Audi A4 Build - the pursuit of rock bottom

[LOWFORM]

Hello friends,

I started building old air cooled VW's back when I was 15 years old. Even back then one of the first things I focused on was getting the car as low as possible. Fast forward a few decades and I have gone full cicle, back to VW's (Audi). I have a '63 ragtop VW on air ride and thought it could use some company so I grabbed a B8 Audi A4 to park next to it in the garage.

This car will be built with an OEM+ style with the main emphasis on the suspension since that is my area of expertise. My plan is to get this car about 1-1.5" lower than the standard bagged B8. I am quite handing with a welder and grinder and perfectly willing to fabricate new suspension components or cut into the body if necessary. I understand this type of build isn't for anyone, so if you don't like low cars I would probably exit out of this post right about meow [].

Below is my vision of what is to come. Rendering done by Nick Crouch from Surface Art



My current accumulation of parts:

OEM S4 Front Bumper
OEM S4 Rear Bumper
OEM Audi Side Skirts (Votex style, but sold through Audi)
RS4 Front Grille
20x10 +35 Rotiform SNA's
Airlift Performance Series Air Struts
Airlift 4 Gallon Aluminum Air Tank
AccuAir eLevel
AccuAir iLevel
AccuAir VU4
Dual Viair 444c Compressors
Plus some other small stuff.

Before I could do anything to this car I had to take care of the exterior imperfections from the previous owner. I had a PDR friend come over and remove 17 door dings all with 100% success:



Here you can see how neglected the paint was. The previous owner should NEVER own another black car. I don't have any after photos, but the results gave me a finish better than new. Some areas required a light wet sand, but the entire car received a day of buffing (3M heavy cutting compound with a wool pad, 3M compound with a yellow pad, 3M machine polish with a black pad, 3M ultra fine with a blue pad, followed by two coats of Menzerna Powerlock sealer, whew!)



On to the interior. My seats had the usual 'sheen' you get after a few years of use. I hit them up with Leatherique which gave me a 'dull' finish as well as softening the leather and completely enriching the with nutrients.
Before:

During:

After:


Before I could tear into the suspension I had make sure everything was cleaned. I put the car on jack stands, removed the carpet liners, and detailed each wheel well in my garage:


Now on to the good stuff! In the front, I had to start by rolling my fenders to clear my 20x10 +35 wheels. This wasn't entirely necessary, but it was a little too close for comfort and I always like to play it safe. With the car in factory form I tucked about 1/4" of rim.


After some strategic cutting, grinding, and bending, I managed to get the front end 7/8" lower. At this point my ball joints are at the extend of their travel. Once I get my tires installed I'll see where this sets the car. If I want to go lower there is more room in the wheel well and the Airlift struts can be adjusted lower. However, I'll have to fabricate new upper control arms. My goal is to set the engine cradle on the ground. I'm getting close...


In the rear I was able to get it down about another 1/2 over the standard bagged height A4. This car 'has' to sit level so once the front is dialed in, the rear will follow. I'm guessing a new LCA will have to fabricated or the unibody notched. Either way, it'll happen! Here's where I'm sitting currently:



That's about all I have to show for now. I appreciate you guys following this build as I am very excited to be back to working on a car again. Please feel free to ask if you have questions about anything along with way.

[LOWFORM]

As you can see by this picture, my ball joints are getting very close to maxing out. For me to go any lower they will have to be the first item I address. But, that is all part of the fun [].

[LOWFORM]

The accumulation of rust on my factory rotors was preventing my from sleeping at night. As much as I tried to convince myself that I needed a big brake kit to resolve the problem, I had to temporarily paint them to maintain my sanity. I scuffed up the surface with a scotchbrite pad, whiped down with lacquer thinner, then applied a liberal coat of 'High temperature Engine Enamel'. After the paint was applied I simply took a rag with lacquer thinner and whiped the paint off the contact surface of the rotor. I'm not sure how that will hold up over time, but it looks great right now and that is good enough for me. I also shampooed my carpeted wheel well liners, lightly sanded and brushed all the aluminum suspension components []




Now that I was finally happy with the cleanliness of my suspension, I dove back into the fun part. One of the great things about the Airlift Performance Series air struts is their 31-way adjustable dampening. With everything installed it would be impossible to adjust this without pulling out the entire assembly so Airlift suggest you drill a .25" hole on the top of the strut tower in the engine bay. I liked this idea, but took it an extra step and spent about $0.75 at Ace Hardware for some rubber grommets. I love the little details.



