C5 Audi A6 Avant in twin turbo flavour
Discussion
I picked this up at the start of the year, mainly because the engine picqued my interest. There was a 2.7t car for sale close to me but it was beige and a saloon. It had to be an Avant for me, and while idly browsing Ebay this one popped up. They seem to be a real 'rare but nobody cares' sort of car. There just aren't any for sale, and I must have been in the right place at the right time when I saw this one.
I wanted to know what this engine was like, because on paper a 2.7 twin turbo V6 sounds like great fun. It's the same engine as used in the B5 S4 and RS4, except those have bigger turbos from what I gather. The engine in my car is rated at ~250bhp but the S4 and RS4 were more than that. Would it feel slow in a big heavy A6? Also, these engines are a known swap in to 996 shape Porsche 911's, and I happen to own a high mileage one of those too! I don't have time for an engine swap though, so for now I'm having a mini project with the A6. I told LadyGPM it definitely wasn't a project, promise. I got slightly told off once the front end was all apart, but it was worth it!
Here are the pictures 'as bought'. It was minging inside and out, and needed quite a bit of work to bring it back to reliable and well maintained. It didn't have an MOT either, so I drove it 120 miles home via a friends MOT garage. Thankfully it passed first go. I was semi-confident it wouldn't be an issue because the seller had a ramp I could inspect the car on before agreeing to buy, and that worked out quite nicely.
I set to work on making the interior somewhere I'd want to sit. A lot of 'brown' came off the driver's seat
The plastics cleaned up well with a scrub. Back to a light grey rather than brown...
Next on the 'easy win' list was refurbishing the wheels. All the tyres were well past their sell-by date anyway so I got four new ones at the same time.
TIme to buy a service kit, cam belt and water pump and all the extra filters that never get changed. I went for an AutoDoc special own brand 'Ridex' viscous fan clutch and 'Stark' timing belt kit with water pump, which is just Ridex in disguise. Quality looked ok so I went ahead with them rather than return. I'd usually only fit OEM or equivalent but this was a cheap car so I've decided to gamble a bit.
More 'easy win' stuff, or so I thought. The driver's side rear door wouldn't lock/unlock properly or show open/closed on the dash consistently. I found some broken wires and thought I'd solved it, but I had to do this job twice because the lock actuator was dying too! I already had to change both front door actuators because they'd died, but with this one sorted we now had a central locking system that worked.
The cream carpet was pretty rough, so I wet vacc'd it. The nasty stain in the driver's footwell all but disappeared after a liberal application of brake cleaner, seems it was oil based as the detergent in the wet vac wouldn't touch it.
At around this point of interior clean-up I realised the windscreen was actually loose at the passenger bottom corner. It was a replacement and clearly hadn't been stuck in that well. It was also starting to delaminate so needed replacement. I have a decent windscreen fitter local to me so it was easy enough to sort this problem out.
Now on to the fun bits! First things first, lets change the spark plugs. They're a bit of a faff to get to but not very difficult.
I was slightly scared that I was ruining the head when undoing these, they felt horrible. Definitely not been changed in a long time.
Driver's side was the same. Now would be a good time to change the air filter seeing as the airbox is right there.
Good job too. Look at the state of that!
Well overdue fresh filter going in.
The MAF sensor will need replacing soon. That manky old air filter above seems to have been an oiled one, once upon a time. As a reult, the MAF is covered in oily 'gunk'.
Yet another filter that hadn't been changed forever. I couldn't see a date on the fuel filter because it was too rusty...
I did change the oil and oil filter too, but forgot to take pictures of that. The car ran much better with fresh oil/filters/plugs. No surprise!
Next job was the real fun part for me. Cam belt and water pump change. The easiest way to do this is remove the entire front of the car. There is a 'service position' which involves moving the front panel forwards a couple of inches so you don't have to drop the coolant etc, but it was going to be awkward and I'd rather have full access and make a proper job of it.
Start point.
