plug-and-play replacement.

Before I put in the suspension, the engine compartment got a good steam cleaning:



This revealed that at some point, the ABS system leaked brake fluid onto the frame, bubbling up the paint below the ABS scaffold, and removing the paint from the scaffold itself. 

1000W of halogen shop light made for quick paint curing:



Much wirebrushing, solvent cleaning, and rattlecanning later, things were looking better (especially after cleaning the heatshielding):





Yes, it's black paint. No, I don't care what color my engine compartment framing is, since I will never see it under the motor, turbos, plumbing, heatshields, etc....

Here's the infamous "Why are my carpets wet?" drainhole under the battery, that always gets plugged with random crap. If I had leaves and junk in this compartment with a garaged California car, then I can totally see how anyone who lives in an area that actually experiences these things called "the four seasons" can block this thing up. But seriously - you'd have to have about 20 gallons of water in here before it's seep through some seals into the passenger area.....



Next stop: Reassembly


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## onyrmom (Oct 17, 2010)

*Beyond 440+ HP K04 Allroad project- Why I didn't use APR, and JNTA Syndrome*

Ok, so far in our saga, I've:

1: Pulled out the trans, motor, front subframe, front suspension, rear diff, suspension compressor, rear suspension, ECU

2: Trashed the stock springs and struts for the Arnotts, and replaced the compressor since the old leaky airsacs had burned it out

3: Taken the motor down for a hone and polish job

Now I'm left with the big questions:

1: How "big" do I go with the motor build

2: What do I do with the transmission depending on my answer to 1, above

3: Who do I choose to source parts and labor from for the above items?


Starting with 1:

I've worked as a mechanic in a prior life, and have now moved into IT work. I have a passing understanding of the thermodynamics, chemisty, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and project management requirements of building a good car, but I certainly don't do this every day for a living.

So, first I looked at motor tuners. Here is how my thought process worked.

Because I have a friend who works on Audi's who recommended APR, I had used their 91 octane program to get a cheap performance increase when I first purchased the car. I then ran into the problems I've mentioned in my prior posts. 

To be fair, again, the car had 130k miles on it by the time I pulled it apart, but everyone I have spoke with has told me that the 2.7's are bulletproof, and that I shouldn't run into any real problems with the motor itself. I'm just too old to completely believe that you ever get something for nothing, and my opinion is now that any minor chip mod will do naughty things to a stock motor that has not been prepared for increased boost.

But, I went to the prior shop (who shall remain nameless) and asked them first about the APR Stage Three kit. Why Stage Three? Because if I'm going to go through all this damn work taking the thing apart, I'm going to do everything that I can afford to do all at once rather than piecemeal it together. And the stock K03's were getting noisier and noisier, so I was already destined for a turbo upgrade.

The nameless shop tells me, "APR is the best because their stage three kit uses all stock RS04 parts and it just works", so I was sold. 

Until I called APR themselves to try and get some detail about their system. Here's how it went:

1st Call: I speak to a marketing girl, give her my questions, and my contact info. She says she will get me the answers and get back to me.

2nd Call three days later: I speak to the same marketing girl, who says she lost my contact info, and that I should talk to the shop that I'm buying the kit from. I reply that the shop doesn't know the answers to my questions. She says she'll ask her tech guy and get back to me.

3rd Call three days later: I call and ask for the tech guy. 
Tech Guy: "Hello"
Me: "Hi, is this Chris Teague?"
Tech Guy: "Yeah, who else would it be?" (add "assh***" to the end of that, and you get the attitude)

The conversation goes downhill from there. I end up back with the marketing girl, then back to Tech Guy, who refuses to answer my questions.

End result: Sorry APR, you're Just Not That Awesome. "JNTA Syndrome".

All I wanted to know was how their product adapts to a methanol/water injection kit, and if their stage three K04 program would install on my ECU. Well, I guess they don't need the business. 
Good luck, asshats!

Next stop: European Performance Labs. Honestly, their product looks great, but I'm in California, and they're in Connecticut. Not the best distance for custom tuning.

Third stop: GIAC. They look like they know what they're doing, but I read mixed reviews on various sites, and just didn't hear alot of good 2.7 reviews for their engine product. Not a total loss for them, though- more on that later.

Last stop: VAST. I pulled their name from Obelix' post that started all of this, and found tons of kudos for their product all over the forums. Also, I found a shop, JH Motorsports, who is local to me and who has a great working relationship with VAST.

Their online store (and JHM's) is well-designed, has tons of relevant part information, and some seemingly well thought-out kits. But it's the tons of happy customers that sold me.

My phone conversation with them:

1st call: "VAST, this is Mike."
"Hi, I'm looking for an ECU and fueling kit for my Allroad." 
"Great- you want to talk to Prince. I'll let him know you called."
2nd call: "VAST, this is Prince."
"Hi, I'm looking for an ECU and fueling kit for my Allroad."
"Sure, here's what you want."