Next on my list is to draw up all my management brackets in autoCAD to get water jetted. While those are getting done I'll jump back into the front of the car and mount my eLevel brackets. I wish I could simply order the B8 ride height sensor install kit from AccuAir, but my car goes too low and there isn't enough room around by UCA's for their mount. That is awesome, but a bummer... now I have to find another way to mount these to an entirely aluminum suspension. Stay tuned for more. [wrench]

[LOWFORM]

Well, now that I got so much more drop out of the front I had to jump back to the rear to see if I could even it out. I threw around a few ideas and the only way I could come up with was to c-notch the unibody rail and ditch the rear sway bar. After some light fab work, I got the rear end down another inch. The fitment between the rim and the back of the fender is getting so tight now that it will peel the blue tape off my wheel but still not scratch the rim. That is a little too close for me, so I will likely have 2mm milled off the back of my wheels to avoid damaging them. Anyhow, here is a photo of my new rear heigh and some other small detailst:





So, when it came time to fit my Airlift parts in there I was able to get the shock to fit by threading them all the way down and cutting the bump stop. However, the lower bag spacer was now too tall so I had to shave 1.125" off in the lathe. Fortunately everything still clears perfected and I was able to keep both of the roll plates on the bag:






That's about all for now. I plan get some more work done on it this weekend if time allows.

[baggedb16sentra]

Sub'd for this, cause this is awesome.

[HKSpeed]

pics of that Armada/Titan please.

[kittenpuncher]

^^^^ holy crap good catch, thats some win. ^^^^

[meech]

^ yes

[MGW]

Woah. Subbed fo sho

[LOWFORM]

Good eye guys! I just sold this land tank about a month ago. It took me about 4 years to build...was at SEMA twice...eventually I just lost interest in it. Here's a few pics:


There was a hatch in the rear floor that lifted up to display all the suspension. I converted it from IRS to a solid axle, running a parallel 4-link, watts link, fox coilovers, using hydraulic rams to lift it.

[Strawhat]

Holy wow dude.
The insanity of the quality on the Armada build.

Can't wait to see the Audi get finished!

[electricalbox]

OMG that Armada is fantastic!

BTW props on cleaning wheel wells like that. I have never even thought off doing that when my wheels are off.

Thanks, I plan to do this constantly now.

[jedreyling]

As you can see by this picture, my ball joints are getting very close to maxing out.

[REVOofRustler]

This is already great!

[LOWFORM]

Progress has been slow but steady. I dropped all the belly pans (cleaned them of course) to run the air and eLevel lines. Today I had a little more free time so I started working on the front eLevel sensors. Installing eLevel sensors on a car with aluminum suspension is never an easy tank. I tossed around a few ideas and finally came up with what you see below. I drew the upper eLevel sensor brackets in CAD, cut them on a CNC plasma table, bent them and bolted them in. I was able to use a factory mount for the top screw, using a self-tapper for the 2nd mounting screw. On the bottom I drilled and tapped the lower control arm. Also, a nice thing about these new style eLevel sensors is you can re-index them (shown below) so they can work in any orientation.







In my down time I began working on my S4/RS4 bumper swap. In the front I cleaned everything up real well while it was apart, then plasti-dipped the front crash support and relocation my homelink sensor





I also decided to play it safe and had 2mm shaved off the back of my wheels. That gives me a good 1mm of clearance between the rim and rear fender. Only problem...now the rim hits the rear upper shock mount! I guess that is something I'll have to modify tomorrow. Thanks again for following this build....much more to come soon!