The front is incredibly easy to get off. This car had a small added complication of removing oil cooler lines for the gearbox too, but that wasn't exactly a hardship.
The old viscous fan clutch was toast.
And now for some strip-down!
This cam seal had been leaking rather a lot, apparently it's a common issue. I sourced a pair of replacement seals as part of the cam belt change.
I had to modify my new water pump because it didn't have the cut-out for the dip stick. There are a couple of other V6's that must run the same pump but not have the dip stick in the same location. A few minutes with the grinder saw everything fitting nicely.
Another major source of oil leakage was the power steering pump. I went for a refurbed unit for £100.
Old steering pump had seen better days.
The car was looking a bit better with the engine back in one piece.
I put the front end back on and filled up the fluids. That was another advantage of taking the front off, it gave me a chance to change the coolant, power steering fluid and gearbox oil.
Ta da! A complete car again, and not on axle stands either. So we're finished now, are we?
Nope.
I took apart the whole rear end to trace why the radio wasn't receiving any signal
Found the 'diversity' module in the end. It was in the rear of the headliner...
Annoyingly swapping it out didn't cure the issue, nor did changing the little booster modules under the rear side windows. I sent the head unit away to be checked and it came back with a new tuner unit. It now picks up stations but won't find them easily or at all unless you tune in manually. It's a known problem on C5's but I'm unsure what to do next. I think I'll change the antenna unit on the roof as it looks like it's seen better days. Hopefully that'll fully fix it.
Even though its totally pointless because the paintwork is well beyond saving, I gave it some clay bar and polishing treatment just to see what would happen. It had probably never been done before because the clay bar went very brown almost instantly on every panel. I've not seen a car that bad before, so I felt like I was making a good improvement. Machine polishing showed a definite improvement too, but in reality the car needs a full respray. Still, my scratches and orange peel bead up nicely in the rain!
While going through VAG Com I noticed the alarm had an error. These have NiMh batteries inside which go bad after a while, and that time had come and gone for my alarm siren unit. You can't buy the original batteries any more, so need to get a bit inventive if you want to fix it.
Firstly, you need to chop the unit in half as it seems to be plastic welded together.
Old batteries out.
New battery pack being made up. I found some batteries on Ebay of equivalent spec so bought a couple.
Battery pack finished and soldered in to place on the motherboard of the siren unit.
Instant gasket used to seal the two halves of the unit back together, and installed in the depths of the boot.
I checked VAG Com and the alarm error has disappeared now, so I'll call that a win.
I've just insured and taxed this car so I'll be using it in place of the 911 to give it a shakedown. It's going on a big Euro trip in August and I couldn't take the 911 because I'll have a car full of people and luggage. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's not a slow thing at all. You can really feel the torque developed by the turbos and it accelerates quite nicely for a big old lump. Dare I say that it doesn't *feel* a lot slower than the 911.
I wanted to know what this engine was like, because on paper a 2.7 twin turbo V6 sounds like great fun. It's the same engine as used in the B5 S4 and RS4, except those have bigger turbos from what I gather. The engine in my car is rated at ~250bhp but the S4 and RS4 were more than that. Would it feel slow in a big heavy A6? Also, these engines are a known swap in to 996 shape Porsche 911's, and I happen to own a high mileage one of those too! I don't have time for an engine swap though, so for now I'm having a mini project with the A6. I told LadyGPM it definitely wasn't a project, promise. I got slightly told off once the front end was all apart, but it was worth it!
Here are the pictures 'as bought'. It was minging inside and out, and needed quite a bit of work to bring it back to reliable and well maintained. It didn't have an MOT either, so I drove it 120 miles home via a friends MOT garage. Thankfully it passed first go. I was semi-confident it wouldn't be an issue because the seller had a ramp I could inspect the car on before agreeing to buy, and that worked out quite nicely.
I set to work on making the interior somewhere I'd want to sit. A lot of 'brown' came off the driver's seat
The plastics cleaned up well with a scrub. Back to a light grey rather than brown...
