New here - My 2003 Audi S6 Avant 4.2 6MT (C5)

[flipstah]

Re: New here - My 2003 Audi S6 Avant 4.2 6MT (C5)

Hnnggghh. If you can slap meatier tires on them, it'd be juicy.

Glad you like 'em!

[MechEngg]

Re: New here - My 2003 Audi S6 Avant 4.2 6MT (C5)

Those are fantastic!!

[Danaldson]

Re: New here - My 2003 Audi S6 Avant 4.2 6MT (C5)

looking great dude!

[T-Dubbs]

Re: New here - My 2003 Audi S6 Avant 4.2 6MT (C5)

Looks great!!

[gheron]

Re: New here - My 2003 Audi S6 Avant 4.2 6MT (C5)

those look perfect!!!!!!!!

[Lars]

Re: New here - My 2003 Audi S6 Avant 4.2 6MT (C5)

Beauty!

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: New here - My 2003 Audi S6 Avant 4.2 6MT (C5)

Hot!!!!!

[BolideVW]

Re: New here - My 2003 Audi S6 Avant 4.2 6MT (C5)

Very Nice!

[richie_rich]

Finally some updates! Some non Euro content for a bit

So it looks like an update in this thread is rather overdue. Let start with the new daily driver/winter car with a prewarning of NON EURO CONTENT!

I was having lunch with a couple of buddies close to the end of May and I was talking to them tossing around the idea of getting a daily driver/winter car in order to save on gas, and in order to save the condition of the Avant. Only requirements I had were it had to have some form of AWD, be great on gas, and have some amount of ground clearance. One of my buddies piped up and said he was going to be getting rid of his girlfriends 1998 Honda CRV. Him being an Acura parts manager, and very particular about his vehicles (all 6 of them being mint Hondas/Acuras), he assured me the car was in great mechanical condition with lots of maintenance done just the past winter. It would come with a starter, and the stock wheels, along with a set of winter tires on a set of beat up Integra Type R wheels. All for a bottom bargain price of $500! The thing that sold me was that it was a rare 5 speed manual. But it wasn't all sunshine, it had a broken coil spring, 270XXXkm (which is fine for a Honda), and holes/rust all over the place (hood, roof, bottom of the drivers side door, rear wheelwell edges on the rear quarter panels). Was no problem to me, it was just to drive daily and in the winter. So back to my Honda roots I went.

The day I handed over my $500 (end of June):



Took care of the usual things, fluid replacements, decent exterior and interior cleanup, air filter, plugs, and a few interior and exterior lightbulb replacements. She was then ready to drive.


Then my inner Honda modder decided to take over. I tossed on a bunch of decals I had lying around to make it look a little different than all the other CRVs rolling around. Then shortly afterwards, sh!t got serious, I picked up a decent set of 17" Work Emotion CR Kai in bronze taken off my friends RSX, and picked up a used set of proper sizes tires on Kijiji.

You can see the S6 in the background getting jealous of all the time I was spending with the CRV:



August rolled around. I was enjoying the CRV. But picking up a cheap Honda and having friends with Hondas was not a good idea. I was given an Injen intake originally meant to fit a Civic SiR. I managed to get it to fit without any major modifications. While I was in there, I put in an SiR gauge cluster that I got from a friend, and put in my old Pioneer double DIN and a bass tube for some decent beats. Since I had to replace a broken spring, I decided to pick up a set of H&R sport springs, and replace the shocks with KYB replacements since they were coming out anyways.


Having lots of experience back in the day working with Honda and Acuras in the garage, the lowering springs and shocks were in within 45 minutes. Only a slight visual difference (only a 1.5" drop), but man did it ever handle so much better, and it goes around corners surprisingly quick with much less body roll than it used to have.



With my last 2 cars having proper HID's (I did a projector replacement on the WRX, and the S6 has them factory), the stock halogens weren't gonna cut it. I wasn't about to put in glaring aftermarket HID's, so I picked up a full HID projector (with high beam flipper) retrofit kit from The Retrofit Source, opened up the headlights and installed them. Much better and brighter beam and cutoff now, even better than my S6!
Before and after:




It was September, and I wasn't planning on it, but something inside in me decided to tackle the rust. Sanded and ground down all the rust I could see, and I came up with this (worst parts of it):




After grinding, a few POR-15 applications on the raw leftover metal, some hole patching, Bondo, sanding, more Bondo, more sanding, rattle can primer, rattle can paint, rattle can clear coat, I ended up with something that looked decent and passible. All previously visible rust was taken care off on the doors, fenders, hood, rood, A-pillars, and quarter panels. It isn't show quality or perfect by any means, and it can be seen if you look harder, but it least it was all one color, and I was proud of myself with what I had accomplished by myself in the garage.




