Oops, I did it again!
 

December is 'Broken S8 month' at MJ's it seems...

I've preserved the pics from the ebay listing since I forgot to take any when I got it home.

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/fe1.jpg

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/fe2.jpg

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/fe3.jpg

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/fe4.jpg

This is a very very pretty car. I've had many silver Audis and specifically didn't want a silver S8 when I bought mine, but Avus Silver just has something about it, especially with the red leather. I really want to keep it when it's finished, but I'd have to get rid of the Dolphin Grey one and I've invested too much time, love, and money in to that one to ever sell it :rolleyes:

Ironically, this car is in far better condition than the Dolphin Grey. No seized bolts yet, all nice and tidy underneath, and the bodywork is pretty spotless as far as I can tell so far. It doesn't appear to have been painted, and doesn't look to have any door-dings or body damage at all apart from scruffy bumpers which are easily sorted. Its got the usual broken body studs around the exhaust heat shields, but that's easy to rectify.

The gearbox is leaking all over the place, but has documented history of 5L oil changes from Audi which is great news, and the oil is clean and free of clutch material. A full oil change and re-seal and that should be good to go.

The headrests are indeed aftermarket items which have been coloured to match the rest of the interior. I have a receipt for the rear-seat entertainment system including the Nokia handsfree system from 2012 for £1700 :eek: The guy sold it 12 months later!

Interestingly the data sticker doesn't have a paint code on it, and claims the interior is platinum with Vavona wood which it very much isn't! Its much darker than Vavona, more so even than the maple in the Dolphin Grey. Anyone have any ideas what an Avus FE should have? I'll grab a pic later.

Cleaned lots of leaves out of it the raintray and around the boot lid when I got it back:

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/leaves.jpg

Wheels had been sprayed by the PO without taking them off the car :tuttut:

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/caliper.jpg

The wheels are very scruffy so they'll all go off for a proper refurb later.

Looks like it had a bit of a bump at the front with some damage to the bottom of the front panel:

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/frontpanel.jpg

The rubber mount saved the radiator though :)

I didn't bother investigating the engine in place so started pulling it straight away.

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/engine1.jpg

Cam timing is spot on. Interesting...

A couple of hours later

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/engine2.jpg

and on stands to start the tear-down

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/engine3.jpg

So... are we ready for some carnage? :D

Inlet manifold off first...

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/inletport.jpg

Thats not good!!! :eek:

Lets have a look inside...

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/head.jpg

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/piston.jpg

That didn't end well then :tuttut:

It looks like the valve simply dropped in to the cylinder, got smashed about, and then fired back up the inlet port in to the inlet manifold (although I haven't actually found it yet!).
The upper valve retainer is missing (under the cam somewhere probably) and the spring is sitting loose over a short chunk of valve stem so it seems that either the retainer or collets failed and just let go of the valve. Its a very odd failure for a car with full service history.
The cylinder wall is scored and dinged in several places so this engine is a coffee table.

It'll now get pushed out the back of the workshop to hibernate under a winter cover until an engine turns up +++

You've been busy! :D No surprises on the engine though. Glad the rest is largely good.

Hopefully that minor bump at the front is fixable and that it ends up as a good vehicle. Could that be from a car park kerb?

Totally forgot about pictures, should have taken some of all 3 S8's together - yours, mine and this on the trailer.

And yes, Avus Silver is a splendid colour, get it out in the sun and you'll see the full effect; it has purplish tinges at times.
There probably won't be paint/trim codes, IIRC the FE's were all effectively "specials".

Just another Sunday at MJ's place! +++
Its better than my Sunday morning sitting around waiting for some friends to leave for the airport when all i want to do is to get the winter wheels on the car!

Hi Mikkijayne,
My exterior colour code is LY7J called Avus Silver Mica.
As with yours, its not on the build sticker, but someone has written it in the book. I will try and attach a photo of my build sticker.

