Radiator Shrouds!

The ancient art of ducting cold air through the radiator is shrouded in mystery. We were fresh out of mystery so we used ABS sheet instead as it's malleable and we had a lot of it lying around..With a bit of heat and some persuaders it can actually be formed into 90 degree bends!We were pleasantly surprised how it came out, except the top piece looked too white so we...

Light at the End of the Tunnel, or Hood...

We have been picking away at this project fairly consistently this year and we are beginning to sense the end is nigh. At least in terms of the dry build phase. If we are feeling generous, we could probably convince ourselves we that we only have two things left to do: all the wiring and all the bodywork! Plus, this stuff below.2023 got going with a visit from Ryan Thompson,...

More Power! (steering)

We may have mentioned, some time ago now, that our engine packaging approach left us without power steering and that we planned to solve this issue by installing an electric power steering pump from a Volvo. Well we recently got around to actually installing it. This is our pump:And we need to install it behind the radiator which, in these cars, is off to the side of the engine not...

Rennline Battery Box/Mount

While we were in there (the trunk) we decided to mount the battery. We selected a medium sized AGM version from Odyssey and a battery mount from Rennline. We just needed to create a platform for them to site on. There’s a spare tire sorta depression on the right side so we welded some bars across that to mount the bracket too. Looks like it belongs there.We also got the...

Heel Plates and Sparco Trunk Latches

As there’s no carpet anymore and the floor is pretty uneven we took another cue from the Group B cars and built what we’re calling a “heel plate”. This raises the drivers feet a bit and gives a lip for the heels to rest against. Of course we tried to copy the Group B version as much as possible. We only hope it’s in the right place!First some Cardboard Aided...

Securing The Hood & New Adjustable Strut Tops

Securing The HoodAs we are using motorsport hood pins from Sparco we won’t be needing the OE bump stops so we also won’t be needing this bit of metal were they live. We cut them off and tidied up the area. Looks much neater and very Group B now.Adjustable Strut TopsWe were never quite confident in the no-name strut tops that came with the car originally so we bit the...

Sealing the Rear Bulkhead

We finally installed and sealed the rear, aluminum bulkhead that we have had in and out of the car quite a few times. It’s never coming out again now though. The bulked, supplied by TRF, is in two parts. One is essentially a parcel shelf and the other the more bulkhead-like vertical divider between the passenger compartment and the trunk, that contains the fuel tank. For this reason, we thought...

It’s 2022. Car Is Not Finished

We started 2022 full of enthusiasm with a clear goal for the car: finish it. Well, now it’s late March and sad to report that not a ton of progress has been made. On a brighter note it’s probably because the build is getting us so much publicity that we are overwhelmed with orders, maybe. We did go on a bit of a spending spree however. We bought some snazzy,...

Did we do anything in 2021?

Oh boy, another year has gone by and we still haven’t finished this car! We have photo albums on Flickr going back as far as 2016. That’s seven albums, if you include the new one for 2022! To be fair, the 2016 album and the project itself only started in September of 2016. We actually got the car in December of 2015 but didn’t know what to do with it...

Twice As Cool - Quattro Rally Build Update

We know we said we weren’t going to “use” a rear mounted oil cooler but we never said we weren’t going to “install” one did we? The rear oil cooler on rally Quattros is so iconic that we couldn’t not have one. There are plenty of tribute cars out there that don’t bother with this touch but we just couldn’t give up on this detail. Soon, we started to wonder...

Keep Your (oil) Cool - Quattro Rally Car Update

The Quattro rally cars all had a very iconic and loooong oil cooler tucked under their large, trunk mounted rear spoiler but we never wanted or needed the expensive dry sump oil system that goes with it so we are going to use a more traditional, front mounted oil cooler on this build. The stock oil cooler that came with our AAN engine is quite small, some would even say...

Committing to Front Bars

The last time we referenced the front skid plate bar was back in May when we were installing the front tow hook which is sandwiched between the chassis rail and the skid plate bar mounting flange. At that time, it was mocked up from PVC conduit. Now we felt it was time to commit it to steel and even connect it to the front bumper bar. How hard could that...

