Manifold Flap Repair: Please Help - Car in Bits!
 

As some of you will already know, my car is currently at Vagtech while they try to undo some of the abuse the poor thing has seen at the hands of the previous owners.

While doing the carbon clean, they noticed one of the intake manifold flaps was broken and rattling around in the intake.

A flap repair has been mentioned a few times on this forum. Does anyone have any details of anyone who could repair them for me?

If they're anywhere near Milton Keynes, all the better. Sam at Vagtech is going to show it a local engineer, who we're hoping will be able to do it, but I'd really like some options in case the answer is no.

Help! :o

I am in the process of developing a rebuild kit. This will take a few months at least given my current other (professional) projects. I'd say do a flap delete because that is free, and get a kit from me when done.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the responses +++

Marcin's guide was really tempting, but I know it would have bothered me, so I ended up buying a new intake. Having called around a number of different countries, I purchased it from Audi USA, saving me a considerable amount over the UK (and German) price.

VAGtech are going to begin putting my car back together now, so the last remaining part will be the new intake when it arrives.

I can't wait to get her back now!

I really admire and appreciate your attitude to OEM Tony, you cut no corners and want everything to be as it should, I applaud you +++

Aw shucks, thanks very much, I really appreciate you saying that. Now, do you think you could convince my bank manager of that too?!

Did they mark it as a gift or will you be having a nasty C&E bill before delivery?

I didn't want to ask them to mark it as a gift or sample, just in case it came back to them - I don't want to burn my bridges for future sales. Instead, I asked them to value it using the weight of the material, rather than Audi's inflated retail price. I suggested $250 would be about right.

Hopefully, that means that even if Customs does pick it up, the VAT and import duty should be negligible. Funnily enough, I was researching dutiable imports and car parts wasn't on the list at all. Thinking back to my days working at a courier company, I remember we used to ship thousands of Land Rover parts to and from Japan - maybe that was why!

A few of us here have done carbon cleans on the v10 now. ( not me yet ) Is there a consensus for real before and after benefits. More than just peace of mind? And before and after data?

There's a video on YouTube showing an S8 with before and after dyno tests and the carbon clean showed an improvement.

https://youtu.be/7ohS1MGA26Q

From my research, the symptoms of an engine clogged with carbon are rough running when the engine is cold and reduced power. I was experiencing the first, but I have to confess I've not driven carbon-free S8s enough to know if I also suffered the second. I've always felt the engine had more to give though.

I didn't do a dyno test before it went in to have the clean. Even if I did, it would have been inconclusive because of the additional work being done to my engine. A colleague is an engineer and the very first time he saw my car, he told me there was something up with the intake. He listened to it and told me it sounds like it was sucking when it should have been blowing. It could be that the problems I've described were down to the broken intake flaps.