Overall length should be ok as it is a good bit shorter than the other (belt distribution) audi V8s which are known to fit in length (similar length to flat 6). There is a bit of overhang over the gearbox due to the distribution chain (and adjusters) on the back side of the engine.

It will take a few weeks before I can do a first fit to get a better idea. With reduced length, I might need to move engine / gearbox forward a bit.

Height wise I guess the oil filter is a possible issue. Also originally the intake is halfway routed over the engine, which won't work for me. So I am already assuming that I need to go remote oil filter which hopefully also gets the intake more straight out.

But first, the regular car to finish... :D

On finishing my regular car I did make some progress:

• - Mounted the left rear brake hard line. New hose.
• - Re-pinned the connector (yellow on my car, it was pink/purple on the 02 Boxster) with the new ABS sensor and brake pad wear wires. Both sides in. Wires tidied up again
• - Took apart the rear spoiler mechanism, removed the old grease and put fresh stuff in. It was groaning a bit when actuated and I thought I might check the grease. It wasn't as bad as I feared. But the groaning was still there after re-mounting. It was ok without the actual spoiler on, so I guessed it was binding a bit once all assembled. I could reproduce it, final tightening of the spoiler to the posts made it move a bit and put it under stress. So I tightened it all except the last bolt. Put loc-tite on that one and made it a bit more than hand tight. Moves ok now and letting it dry.
• Bled the brakes. Started left rear as I still had the wheel off. Figured the 'start with right rear' is old now that both rear brakes have individual lines. I can build pressure now and will check for any leaks anytime soon. I used my vacuum bleed set, but I am quite unhappy with it. I do get a firm pedal with it, but I just can't do that visually by checking for bubbles. The vacuum pulls air around the thread of the bleed nipple and / or around the hose. So I always see bubbles. I might need to do a second bleed round the old fashioned way and when Christmas comes I'll ask for a pressure bleeder.
• Removed the power steering pump and last pieces of line. Placed the AC compressor back as pulley.
• Determined the length of belt I need for this configuration. First I took the old belt off and wrapped a longer belt (cut open) around all pulleys and marked the length. This was 6cm longer than the belt which came off, so this is what I need as delta for the tensioner. With PS pump out and AC back in, I measured again with the open belt. Then subtracted the 6cm which made me order a 6PK2065 belt. Should be in before the weekend.
• Coolant ordered, so should be able to fill the cooling system soon.

Next step: front wheel toe alignment.

Little progress today. I set the front wheel toe. Might not be perfect but should at least be driveable. Last time I had done the rear I actually did a better job than I expected, it went to the alignment shop in a better state than in returned. So confident enough that this will be close.

The method I used was similar. Take the toe angle of the wheel and extend it to the rear wheel. Set the correct distance to the rear wheel by adjusting the toe link. The tiny amount of toe-in translates to 2mm at the rear wheel. Ofcourse correcting for the offset in track width. This is in turn affected by camber even though I measure at the center (example, front camber is set at the top, rear camber is set at the bottom)...

Attachment 23902

Also build the spoiler back together and but all carpeting back in. Rear is now done.

Belt is fitted. Honestly it is a bit on the short side. It fits, but just. So if you have a similar setup I would suggest taking 15mm more.

First 5L of coolant is in, but I expected the level to go down quickly when running the engine for half a minute. Well, that didn't happen. So I will check whether I can persuade it a bit. Probably next week or so.

Overall the car is back together well enough to roll it outside and roll the wreck and the engine in for a first fit.

Step 1: Mount the brand new gearbox to the engine:
Attachment 23907

Then I lowered the engine / gearbox onto the transmission jack. This one can hold 500kg and it does that. Can still pump it up without any issue, but it does feel a bit wobbly on just this single cylinder. Together almost 300kg on it, so I don't want it to tip over.. I guess a better way would be to get a narrow scissor table so hold the lot, still allowing me to work on the sides (transmission mounts etc.). But please, any suggestions are very welcome.

I didn't really manage to do a good fit due to time constraints, but first impressions are that it might be a bit tall (difficult to estimate the angle at the moment), but length and width seems ok so far. Hope to do a better fit in a week time or so.
Attachment 23908

Looking good so far! When I did the coolant fill on mine, even though I used a vacuum pump to fill it, I still needed to constantly add more fluid after driving. I think I added 4 litres after it said it was 'full'

The engine looks good in there. I was confused because in your previous post you said '12 cylinder hybrid', I though you were using an Audi V12, but I assume you meant the V8 and the car it was in is a 4 cylinder, hence '12 cylinder hybrid' I thought it was optimistic that a V12 would fit... :)

Ha, yes it was about the V8 petrol inside the inline 4 diesel. Maybe the Audi V10 could fit with some changes, but can only judge that once the V8 is tried. These V10s are FSI, which make it difficult in another aspect as well. V12....hmmm....

