[urq] Timin Belt change time

[Brett Dikeman]

At 9:34 AM +0100 11/4/01, Phil Payne wrote:

>The belt on David Sutton's KW (S1) failed as Michele was bringing the car
>back to the paddock after a second practice run at Goodwood.  It was eleven
>years and 900 miles old.

I would really, really not want to be the guy who was responsible for
the "do we change the t-belt" decision.  Can you say, "keel-hauled"?

>  Audi have a VERY limited stock of parts and getting
>the bits necessary to rebuild the head was a matter of negotiation.  I
>_think_ the engine has now been rebuilt - it's about four years since the
>incident.

You would think that it would be in everyone's best interests,
preservation-wise, to get the original supplier of the head to
re-tool and produce some more heads.  It's not like most Sport Q
owners couldn't afford the price of such an endeavor, right?
Wouldn't -you- rather have one on hand, that you had to pay a hefty
price for, rather than not have one at all, just in case?  Granted, I
bet it would lower the value of the car if it ever had to be used,
but probably not as much as having a useless motor(or a non Sport-Q
motor.)

I'm assuming that the casting is the most important part, that if you
had it, that solves most of your problem(ie, the rest of the head is
made up of obtainable or substitutable parts)?

Brett
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