While I'm in There: A Journey to turbo a Cq

[PRY4SNO]

Hello all!

After all these years it's dawned on me that I haven't made a proper build thread on this site.

Figured I'd catch everyone up to where I'm at with a condensed version of my build's progress through the years up to today. From here out I'll do my best to update when something relevant happens.

I bought the car in 2006 from a guy off a local car forum (eurodrivers.ca) in great shape. In hindsight, I paid a bit too much but there were only two on the market at the time in my province. Both were around the same price. The other, while previously owned by the local Audi dealer's shop foreman, was pearl white (not my preference) on black interior and completely stock. The one I bought was owned by an electrical engineer and a general manager of a leading indy VW/Audi shop before me. Plus, it was Brilliant Black on black, and had been upgraded with a few tasteful mods. It drove with minimal issues (rubber, fluids, hatch strut, window regulator) for about four years. For a poor post-secondary student, it felt like a good score.

Eventual goal was centred around the idea of a car that can be equally suited to going on a milk run as it is attacking the circuit, or making an express run to the mountains on a snowboarding trip.

The car is a late-early build from NA. So it has things like the parcel shelf, the late-style indicator stalks and a bag-o-snakes header, rear sway bar.

Car basics:
Purchased local car off local forum in quite good shape with following mods:
- B4 hood conversion, Euro front/rear bumpers (v6/s2)
- RS2 projector headlights, 034 wiring adapter w/ relay
- K&N airfilter
- Stebro s/s catback exhaust, gutted cat
- Koni Yellow front adjustible struts
- new front RS2 sway bar complete with bushings (which I installed)
- new and uninstalled rear 034 (? according to PO) rear sway bar without bushings
- According to PO, motor was "rebuilt" 40k km before my purchase. That's the extent of my knowledge of the work performed.

Known/inherited issues outstanding:
- Odometer was FUBAR for approx 20k-30k km according to PO. He is an electrical engineer by trade and opened up the speedo found a faulty soldered connection to be the culprit. Worked fine since.
- Hunting idle
- Cruise inoperative
- Driver's side heated seat inoperative
- Antenna is about to catch air any day now
- Rear wiper arm stops at top of cycle



Here's a pic of the coupe, as I purchased it and beside the car it was destined to replace:

[PRY4SNO]

Car ran great for a few years with little more than a set of fresh tyres, a hatch strut, power steering pump and some oil changes.

Then the steering rack went. I could turn the wheel 30 degrees off centre with no change in steering at one point. It was worse when I parked it for service.

This would prove to be the biggest DIY I'd done up to that point. I kind of went down the rabbit hole fixing things, while I was in there...









































Lots of work got done, and overall things took way longer than expected and cost kinda got out of control. But hey, if you're gonna do it, might as well over-do it.

I bought some tools and made some tools and learned heaps along the way.

Took care of:

-- Timing belt, waterpump, t-stat and coolant, OEM crank cog
-- Steering rack
-- Ceramic coated header and downpipe
-- 034 Mounts: engine, trans, struts tops (front), snub (<-- only one I'd use again the rest were pathetic quality)
-- 034 injector upgrade
-- 034 coolant nipple
-- ARP head studs
-- OEM gaskets: head, valve cover, etc.

[PRY4SNO]

After the steering rack was all done I wasted little time (like a month and a half) and got on with a hub swap.

I chose front hubs from a C4S4 and rears from a B5A4q with new bearings on each corner. Brakes were 986 BoxsterS calipers, A8 323mm discs and shimmed RS2 caliper brackets up front, with B5S4 calipers & rotors with custom s/s lines all around. H&R hubcentric 5mm spacers up front. The A8 rotors needed 2mm peeled back from the inside circumference to clear the front tie-rod end.

[PRY4SNO]

Going on in the background as this work was being completed, I'd found what was advertised as "perhaps the last known new CGR RS2 transmission up for grabs." The whole process took some time to unfold. On a bench test before shipping the third gear was making abnormal noise. Upon inspection it was corroded from sitting so long on the shelf. So a new gear had to be made from factory back in Germany (on warranty, mind you). For my troubles, Scotty @ Advanced Automotion installed a high-bias centre diff free of charge, and painted the casings to my preference.

In retrospect, it was a foolish purchase considering I could have had two TDI 6-speed 01E transmissions for about the same cost. But the allure of brand new, never used was too much to resist.

I've since sourced a 6-speed S2 shift linkage, a K24R detent mod and a 3D printed shifter bushing from irishs2 off this very forum. Clutch is a dual faced ferramic, sprung hub, 6 puck unit from Clutchnet.

[PRY4SNO]

For quite a while after the steering rack/timing belt repair and hub/brake upgrade things were running smoothly.

Until... they weren't. And it quickly turned into one thing and another. Didn't take long and I'd sourced a spare Cq to harvest parts.



034 was telling me up and down, for months, that KW required strut housings as cores. Of course, no sooner had I purchased and relocated a suitable parts car, I get an email essentially stating "just kidding, KW are done and they're being shipped out to you." Nice.



First issue was the one seal that I didn't change when I had the head off. I had actually tried but the cam bolt was on so tight I just said screw it. Too bad. Car was leaking like a sieve and took a while to diagnose. I had a friend take care of it while I was working nights, and he broke a 1/2" breaker bar getting the cam bolt loose.



With that fixed, another issue slowly crept in with what turned out to be the voltage regulator. I was having intermittent issues with cold starts that swelled to occasional flickering lights in the dash to the car dying in rush hour at one of the busiest interchanges on the ring road. The fact that it tossed the alternator belt didn't help, I'm sure. When it did that again, I started digging in a bit more and found the brushes were worn down. A local friend had a 10v alternator that was bound for scrap so I harvested the brushes and, PRESTO!, everything was better than before.






I ended up deciding to pull the black coupe off the road to get it ready for all the new parts and drive the cayenne car. So I swapped the motor from black to cayenne (which came on the cheap because it wouldn't make oil pressure) and drove it happily for about 2.5 years. It had some issues but nothing major. When I bought a house, the cayenne car had to be sold to help come up with an extra 5% for the down payment (which I wasn't at all expecting to be required). I had three weeks to match what had previously taken three years to accumulate. A bit of a downer, but toward a couple good causes. I sold it to a friend and he's got designs on surprising litre bikes when he gets everything sorted.

[PRY4SNO]

Final reserved post

[Greg_S]

Nice write up. You certainly had your fair share of problems with snapped bolts to sort out