Today was fitting day. First step was to look at potential places on the engine to attach the front engine mount (Boxster style, making more sense than Audi style in this configuration).

Attachment 23909

The green circles indicate where the Audi front 'snubber mount' attaches. So good few points to hook on to. All on the right side of the engine though, so a few left ones needed as well. The red encircled hole are pretty deep, so these should work. So far, no blocking points on this.

Next step is to fit the engine. After a few hours of wiggling, shoving, lifting I had the transmission mounts mounted up. The left one is still pointing in the air a bit as I didn't have long M6 bolts to bolt it to the car. Then I raised the engine up as far as it would go. Bent the two tabs that hold the engine cover to prevent damage. It is always difficult to see on the pictures, but let's give it a try.

Bottom view first. Hardly any sump below the car bottom. That's good.
Attachment 23911

Between engine and firewall (front), heaps of space. Should allow for a good mount and still clear coolant hoses etc.
Attachment 23910

Looking from the front itself, no issues except at the top which is at the limit (I removed the already broken manifold actuator, but I think it would still just about fit).
Attachment 23913

Putting the 987 engine cover on, clearly there is some work to do :eek:
Attachment 23912

Another shot of the front side of the engine. As you can see, it is as high as it'll go now.
Attachment 23914

Left side of the engine, a lot of space. And at the moment the AC compressor and PS pump are still on the engine. It will be an empty area once this is all out.
Attachment 23915

Right side of the engine, a lot of space as well.
Attachment 23916

My conclusions so far:

• The main issue is the height. The engine is still angled down quite a lot, so it would be good to raise it another inch or so.
• Rear side of the engine has too much stuff to fit under the cover. I already knew that from the engine pictures. I think once the parts are removed which I don't need (SAI for example) it will clean up a lot. I already figured I would need to go for a remote oil filter. With that done, I should be able to take the intake out straight (not over the valve cover).
• To clear the rear side further, it would be good to move the engine forward by about an inch.
• Looking at the engine cover, the height itself isn't a real issue, it is the low position of the sheet metal across the back of the seats. The cover itself would easily fit the engine, even when raised further.
• I'll need to either rotate the fuel rails around or go for the non-return fuel rail to get the connection on the left side of the engine to fit the car.
• I need the X-brace between the control arms (left to right) to check whether I can actually move the whole lot forward.
• Als need to check whether I could lower the transmission by a quarter to half an inch.

Overall, not unhappy. Need to work a bit more on clearing out the rear side of the engine to judge that part. Otherwise, I might get by with just modifying the 'firewall' between seats and engine. Honestly, loads of space wasted there and this isn't a main structural part of the car.

That's looking really good! to lower the trans I used these mounts, I'm not sure what the drop was, I didn't measure it, but the site says around 1/2" if you swap the bushings around, which I did.

Great, thanks! Every little bit counts I guess.

I did make a bit of progress the last few days, but minor.

Today I got a radiator pressure test kit. I just needed the adapter for coolant reservoir to anything. Pulled a vacuum on it and at least another 4 liters went in. Still at least 4 to go before I feel comfortable enough to start the engine and let it idle for a little bit to start actively pumping. As it was a pressure tester I put the system to 0.5bar and when I returned 2 hours later I didn't see a pressure drop. With mostly air in it, I guess I have no obvious leaks to worry about.

While I was at the tool shop I also got some crimp 'rings' for the power and ground of the power steering pump.

On the V8 install I am looking how I can get it to fit. Obviously the oil filter is the highest point and causing issues. Found out that the oil flow in the engine is oil pump -> oil cooler (side of the engine next to the alternator) -> oil filter (top of the engine) then on to things needing lubrication and cooling.

So I can either completely remove the oil filter housing (looping the in / out) and tap the oil lines from the oil cooler (there are sandwich plates for a oil/air cooler available aftermarket, I might be able to use the RS4 setup which has OEM oil/air cooler) or I just cut it down, thread the holes for some adapters. Anyway, this is not a concern anymore.

Next step is likely somewhere next week to lower the engine, remove this oil filter, throttle body bend, PCV stuff and the SAI. That should give the best view of what I can do on the rear side of the engine and what / how I can relocate.

