AFN Audi B5 S4 Swap

I got tired of waiting on the correct starter so I ordered a 068 911 024. I need to get this thing back on the road. Major props to Danielg42 and his thread located here http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=372842&highlight=fuel+tank&page=5". This gave me the info I needed on what starter to buy I how to make it work.
Starter:

I got 4 starts out of this POS and the solenoid stuck and the motor kept spinning. I took my old solenoid off and swapped them to reduced more down time of the car.

Like Danielg42 I had to remove the turbo support bracket and flip the AC compressor upside down. I also had to have one of my AC lines fabricated because one of the ends was different. I just had the new hose and my old one mated together at a hydraulic hose supply shop.
It runs!

The lifters were a little noisy at first but once it ran awhile it quieted down.
I put it all back together and charged the AC, nice and cold. Just a bit more wiring and a new shift rod and she will be ready for the road.

After a few days of troubleshooting, I still can't get the coolant temp gauge or the oil temp gauge to work. I've pinned everything out and verified the wiring is correct. I think the next step is to open up the gauge cluster and pin out the gauges as they attach on the circuit board to see what inputs they are missing as I do a VAG COM instrument sweep. There is a lot of crap that goes from the previous ECU into the cluster that isn't hooked up anymore.

Another bit of info, I wasn't getting alternator exite on startup. I had to rev the engine to 1500 RPM before it would charge. No problem. I'll just jump a wire from the starter to the excite wire to energize it. Worked great except the starter wouldn't quit spinning after the alternator came online. Problem solved, I installed a blocking diode inline to block the current flow from the alternator to the starter circuit. Works like a charm.

is your tach working ?? did you have to do anything special to get it to work?

xcdhracer15 said:

is your tach working ?? did you have to do anything special to get it to work?

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The tach was working right away. It was reading low until I adjusted the settings in VAG COM to a 4 cylinder. I finally got all the rest of the gauges to work by some miracle. It turns out my B5 S4 wiring diagram was not correct, and I only was able to figure out where all the wires hooked up by pinning out the harness on the old engine. It took a few beers and and hour or so to figure that out today. Thank God I didn't sell it yet or else I would be up S**t creek!

I got my shift rod in today and installed it. My shift problems are now gone and I took the car for a drive. Very Nice! Syncromech in the gearbox sure makes a difference! I went away from Redline MT90 and back to my VR6 roots of running this fluid. Other than being slow as balls it's a nice ride! I definately need a tune at least. I knew that going into this project, I just didn't want to have driveabilty problems and have to second guess the tune, had i got one. I'd like to give a big shout out to Frans for making all of this possible and sending me some good stuff.

I have some vibration at idle that i feel is unacceptable. I'll probably put some new BHW engine mounts on the car and go from there. The tranny mounts are relatively new and look about the same as the diesel car equivalent. Can anyone vouch for this?

your car is a 2000, my s4 avant is a 01.5 i believe that is why my tach might not be working as the 01.5 tachs signal was CAN and i believe the 01 was an analog signal.

i might try switching in the cluster from my 99.5 a4 and see if the pinouts are the same allowing that tach to work correctly in the 01.5 car.

Yup, you may be correct. The later S4's are more can bus than mine. Mine is only can bus for the radio from what I can tell. I hooked the green/blue wire from the S4 black plug to the green/blue wire on the black TDI plug and it was all good.

also, how did you bypass or delete the stock gas fuel filter located by the tank?

I see you removed the pump. I left mine in (i ran my b5 a4 tdi this way for 35k before being totaled with a regulator down to 7psi)

xcdhracer15 said:

also, how did you bypass or delete the stock gas fuel filter located by the tank?

I see you removed the pump. I left mine in (i ran my b5 a4 tdi this way for 35k before being totaled with a regulator down to 7psi)

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I just removed the fuel filter and ran a piece of hose where it used to be. I used a hacksaw to cut off one of the banjo fittings on the bottom of the filter.

Here is a little video of the car fully put back together and running.

Here is a pic of me cruising around in 5th gear today. As you can see all the gauges work. My MFA is shot,which is why the screen is turned off.

Looking into my vibration issue, I took a closer look at the engine mounts that came with the engine . I found a part number on one of them, 8D0 199 379J. 1.8T engine mounts? ***? No wonder it rattles my teeth. I'm tempted to try and bolt my 2.7 V6 mounts on it just for a comparison. I'll probably need to just pony up for the BHW mounts.