Next on the 'easy win' list was refurbishing the wheels. All the tyres were well past their sell-by date anyway so I got four new ones at the same time.
TIme to buy a service kit, cam belt and water pump and all the extra filters that never get changed. I went for an AutoDoc special own brand 'Ridex' viscous fan clutch and 'Stark' timing belt kit with water pump, which is just Ridex in disguise. Quality looked ok so I went ahead with them rather than return. I'd usually only fit OEM or equivalent but this was a cheap car so I've decided to gamble a bit.
More 'easy win' stuff, or so I thought. The driver's side rear door wouldn't lock/unlock properly or show open/closed on the dash consistently. I found some broken wires and thought I'd solved it, but I had to do this job twice because the lock actuator was dying too! I already had to change both front door actuators because they'd died, but with this one sorted we now had a central locking system that worked.
The cream carpet was pretty rough, so I wet vacc'd it. The nasty stain in the driver's footwell all but disappeared after a liberal application of brake cleaner, seems it was oil based as the detergent in the wet vac wouldn't touch it.
At around this point of interior clean-up I realised the windscreen was actually loose at the passenger bottom corner. It was a replacement and clearly hadn't been stuck in that well. It was also starting to delaminate so needed replacement. I have a decent windscreen fitter local to me so it was easy enough to sort this problem out.
Now on to the fun bits! First things first, lets change the spark plugs. They're a bit of a faff to get to but not very difficult.
I was slightly scared that I was ruining the head when undoing these, they felt horrible. Definitely not been changed in a long time.
Driver's side was the same. Now would be a good time to change the air filter seeing as the airbox is right there.
Good job too. Look at the state of that!
Well overdue fresh filter going in.
The MAF sensor will need replacing soon. That manky old air filter above seems to have been an oiled one, once upon a time. As a reult, the MAF is covered in oily 'gunk'.
Yet another filter that hadn't been changed forever. I couldn't see a date on the fuel filter because it was too rusty...
I did change the oil and oil filter too, but forgot to take pictures of that. The car ran much better with fresh oil/filters/plugs. No surprise!
Next job was the real fun part for me. Cam belt and water pump change. The easiest way to do this is remove the entire front of the car. There is a 'service position' which involves moving the front panel forwards a couple of inches so you don't have to drop the coolant etc, but it was going to be awkward and I'd rather have full access and make a proper job of it.
Start point.
The front is incredibly easy to get off. This car had a small added complication of removing oil cooler lines for the gearbox too, but that wasn't exactly a hardship.
The old viscous fan clutch was toast.
And now for some strip-down!
This cam seal had been leaking rather a lot, apparently it's a common issue. I sourced a pair of replacement seals as part of the cam belt change.
I had to modify my new water pump because it didn't have the cut-out for the dip stick. There are a couple of other V6's that must run the same pump but not have the dip stick in the same location. A few minutes with the grinder saw everything fitting nicely.
Another major source of oil leakage was the power steering pump. I went for a refurbed unit for £100.
Old steering pump had seen better days.
The car was looking a bit better with the engine back in one piece.
I put the front end back on and filled up the fluids. That was another advantage of taking the front off, it gave me a chance to change the coolant, power steering fluid and gearbox oil.
Ta da! A complete car again, and not on axle stands either. So we're finished now, are we?
Nope.
I took apart the whole rear end to trace why the radio wasn't receiving any signal
Found the 'diversity' module in the end. It was in the rear of the headliner...
Annoyingly swapping it out didn't cure the issue, nor did changing the little booster modules under the rear side windows. I sent the head unit away to be checked and it came back with a new tuner unit. It now picks up stations but won't find them easily or at all unless you tune in manually. It's a known problem on C5's but I'm unsure what to do next. I think I'll change the antenna unit on the roof as it looks like it's seen better days. Hopefully that'll fully fix it.