From there on, I better get myself the support beam between left / right suspension and probably an old engine mount to look at the front side of things.

I remember reading somewhere here that to allow more clearance on top, you can lower the engine/gearbox assembly by using spacers and (assuming here), perhaps longer bolts on the engine/gearbox mounts.

Your build is like an addictive TV show that you must wait for the next chapter.. :cheers:

I added spacers under the front engine mount, I think 6mm in total. The studs on the chassis are long enough to accommodate this. As I said above I used aftermarket trans mounts to get more clearance there. I guess you could do something similar with stock trans mounts, although I never needed to.

Found some hours yesterday evening to strip the engine down a bit. Not as straightforward as I hoped. Easy enough to get SAI off as well as the throttle body. Next up was the oil filter housing, but some screws are hidden behind the intake elbow. To get the elbow off, I need to access a screw behind the oil filter housing :(

So, the intake manifold had to come off. Easier to reach the screws with the fuel rail off. That was easy, 4 bolts. On to the manifold, 14 screws. Taking off one of the screws, the inevitable happened:
Attachment 23925
It went down the fuel injector hole :eek:

Finally, all the stuff removed and ready for another fit (sometime next week)
Attachment 23926

Sorry for the bad pictures, ran out of battery so my phone refused to use the flash.
Looking down at the valves, they look surprisingly clean, so that is giving some confidence. Overall the engine is quite clean and not showing many leaks. The bad part though are the electrics. It has the full engine wiring harness and I already noticed a while back that some connectors were broken (mainly the latches) and some wires had chipping insulation. I thought this was mainly the thicker power wire, but taking the whole loom off showed many smaller wires doing the same. And I now understand why some connectors were broken, simply trying to unlatch them made them break easily. I guess this was one of the first years going halogen free on the wiring. For some reason really bad on this engine (maybe japanese climate??). I see a lot of this on european cars, I also had to repair the loom of my 2011 BMW in the rear hatch. Guess I need to get myself another / new loom.


I did get another few liters of coolant into the regular car. Should be good enough to let it idle to temperature now. :cheers:

Doesn't appear very easy to get the air out of the cooling system. Yesterday I idled it up to temperature, but as soon as it hit about 80degC the coolant level light turned on and the temperature increased more rapidly. I turned it off and there was some smoke coming from the vent cap (likely due to the pressure increase with so much air in the system). I was able to get another 4 liters into the system. Seems like I hit the point of the thermostat opening, rapid temperature increase (due to low coolant) also turned the fans on.

Today I repeated this. Unlike yesterday there was now warm air coming from the vents (I put temp to max to make sure there was flow in this branch and that I could feel it), one step forward. It also had a more steady climb in temperature and didn't go to overheat mode. I did switch it off once the coolant level light turned on again, before I got the fans kicking in. After cool down, another 1.5 liter in.

So now I have at least filled 16.5 liters. Judging by the Bentley manual I am expecting a capacity of 20 liters (somewhere between base and S model manual. I do have the bigger pipes, but not the third radiator). Probably there was at least some coolant left is parts of the system, so I should be coming close to the correct level now.

Next step, get the bumper mounted back on so I can take it for a drive. That heats the engine up more quickly and I can check the brakes properly... Fingers crossed.

Oddly enough, when I put my new (to me) engine in, it took far less coolant than I expected. I did not explicitly do anything to drain (other than pulling the old engine & coolant lines), but it worked itself out to the rear fill.

Have you considered one of the vacuum systems? It pulls a vacuum, then fills the pressure with coolant. Ive not got personal experience with them but they seem to be well regarded for fighting burping the system.

I used a vacuum system after getting mine back together, and I still added close to 6 liters after it was 'full' from the vacuum.

I didn't have a full vacuum fill kit, which might be the reason I had more trouble than needed. I filled the first 5 liters and air bubbles came straight back. After 5 liters, no more air coming out. I screwed on the adapter and pulled vacuum with my hand pump. A lot of air coming out, another 5 liters went in. Also I had a bit of luck by pressurizing the system. This pushed coolant out of the reservoir into the system, some of which didn't return after releasing the pressure.

Next time I will get the little valve block to fill while under vacuum.

That said, back to the V8. Today I was able to do another fit, this time without the intake manifold and oil filter.

A view from the top. Looking a lot better already. Main parts preventing the engine cover to fully fit (it is much closer already):
- vent hose connection on the right valve cover
- actual valve covers themselves
- the right bank cam position sensor. This ones come straight out while the left side is angled. I assume they are interchangeable but will need to pull them out to confirm.

