An update on the S3

Hello people! What’s good and what’s going on? I hope you’re all having a blessed weekend and it’s not going by too fast. I thought I would update you all on the S3 today, especially since I have hinted at a few recent tantrums it decided to throw. So without further delay, let’s get into it.

First expense came shortly after diagnosing the car with a misfire. I did the basics of swapping the coil packs over to see if it followed but it stayed on cylinder 3. Now I changed the spark plugs less than 10k miles ago for some of NGKs BKR7EIX spark plugs so I didn’t feel they would be causing the problem. So my next thing was a bit of data logging to see when the misfire occurs and if it’s intermittent or permanent. After a couple of days of testing and putting it through its paces in different scenarios, the misfire only reared its ugly head when the car was sat at idle. Under any load it disappeared. So, going off my best instinct I decided to proceed with getting the inlet valves cleaned as they can build up with carbon and then get the injectors sent away for cleaning in the hopes of fixing the misfire.

After a week’s wait the car was finally back in one piece. With three freshly cleaned injectors and one freshly reconditioned injector, it was running a million times smoother and the misfire was gone. The only issue now was an awkward split in a boost pipe, which was causing quite a large boost leak.

So this one was a bit of an easier fix and after a quick search on eBay I managed to get hold of a used intercooler pipe from a breakers, however in the wait for that to arrive, the S3 decided to kill its crankshaft sensor. Now in some cases the crankshaft is easily accessible, but not for the S3. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not a difficult job, it’s just a bit of a squeeze and you better expect to cut your hands and arms up whilst undoing jubilee clips that hold on all the boost pipes. What made it even more annoying was the fact the boost pipe hadn’t even arrived by the time I was replacing the sensor. Regardless though I got the new sensor in and fitted and that solved the dead sensor so the car was running once again.

Eventually the boost pipe arrived and I got it fitted as soon as possible and then took it out for a road test to ensure the pipe doesn’t pop off under load and the S3 is behaving like it should be. The one thing that had surprised me was just how quick this thing was and even more how I’d not noticed how much of an impact the boost leak was having. Shame on me I guess. Anyways, the S3 is back to its sort of healthy self. When I say that, I don’t mean there’s more issues to sort, there’s just always something to do. But that’s the thing with a project car I guess.

I’m unsure what’s coming next for the S3, it certainly needs a full whack service and to treat the gearbox and diffs to some fresh oil. Other than that I’m really wanting to tidy up some of the body work and address some niggles I have. But for now it’s running right again and I have the ideas of what’s next.

Now, if you got this far, you either enjoy my pain of having  half broken car or you’re just interested enough to get to this point. Either way, thank you. The support means a lot whether it’s just a view, a share, or any form of interaction. So for that, thank you!

Until the next post, enjoy the ride!

E.