Hopping on the O1E bandwagon

[hahnmgh63]

Seems like something just came up if it worked for 400mi. I would double check the linkage at the Master cylinder first since that's the easiest. Then if it comes down to it you should be able to slighlty lower the engine and drop the rear of the transmission down even more to get at the slave where you could check the linkage. If it worked fine before then something came loose or popped out. I would bet on the Slave and/or linkage or the Clutch Master before I would think it was something with the clutch itself.

[IchBautAuto]

Seems like something just came up if it worked for 400mi. I would double check the linkage at the Master cylinder first since that's the easiest. Then if it comes down to it you should be able to slighlty lower the engine and drop the rear of the transmission down even more to get at the slave where you could check the linkage. If it worked fine before then something came loose or popped out. I would bet on the Slave and/or linkage or the Clutch Master before I would think it was something with the clutch itself.

I'd agree with that, only the process has been muddied by the possible linkage issue so it really isn't that clear if it has ever been operating perfectly in the short time before this happened. You're no the only one to have issues as B5 RS4 and S4 owners regularly run into problems when they deviate from the OE setup and that a from the factory manual setup.