That's all I could ask for.

So, for the engine, it's:
VAST for the programming and kits
and
JH Motorsports for tuning once I have the motor assembled.

A final word on shops: I checked out five Audi shops in NorCal that have dealer relationships with the part manufacturers above. Trust me: JH Motorsports is the best. 

Example:
Me: "Hi, I just bought a bunch of parts from you. I know that labor is where you make most of your money, but I intend to do most of the work myself. Can I pay you for some consulting time to answer some questions about how I should build my project, and then pay you to do the final tune?"

JHM: "Nah - no need for that. Just pay us for some tuning time after you get it all together, and we'll make sure that we get the best custom tune program from VAST that you need for your particular build. Oh, and by the way, we'll stay late and press out your wheel bearings for you on a Friday night."

Me: "Here's my credit card number."


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## onyrmom (Oct 17, 2010)

*Beyond 440+ HP K04 Allroad project- Transmission Impossible*

Ok - so the motor is settled on RS04 K04's for quick low-end boost (it's not a quarter-mile car, remember?), reliability, and OEM familiarity for the tuners. VAST for the tune itself, with their fuel kit including a Hitachi MAF for fast sensor response, burly injectors, plumbing, pressure regulator,etc. I stuck with the stock RS04 fuel pump rather than the VAST fuel pump just because I'm looking for reliability, not insane flow rates. 

ER Intercoolers because they simply are the biggest side mount IC's that will fit in my car, are cheaper than RS04 OEM intercoolers, and work better.

And a bunch of other stuff that I'll detail in a future post once I have the motor totally assembled.

But as for the transmission:

I stayed with a Tip because I'm f'ing old. I don't have a bocephalus sticker on my 442 and I don't light 'em up just for fun.

So, the problem is now: Why would I put around 500HP on a ZF trans that has demonstrated to me that:

1: It sucks.
2: ZF has put out about three revisions of torque converter for
3: The reverse gear clutch is known to just frag itself because of item 1:

The answer is to get a custom built Tip that can handle the HP, be drivable, reliable, and will just f'ing work. There is only one shop that that builds such a thing, and hint: they're not in New Jersey.
2bennett GTR Transmission

'nuff said.

Aside from totally rebuilding the internals of the Tip, they literally cut open, rebuild, reweld, and rebalance the ZF torque converter. When I say rebuild, I mean disassemble, remachine (as in install tougher sealed bearing assemblies), and overbuild all internal moving parts.

So, to wrap up the transmission and drivetrain conversation, I opted for the A6 transmission and rear differential rather than the stock Allroad transmission in order to get about a 10% increase in the final drive ratio - that'll bring my cruising RPM to below 3000, which was really annoying me on long trips. Even more after the TC started constantly slipping.

Pics (not to glamorous-looking, but it's the real deal):



Even my cat is like, WTF?



A6 Diff:


I'll spare you the pics of the new trans mounts, etc. But here is my minty-fresh front subframe that the trans is going on:



Anyone for a box o' Audi?


You may wonder why there's a random drivers' seat sitting in my driveway. Well, the allroad is the first car I have had that spontaneously combusted:


The seatback heating element literally burned a hole through the seat. There's nothing funny to say about this - I'm just glad I didn't get seriously burned, and that the seat didn't catch itself, me, and the rest of the car on fire.

I guess the only thing to say is that I've heard worse stories about MBZ and BMW electrics...


So, next steps:

Finish suspension assembly
Brake upgrades
Motor build and installation
Wheels/tires
Lights
Various interior tweaks


More posts on the way......


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## ElliottG (Sep 23, 2008)

Looks good man can't wait to see more progress and vids! 

You should post this on Audizine if you want to get more views!


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## mal4ugan4o (Nov 18, 2009)

really nice project!
good luck!


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## Mellomac (Jun 19, 2003)

Wow, great work so far. I can't wait for the updates and end result :thumbup::beer:


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## onyrmom (Oct 17, 2010)

*Thread Relocation*

Hi All-

I've relocated the build thread to:
http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php/392815-Beyond-440HP-K04-Allroad-Build

No offense to VWVortex, but there seems to be a bigger allroad community on audizine.

There have been a ton of updates since my first post here, so come and check it out!


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## halitzor (Dec 26, 2007)

I'll buy this car when you get tired of it... seriously...


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## vwsnaps (Jan 2, 2000)

Love the build thread -i realize its old post - but thought id bump it for those like me that are new to allroads and have the pre-set 2 month preset on vortex.

Heading over to Audizine now to catch up - i posted a link to this post on a friends facebook page who is a VW tech at dealership - the way you talk , you two might be lost brothers or something..


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## allroad (Jun 27, 2010)

What's the bill on the tranmission? Interested in getting some work done so that I can upgrade the performance of my engine without fear of catastophic TC fail.


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## ShadowWabbit (Aug 16, 2006)

Awesome build, I have catching up to do!


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