Now comes to present day. My friend who owns Balance Auto Garage decided to buy a JDM Honda Integra Type R and immediately replaced the rare stock 16" wheels with something else. I decided to buy the wheels being so rare, and since I was given such a great deal on them, there also conveniently happened to be 5 of them (he found one in the trunk where the little spare donut was supposed to be) so I had an extra one to put one on the back of the car.. Got a set of 90% used Continental all-seasons for $150 (gotta love Kijiji finds), and I had him mount up the tires, and we put the wheels on. Much better visually than the Works I had on there, probably due to the contrast of the white on the blue.



This is how she sits right now, not bad for what she used to be!


This weekend, the gunmetal 15" Integra Type R wheels with the Michelin X-Ices will make it back onto the car so I'm safe for the winter.

So thats the story of my daily driver/winter beater. Don't worry, we're back to our regularly scheduled Euro content in just a moment....

[richie_rich]

Back to Euro content

While I was all busy with the CRV, my brother was busy wanting an Audi. He was driving a very quick BMW 335i. It was awesome and comfortable for him in the summer, but an absolute dread in the winter, even with winter tires. He, like me, came from a Subaru (STI), and was used to having AWD in the winter. He picked up this red B6 S4 Avant in the middle of August:


Family pic with my parents' Q5:


He got an exhaust, tune, and lowered the car, but did not have wheels. The wheels from his BMW were awesome (Work Euroline XR), but with adapters, they would not fit his car. So I did what any brother would do (maybe). My S6 bigger fenders swallow much bigger wheels than his car would, so after careful measurement and offset specing online, a deal was made. My Volks (with 10mm and 15mm spacers, I had 20mm and 25mm spacers when they were on my wagon) went on his car, and after more measuring, I ordered 15mm and 20mm 5x112 to 5x120 conversion spacers from ECS for my car. After they came, I put studs on the spacers and tossed them on. We both ended up happy, the Volks look better on his car than on mine, and the Works (in my opinion) look perfect of my car.





One more post coming in a few minutes...

[richie_rich]

Fall Shoot, Halloween Shoot, and Hibernation

And this will be the last post for now as she has gone into hibernation as of Sunday night.

Trying to get back into photography and using my camera, so I decided to start with my own car. I had not gotten any good shots of the car with the new Work wheels on, and I know I needed practice. Fall arrived, and the colors were awesome. I went out for a quick drive, and all the tree/leaf colors were nice, so I rolled down to a few different spots to take a bunch of shots. Here are a few from my Flickr:









Almost Halloween at this point, so I put my brothers stock wheels on to prep for her hibernation, he will be using my previous winters. Last year I put Ghostbusters decals on the wagon for Halloween. This year I put a Star Wars Imperial Forces emblem on both sides. Fall family portrait:



Then this happened. A friend had a StormTrooper costume and this was planned, so this was the reasoning for the Imperial decal. Out came my camera to work on rolling shots! (full album here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsko3yugx):






And then we come to the end of this season. On Sunday, I cleaned her up real good inside and out, put the battery maintainer on, filled up the tires, and filled all fluids. Moved her to the back beside my brothers Honda K20R Mini project to hibernate until April. Sad to put her away, this is the first time I've had a winter beater, all my other cars had been fully daily and winter driven. But I guess in the end it is for the better.

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: New here - My 2003 Audi S6 Avant 4.2 6MT (C5)

Awesome updates, loving all the cars!!!!

[Bagged]

Re: New here - My 2003 Audi S6 Avant 4.2 6MT (C5)

Hi Rich

[onceover]

Re: New here - My 2003 Audi S6 Avant 4.2 6MT (C5)

Careful with storing the car outdoors with a car cover on it like that. Humidity will get underneath and can cause things to rust REALLY quickly.

[richie_rich]

Re: New here - My 2003 Audi S6 Avant 4.2 6MT (C5)

Careful with storing the car outdoors with a car cover on it like that. Humidity will get underneath and can cause things to rust REALLY quickly.

Thanks for that. You bring up a very good point. I was doing a bunch of reading online and also talking to people in person, and its seems to be 50/50 on whether to run it or not. I don't know what to do for sure, but figured I'd toss it on. Gonna do some more reading and decide before the snow really flies.