[ba] Comments on 19 year old 5 cylinder bottom end?

[Buchholz, Steven]

... 200K on an Audi engine is nothing ... especially on a non-turbo.  I
bought a 4kQ with 206K in a heartbeat ... it needed a clutch but the rest of
the car was *cherry*.  It sound as though your car was even better cared for
than the average Audi, so I would not at all worry about having the head
redone.  It isn't clear to me how much I'd be willing to spend doing much
tweaking though ... a complete turbo engine is not that expensive ... and
you'd be hard pressed to get the same sort of improvements out of a
non-turbo tweak ...

BTW, there are several Coupe GTs in our area which have already had this mod
done ...

HTH!
Steve Buchholz
San Jose, CA (USA)
>
> I have probably about 150-200K on my 82 Coupe (the odometer
> stopped back in
> the 80s). Probably 75% of those miles were run on RedLine oil
> and the rest
> on decent Dino multi.
>
> I'm pretty easy on all my vehicles having a adopted a smooth
> and steady
> approach as opposed to the "stomp this pedal, now stomp that
> pedal" style I
> see some drivers have. That means I got 15 years out of the
> original clutch
> even though 7 of those years were in San Francisco.
>
> Anyway, I do most of my own work and  my cars/bikes hold up
> well (24+ years
> & 50,000 miles on Norton Commandos without a breakdown).
>
> I asked the mechanic I sometimes use about doing a valve job
> and his comment
> was that he would be concerned that the bottom wouldn't like
> the extra power
> coming back (I'm guessing 20 HP back up close to the stock figure).
>
> He's a cracker-jack Porsche guy but only works on my Coupe
> because he used
> to work on my Volks aircooled motor. He doesn't have that much Audi
> experience.
>
> Any comments? I've heard/read that the 5 cylinder bottom end
> will go forever
> if treated well but that's all second hand hearsay to me.
>
> I'd like to think along the lines of putting a later model
> head/cam on it as
> I've read of that mod/update online and it sounds like a good
> way to go. I
> know that it is supposed to bump the HP up over the stock
> figure and I think
> I'd probably like that.
>
> But I DO NOT want to open a can of worms, as the car goes
> reasonably well
> (and I get my go-fasty out of my system on 2 wheels) . But
> I'm considering
> putting some $$ into it and thinking of it as my "keeper" so
> some engine
> modes/updates need to be considered.