Alternator-tive Universe

We all know that Audis are different and UR Quattros even more different. Well, we also tend to do things differently and that did not change when it came to installing the alternator for our rally car.We could have just used the stock alternator in the stock location on the stock bracket but that meant it wouldn’t be able to power our ridiculous number of lights, it would be right...

Works Muffler Mounts

We’ve been frustrated by the rear muffler just hanging around but finally had some time to tackle it. We wanted to replicate the works cars even though it’s ridiculously over built.How hard could it be? First find some bushings from McMaster and some cardboard:Guess the length and reproduce it in stainless:Then weld it to the car:Actually, it’s screwed to the car for now. We’ll weld it once we get the...

Time To Get In The Groove

It recently occurred to us that if we ever get to drive this thing we might get a flat and need a spare tire. But what size and where to put it? The stock spare is a skinny donut that fits in the trunk up against the left quarter panel. Our car didn’t come with one and we doubt we’d wanna use a 35+ year old skinny tire anyway. No,...

Stop Buffer? Engine Stop Pitch? EPS?

What’s this called? The Audi parts diagrams call it a “stop buffer” but what does it stop? Engine pitch perhaps? Well, it’s probably important so we should have one, exactly like the works cars of course. Oh boy! We’ll call it an Engine Pitch Stop or EPS.It sits in a receptacle on the bumper bar and presumably stops the engine from pitching back and forth. Subarus have one on the...

Fabricating the Driver's Footrest for Our Quattro Rally Car

Driver's Footrest: In case there’s a long straight between corners or for transits we thought we should have a nice foot rest for our clutch foot. Of course, we tried to reproduce the one on the factory cars because buying a perfectly good off the shelf one would make too much sense. First some auto CAD:Followed by some 1/8” aluminium, with dimple holes:Then we cut it and welded it at...

Rest Your Weary Feet - Quattro Rally Build Update

"Rest Your Weary Feet" - Rally navigators need somewhere to plant their feet and brace themselves. So, rally cars have sturdy footrests. We could easily have bought a generic one or made a simple one but we’d seen the ones employed on the factory cars, and of course thought “we could make that”.As usual we started with a cardboard model to get the shape similar and then transferred that to...

Mud Flap Build Continues on the Quattro Rally Build

A continuation of our mud flap build... When we left off with mud flaps to go do some other stuff we had just finished making all the CAD templates for the brackets. Now we have formed them in steel, welded them to the car and even made an installed the actual mud flaps. Well, Sparco made them; we just trimmed them to fit.Next episode: footrests!

PULL THE OTHER ONE!

Ask any serious rally driver and they’ll tell you that it’s critical that your door pull straps match you pin stands. That’s why we bought these from MOTAMEC in the UKWe wanted to mount them in one of the holes for the original door pull handle because we knew that area of the door would be strong enough and it was in the right place. That had a twist bayonet...

This Week on "Will It Fit"

This week on "Will It Fit", we wanted to find out if a 215/65-15 BFG all-terrain tire would fit on a Quattro. Why? Because a customer wanted to know. Why? Because he put big-arse brakes on his quattro but now wants to go play in the dirt! We thought we could help especially as we had the exact same tire on our Allroad. Unfortunately we didn’t have any 16” wheels...

We're Hooked On Quattros

If you’ve been following this build, you’ll know by now that we have strongly resisted copying the works cars as much as possible. That is unless we can find an excuse to replicate what they did of course. So, it is with the front tow hook. Our car has perfectly good tow hooks that came from Audi. They work, we’ve used them to drag the car into the trailer more...

Closing Gaps On Our Quattro Rally Build Grill

Smile. You’re on Cadded Camera!See the problem? Get closer... big gap.Small gap (and a bent slat)After a bunch of measuring and head scratching, we determined that the top of the carbon/Kevlar bumper was less then perfectly flat. In retrospect we should have just looked at the pictures but we want this build to be engineering based so we got the football fields out and measured everything. No crashing probes into...

Rally Quattro Build Update: Grill Mounting & Alignment

We took a break from cardboard engineering and decided it was time to grill, or attach the grill. This concoction of aluminium slats has been on and off the car for a while but, until now has never really been fully integrated into the front of the car. Sadly, we’ve just been wedging in in there and taking pictures of it. Ultimately it needs to be attached to the upper...