Bits and Bobs

We are running out of things to do again so are picking away at bits and bobs before we send the car out for its wiring harness. Here’s a few little things we managed over the last few weeks:The shape of the curve on one of the rear arches has always bothered us. We got the body filler out and fixed it.We want a strut bar in this car so,...

More Slots & Screens

At the end of our last update, we left you wondering if we could resist the temptation to adjust the lower slots on the bumper cover. Well, of course we couldn’t. They actually didn’t need much fettling. This was the worst offender and a fairly easy fix.So, we moved on to installing the screens. We found this nice stainless-steel mesh online that looked about the right size. It came in...

Playing The Slots

Building this car was always going to be a gamble but we had no idea how addictive it could be. And so, it was proven when we started to consider putting the screens into our bumper slots. We always thought they would need cleaning up a little but the closer we looked the worse they looked. We soon realized they were all the wrong shape and even, to some extent,...

Professional Wiring for our Rally Quattro!

In order to move the project along at a quicker pace and to implement the wiring at a much higher level than we could manage we have engaged the services of Jonathan Carlini of SportsCarTecnologies.com To build us a custom, race specification wiring harness for the project. The first part of this was the battery and power cables he built and delivered so we were very excited to get them installed, as...

Our Rally Quattro Gets A Dash Cover

One of our favorite aspects of this build is how many friends in the local car community have helped us with it; so, you can imagine how thrilled we were when we got the opportunity to work with a personal friend on the car. The original works cars used a canvas dash pad/cover held on by snaps that was somewhat unique. Our friend Jean is a dab hand with a...

Quattro Rally Build Update: Mounting of Many Things

It’s been a little while since our last update but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been beavering away on the car. It just means we’ve been too busy to write an update. Let’s rectify that now.We finalized our mounting system for our spare and tool kit and jack.Then installed our intercom and Rennline fire extinguisher mount.And then found room for one of these fancy Element fire sticks.We even installed the...

Sorting Out The Intake

We are checking things off pretty quickly lately and are starting to feel as if we might actually finish this phase of the project someday.One major victory was getting the intake sorted. We had settled on a simple cone filter next to the turbo but were never really happy with it.We really wanted a Group B Kevlar tube taking cold, pressurized air from the cowl but that was a bit...

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...