20V turbo in V8 body?

[Brett Dikeman]

At 11:13 PM -0400 4/21/02, Audi Sport wrote:

>Hi, again. Another thing I am considering is putting my 20V turbo engine

Ahem, I hope not from an otherwise OK 200q20v :-)

>  in a
>V8 body since I've always liked the way they look.

Why not leave the engine alone?  They've got 230hp(more in later
versions), plenty to stand on their own merit...in fact, unless you
chipped the ECU, you'd be pulling a downgrade(and some would still
argue that the turbo lag versus instant response+torque from the V8
is still a downgrade, even if the #'s are higher.)  Sure, it's an
automatic, but...there are plenty of very happy V8 owners, and very
few(less than 50) manual V8s to go around, so they're not all driving
manuals...so the auto can't be that bad.

   If you wanted it as a project car, you can get a 4.2l and install
that.  I think people HAVE done that, and it's a serious upgrade to
the car...almost 70hp, sort like chipping one of our cars.  If you
did a few tweaks to that, you'd have an over-300hp high speed cruiser
that'd be pretty damn fast...faster than a chipped 200q20v by a long
shot, since you wouldn't have any lag, and more hp+torque too(in
stock form, versus a chipped 3B, you're looking at more than 23hp
difference; not sure about torque, although I remember Scott J saying
the 3B has a LOT of torque, especially chipped.)

Finding a wrecked A8 for a donor(or the engine) shouldn't be -that-
hard, considering what bodywork costs on them with the aluminium
sheet metal and all.

>  I know they change quite a
>few things around and a lot of brackets inside the engine bay are either
>different or absent but I want to know if the engine and transmission mounts
>are still in the same spots. Also, is the drive shaft the same lenght? Rear
>differential unchanged?

The rear differential is torsen in addition to the center torsen diff
on our cars, although I remember being told once that you can take
the torsen rear off a V8 and put it on a 200q20v, bolt up(I think.)
I guess that means that if you took a complete 200q20v tranny+engine,
it would at least bolt up to the rear diff in terms of mechanical
compatibility, but would things line up elsewhere?  Would the engine
even fit?  I thought the V8 engine was wider but shorter, and the I5
really long.  Type44's have a very long engine compartment..not sure
if the V8 is the same.  There might be some info about this in the
archives...but good luck trying to find it  :(


>  Let me know if you got any info on this or know of
>someone who's done this type of conversion.


I really don't think anyone has ever done it.  The V8 is
substantially heavier...probably has worse aerodynamics, too, but
that's a badly educated guess.  The 200q20v was the sporty model, the
V8q the top of the line luxury cruiser...sort of like the A6 2.7tt
versus the A8.  I think each engine choice complements the car it was
designed for.  Audi did put the V8 into the European S4, but they did
so tweaked up to 300hp, and with a manual transmission.

No offense intended, but I'd consider some other combo if you've got
the itch to do a conversion.  You could put the 20vt in a Coupe or
90...many people have done the Coupe conversion, making Ersatz
S2's(one of 'em is a lister), don't think I've seen the 3B->90
conversion done nearly as often.  I think it is a better choice,
since it's lighter than the coupe, and more practical...but I seem to
remember Peter Schultz telling me it wasn't a better choice from a
fit perspective.  Still, there was a turbo 90q at Mt Washington, I
think it may have been a 10v..even still, if they fit a 10vt in
there, I'd be willing to bet a 20vt wouldn't be THAT much harder.
Guy did have the radiator in the trunk, though :-)

Hope this heips...

B
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