Lower engine ?

[RS6 rick]

Greetings to all.........In 25 words or less what is involved in lowering the engine slightly ? I'm thinking of getting some piggies. Any and all help is appreciated. Be safe.

[kilian tuning]

To get acces to.....?

[RS6 rick]

Install down pipes

[hahnmgh63]

Disconnect Coolant & Intercooler hoses from engine. Lower the engine & trans as one piece with the cradle. Few other items but lower slowly in stages and check for hung up items. Then check again before proceeding.

[lswing]

Then spend 6-8 hours where they bolt to the turbos...maybe.

[RS6 rick]

You're starting to depress me.

PS........How about a little PB blaster for a day. Only the inside bolt is hard to get to correct ?

[hahnmgh63]

lswing is correct, the downpipes can be a pain. Lots of PB Blaster or my choice Kroil for a day. Also, they appear at first glance to just use a socket, I think around 15mm but actually use a XZN (Triple square) on the inside of the nut. A socket will bind somewhat with the flange unless it's a real nice thin wall Snap-on or SK.
P.S. Hopefully you're not like me. I did mine around 4yrs ago and broke one of the downpipe studs, it cost me about $10K. Actually I pulled the engine, fixed the stud, sent the tranny for a full rebuild, Turbos to Scroll for a full rebuild. All new O2 & EGT sensors, every gasket and hose from the rear, did the timing belt water pump while it was out. I'm sure I'm missing a few things. Oh well, now I've got the engine out for the manual conversion and most of that stuff is taken care of.

[RS6 rick]

lswing is correct, the downpipes can be a pain. Lots of PB Blaster or my choice Kroil for a day. Also, they appear at first glance to just use a socket, I think around 15mm but actually use a XZN (Triple square) on the inside of the nut. A socket will bind somewhat with the flange unless it's a real nice thin wall Snap-on or SK.
P.S. Hopefully you're not like me. I did mine around 4yrs ago and broke one of the downpipe studs, it cost me about $10K. Actually I pulled the engine, fixed the stud, sent the tranny for a full rebuild, Turbos to Scroll for a full rebuild. All new O2 & EGT sensors, every gasket and hose from the rear, did the timing belt water pump while it was out. I'm sure I'm missing a few things. Oh well, now I've got the engine out for the manual conversion and most of that stuff is taken care of.

Thank you !!. Came this close to moving to Anacortes last year but did not work out.

[hahnmgh63]

Whidbey Island is nice up there. A little windy but nice and quiet.

[mdegracia]

Heat is your friend - use a torch and they will all come out easy.

[Fastguy]

If your going to do it in-car you can easily lower the rear half of the front subframe. The top bolts are SUPER tight to get at but if you get the speciality extension socket (which only snap on seems to make) it is the only way I've found to get them out. It's SUCH a tight space up top I can't even explain. If you are seriously interested in doing it yourself I'll tell you exactly which socket and extension to get. I have to go out the garage and get you the part number. I think it's a 8 mm bit.

[Aronis]

Just how much seat of the pants improvement do you get from new downpipes?

[hahnmgh63]

Somebody on here Dyno'd there car years ago and I think the number was around 20bhp. That was with punching out the front Cat in the stock downpipes, maybe a couple more bhp from Millteks or a similiar more efficient flowing design. For my Cayenne Turbo Fabspeed claims 32bhp for the ones I purchased so I'd bet that they are doing the usual over claiming of 50% which would bring them back down to about 20bhp in reality.

[Fastguy]

For me it was all about;

1. Egt
2. Sound
3. Simplicity and less that can go wrong

[Fastguy]

For me it was all about;

1. Egt
2. Sound
3. Simplicity and less that can go wrong

edit: this is why: https://youtu.be/RpGYHauhJRw

[UrS6]

Disconnect Coolant & Intercooler hoses from engine. Lower the engine & trans as one piece with the cradle. Few other items but lower slowly in stages and check for hung up items. Then check again before proceeding.

approx. how far down can you lower it by doing this?

[hahnmgh63]

I would recommend just lowering the rear as Fastguy said but you still need to loosen the front bolts a bit and then remove the rear ones. You need to support the transmission/engine as you do this or you will overstrain those front bolts. Audi say's the engine cradle bolts are stretch bolts and must be replaced so re-use at your own risk. You can get a decent angle on the nuts with the rear lowered to remove the downpipes. Obviously unbolt the exhaust at the main Cats first. I have a lift so it isn't too difficult, I couldn't imagine trying to do it on Jackstands but it could probably be done.

[Aronis]

For me it was all about;

1. Egt
2. Sound
3. Simplicity and less that can go wrong

edit: this is why: https://youtu.be/RpGYHauhJRw

So you can get rid of the EGT probe and the engine software retuned to ignore this piece of information, make the car louder, and 'less that can go wrong.". I would be concerned about the lack of feed back on the EGT temp which is there to keep something under control, thus perhaps more could go wrong!

My point it sounds like a lot of work and potential risk of messing something else up for a little more sound!

When my engine was out, I priced Downpipes and looked at the gains, not much, and decide to forgo such a modification. However, some have taking the time to wrap the pipes for heat insulation, that actually makes more sense! I'd be concerned about messing something up if the exhaust gas temp went as an unknown.

Mike