I put some new OEM BHW mounts on the car and the vibrations are greatly reduced! It was worth the money for sure. I've got about 3000 mi on the swap now and she's running like a champ. I bought a chipped 140hp ECU and man what a difference. I was only looking for a spare ECU to have mine sent out and I stumbled across one this chipped one on ebay. I'm now averaging 40+MPG in mixed driving. I was hoping for more but I don't think that's too bad for a quattro car.

Re. S4 TDI

Very cool K1Cowboy!

What did you end up using for engine mounts?

Could you have used an S4 with the automatic transmission?

What are your thoughts on the trade in torque and mpg for horsepower and acceleration?

I used OEM engine mounts from the B5.5 Passat TDI. The transmission mounts are the OEM gasser mounts, they could probably stand to be changed to some TDI mounts as well.

Not sure about the automatic fitting, however the tiptronic transmissions are garbage and a lot of people convert them to a manual to get away from them.

I do miss being able to pull out in front of a fast moving car, my car was chipped to 318HP before the swap. 90% of my driving is done on the highway so the TDI feels almost as torquey at 80MPH, I really don't miss the gasser motor, especially at the pump! The best part for me is owning a car that no one else has, and the pride of having done it myself makes me enjoy it even more.

Nice swap 200lbs less in front of the axle should make up for the power loss!

Do you have any pics of what you did with the AC compressor or how it sits now with the starter please?

Very glad to be following your swap here. I picked up an '94 Audi Cabriolet a few months ago(only 74k miles) with a perfect body that I'll be swapping an AFN/5 speed into this winter, sourced from Frans. Should be pretty straightforward since the EU models were available with the AHU starting in '95.

Mikkijayne said:

Nice swap 200lbs less in front of the axle should make up for the power loss!

Do you have any pics of what you did with the AC compressor or how it sits now with the starter please?

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Yeah with the less amount of weight I had to crank the coilovers down more because the car was sitting up about 3/4 of an inch higher than before. Sorry, I should have taken pics of the AC and the starter when I was putting it in. I was in such a rush to get it together I didn't. It's a little too tight to get a camera in there now. I can assure you there is plenty of room with the AC compressor flipped upside down than it's not even near an issue. I must have at least an inch or more between the compressor lines and the starter. I could have done it better by using the late model B5 AC compressor and lines, which bolt on the side of the compressor, but I was in a time constraint and budget limited, which is why I used what I had.

Cool I'll get some parts together and give it a shot. Thanks for the info

Update, I haven't really messed with the car too much since it got back on the road, it's been running like a dream. Today I changed the transmission mounts from the solid rubber S4 mounts to the S4 hydraulic mounts. World of difference, even less vibrations now at idle. I plan to change the snub mount from the black rubber to the foam mount to dampen it some more. The vibes seem to pick up when engaging the clutch from idle. Still not bad at all, just trying to perfect the car.
Old part:

New part:


I also changed the fuel door placard to a proper OEM diesel sticker.



I removed the EGR and fabbed up some block off plates. The car hardly even smokes now, even running 2 stroke oil at 200:1.

Installed a Omani EGT gauge the other day.


Ordered a BV43 Turbo from Frans, got a 3 bar map coming as well, race 520 nozzles and a Malone stage 5 tune to be installed soon.

Very nice. Does the cruise control work?

TDIMeister said:

Very nice. Does the cruise control work?

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Yes it works nicely and I use it quite often!

25K miles on the swap now and I couldn't be happier. I sold all my gasser parts and paid for the cost of the swap about a year ago. Sounds crazy but it's true. I had an issue with the R520 nozzle upgrade, it was way too smokey. I had to send my nozzles out to another shop to find out my local bosch shop didn't set them up right. Now the car is pretty dialed in. It will ROAL COAL when you put your foot to the floor, and man, HANG ON!, other than that it runs pretty clean and I have a 2 MPG increase on the highway.
Totally stoked to have this as my airport car. I have the timing pretty advanced so it sounds like a diesel truck coming at you. People do a double take to see all that diesel noise coming from an Audi S4. I enjoy it.
People ask me if i regret doing the diesel swap with the price of fuel now. The answer is no. The longetvity of the engine is my first discussion, the second is fuel won't be cheap forever. Plus it's just damn cool and no one else has anything like it.

Neil any more updates?

Awesome build

Not much to report. Still running like a dream. I've been very impressed at how reliable it's been. It's a little workhorse.