Attachment 23930

And a view from the front / interior. You can see the valve cover / head touching the firewall / bulkhead. besides that, lots of space.

Not shown on the pictures, but the bottom of the oil sump is now nicely inline with the bottom of the car, so engine height is good.

Still seems moving the engine forward by one or two inches would help a lot as well as dropping the transmission a bit. I also need to check the best orientation of the intake manifold. As the engine is positioned now I can't wedge it in, so that will be a lower / modify / reposition excercise.

Progressing....slowly.

Minor progress this week. Took the car for a drive (first one since it is more or less back together). Cooling behaved ok, but it was a short drive. Brakes are functional (still don't feel like I would want them to, but at least they work after having every line, hose, caliper, ABS unit replaced) and the alignment wasn't terrible. I could drive straight without an issue, no pulling or obvious wrong steering angle etc.

Today I moved the car back a few meters so I could work in daylight. A few spots where the car was standing, but can't say whether this is new since the drive or whether it was from filling the coolant or even from the wreck which was standing in that place before. So not too concerned yet, but will keep an eye on it.

While driving I still had no power steering as it wasn't properly wired up. Also no speed indication as the ABS unit isn't wired in yet. Earlier this week I removed a good few ABS related wires from the wreck. Now I need to get them into the car and wired up. Most are easy, but I am looking for a +12V continuous signal for the ABS unit. The main power is on main fuse F1, but ABS 5.7 also has another wire (which I need to run as ABS 5.3 didn't have it). I think I will take fuse position D4 for this one. This is connected to main fuse F3 which runs mainly the Audio amplifier and power windows / mirrors.

I don't have power mirrors, so that's one load less. Windows are fused 30A each, 15A for the amplifier. ABS will be fused at 25A. So this totals 100A and will be covered by a main fuse of 80A. Not expecting any issues.

The other signals I need are a brake switch contact (ABS 5.7 requires both open and close, ABS 5.3 only used close) and handbrake switch. I might leave the handbrake one disconnected for now, that is not a real scenario to take into account anyway.

Other than these, I think I have it wired up. The ABS 5.3 had a terminal 60 wire (alternator) which is no longer needed. I'll connect this to the +12V Switced of the power steering pump.

Nearly there :cheers:

Always the little things that hold me back, but ploughing through.

- Old ABS had 2 wires of 2.5mm2 for power. New ABS has one single 4 mm2 wire. Decided to leave the 2x2.5 in and crimp them together in one terminal for the connector.
- New +12V wire mounted in the fusebox (D4 position)
- Brake pedal sensor replaced by the one from the wreck. This has the additional contact (both open and close). Luckily the connector on the car is already good, just had to add the additional terminal.
- Hand brake signal is simply spliced in my car with three wires total: brake switch, instrument cluster and convertible top control module. A few more of them in the wreck where they are connected together in one of the bridge points (in the main relay housing). As the top control module is there as well, it seemed the right place to get this signal. Decided to do it nicely and add a few contacts to an empty bridge point. Control module wired up to this point, ABS as well, now I just need to solder this to the original car connection. Would be nicer to use the proper terminal and go directly to the bridge point, but I have no idea which terminals are used there. If anybody knows, it would be great to hear!
- CAN signal pair taken from the wreck and added to the connector.
- My power steering +12V wire was too short to run along the battery, into the interior and to the main fuse box. Found a slightly longer one (10mm2) at the neighbours junk pile :D

Now one thing remaining is the way I route these cables from the frunk to the battery compartment. My idea was to go to the right first, where the power steering pump is and already an opening was made for the hydraulic lines. But a few of the wires will be too short if I try to do this. So maybe I should find myself a small wire grommet and make an extra hole behind the amplifier. From there I can simply get past the battery and into the interior. Ideas welcome.

Will try to wrap up the wiring next time and give some pictures.

Managed to spend an hour today. Main fuse box finished now. New lock nuts picked up and tightened down, all back in place now. This is how the fusebox looks with the 80A fuse in position 7 with the new wire. Should be good.

Attachment 23937

Just for the fun of it, the wreck has been stripped of a few wires and now looks like this:
Attachment 23938
Should still have most, if not all, wires to get the V8 started in there.

I mentioned before that it looked like there was something dripping on the car, leaving marks on the driveway. Put some cardboard underneath to have a clean surface to look at. Obviously a coolant leak:
Attachment 23939

I will need to stick my head in there a bit further to see where it actually comes from. You can see a drop in the picture, but it could come from some higher point.