Even though its totally pointless because the paintwork is well beyond saving, I gave it some clay bar and polishing treatment just to see what would happen. It had probably never been done before because the clay bar went very brown almost instantly on every panel. I've not seen a car that bad before, so I felt like I was making a good improvement. Machine polishing showed a definite improvement too, but in reality the car needs a full respray. Still, my scratches and orange peel bead up nicely in the rain!
While going through VAG Com I noticed the alarm had an error. These have NiMh batteries inside which go bad after a while, and that time had come and gone for my alarm siren unit. You can't buy the original batteries any more, so need to get a bit inventive if you want to fix it.
Firstly, you need to chop the unit in half as it seems to be plastic welded together.
Old batteries out.
New battery pack being made up. I found some batteries on Ebay of equivalent spec so bought a couple.
Battery pack finished and soldered in to place on the motherboard of the siren unit.
Instant gasket used to seal the two halves of the unit back together, and installed in the depths of the boot.
I checked VAG Com and the alarm error has disappeared now, so I'll call that a win.
I've just insured and taxed this car so I'll be using it in place of the 911 to give it a shakedown. It's going on a big Euro trip in August and I couldn't take the 911 because I'll have a car full of people and luggage. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's not a slow thing at all. You can really feel the torque developed by the turbos and it accelerates quite nicely for a big old lump. Dare I say that it doesn't *feel* a lot slower than the 911.
I used to race one of these in my youth (The all-road version). Nothing crazy but slip road GP to work and back in the middle of the night for my work commute.
My Stage 1 Saab 9-5 would just about beat it but it surprised me as nothing outside of AMG,M or RS would touch it back then.
With a few choice mods this would be the real q car.
My Stage 1 Saab 9-5 would just about beat it but it surprised me as nothing outside of AMG,M or RS would touch it back then.
With a few choice mods this would be the real q car.
Edited by BricktopST205 on Saturday 7th June 18:37
Escy said:
Good effort, I've bought a few ropey C5 A6's with the 2.7t as breakers, they are thin on the ground these days.
Cheers, I saw a green one on eBay about the same time as I saw this blue one. That had been crashed and was definitely worse for wear. I've not seen any other Avants since, apart from an Allroad I think.BricktopST205 said:
I used to race one of these in my youth (The all-road version). Nothing crazy but slip road GP to work and back in the middle of the night for my work commute.
My Stage 1 Saab 9-5 would just about beat it but it surprised me as nothing outside of AMG,M or RS would touch it back then.
With a few choice mods this would be the real q car.
I am wondering about tuning it up. Not sure at the moment whether I can be bothered or not. It would make a bit of a Q car, wouldn't it.My Stage 1 Saab 9-5 would just about beat it but it surprised me as nothing outside of AMG,M or RS would touch it back then.
With a few choice mods this would be the real q car.
Edited by BricktopST205 on Saturday 7th June 18:37
danb79 said:
Always loved this shape of the Audi estates; you've done some mega work there too. Wheels look so much better as well
This era of Audi was so well built. It feels completely solid and doesn't rattle etc. The wheels were awful when I picked it up and the guys I took them to were very good at cleaning them up. They even sprayed them in the correct Audi silver (which I didn't ask for specifically or anything) which meant that the new centre caps I ordered from Germany were an exact match. I was really pleased about that!I loved my a6 allroad with this engine, but it was a constant pain in the rear to keep running right
The dv's and associated pipework are rubbish, the spaghetti of little pipes, pipe connectors and cheap wiring blocks were all brittle after 15 years and kept failing, leaking or snapping - and generally in inaccessible locations to maximise skinned knuckle syndrome
Specific to the allroad suspension arms were also stupidly expensive compared to regular a6 stuff, so at least you've avoided that one.
The dv's and associated pipework are rubbish, the spaghetti of little pipes, pipe connectors and cheap wiring blocks were all brittle after 15 years and kept failing, leaking or snapping - and generally in inaccessible locations to maximise skinned knuckle syndrome
Specific to the allroad suspension arms were also stupidly expensive compared to regular a6 stuff, so at least you've avoided that one.
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