As far as the wood interior is concerned, mine has the code nos 5ME which translates to Vavona wood insert amber high gloss.
Mine also does not have the extended leather that Adrian had on his. Check my album photos of interior.
Mine does not have the door arm rest wood capping's either. They are colour matched grey plastic. See photo.
Good luck with sourcing another engine. What is the engine code you need in case I stumble across one.
Regards,
David

Thanks for that +++ Looks like this one does have extended leather then since the middle of the door and underside of the dash are also red. There's nothing on the spec sheet to suggest that though.

Your wood looks the same as this one too. 5ME Vavona looks orange from Google searches, which corresponds with the 'amber' in the description:

http://www.audipages.com/images/sm_DSC_3452.JPG

:Confused:

I've got a complete set of Vavona trims (should anyone want any) though it's not quite as orange as that picture suggests. More bright reddish-brown.
(Complete set except for the door switch panels, which are on my S8 ;) )

I found the missing valve kicking about in the inlet manifold :rolleyes:

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/valve.jpg

It has snapped at the collet groove and looks very much like metal fatigue. A crack started on one side of the groove, and just propagated across the stem until it snapped and then the valve just fell in the cylinder. I've never seen a failure like that before on a production engine. It looks like it was running just fine until this too. The other cylinders on this side are spotless. Very odd.

The engine code is AVP by the way +++

Ouch!

Ive never seen that in all my time in engines. Theres a guy up near carlisle makes coffee tables. That would make a good base

Any point in taking that up with Audi? How many miles on the engine?

I did wonder about that actually. 120K on it though, and at 14 years old I doubt they would be particularly interested tbh. Besides, all the engines they kept in stock for warranty claims were liquidated to a surplus dealer last year. Thats where the new engine for the grey one came from :) No harm in asking though.

This is the spec list for it. No mention of extended leather in here - 3HA seems out of place for that? I presume S3G is what makes it an FE?

0G7 = Tiptronic
0GE = Emission standard EU3
0JL = Weight category front axle weight range 11
0YV = Weight range 20 installation control only no requirement forecast
1BD = Suspension/shock absorption for special sports design
1KW = Disc brakes rear
1N1 = Power steering
1SA = Without additional engine guard
1ZL = Disc brakes front
2ZP = Leather trimmed sports steering wheel for air bag system with tiptronic and S badge
3FQ = Electric sliding/pop-up sun roof with automatic pre-selection
3HA = Without leather parts scope
3L4 = Electric seat adjustment for both front seats driver's seat with memory system
3Y5 = electrically operated roll-up sun screenfor rear window and mechanically operated for side windows
4GP = Windshield in heat-insulating glass withsunshield and viewing window for vehicleidentification number
4K4 = Radio remote controlled central locking
4KP = Side and rear windows acoustic glass
4UF = Driver's and front passenger air bag with front passenger air bag deactivation
5D1 = Carrier frequency 433.92 MHz-434.42 Mhz
5ME = Vavona wood insert amber high-gloss
5SJ = Left exterior mirror: convex
5Z0 = Without separate power seats rear
6TS = Right exterior mirror: aspherical large viewing field
6XF = Exterior mirrors: with memory function electrically foldable/adjustable/heated
7K0 = Without tire pressure warning light
7Q2 = Navigation system with color screen
7X2 = Park distance control front and rear
8EC = Bi-functional headlight with gas discharge lamp for driving on the left
8GT = Compact alternator 90 - 150A
8Q3 = Automatic headlight-range adjustment dynamic (self-adjusting while driving)
8Z5 = Not hot country
C1S = Alloy wheels 8.5J x 20
E0A = No special edition
F0A = No special purpose vehicle standard equipment
J1G = Battery 450 A (92 Ah)
M8G = 8-cyl. gasoline eng. 4.2 L/265 kW V8 40Vcamshaft adjust. w/o cyl. cutout
Q1D = Sports front seats
S3G = Vehicles with special conversion/ installation
T7S = 8-cylinder gasoline engine 4.2 L unit 077.2 (aluminum)
U0L = Instrument insert with tachometer clock and mph speedometer
X2B = National sales program Great Britain

Mine too is Vavona but, as with Andrew's, it doesnt look as orange as that in real life. Maybe its just the photo light/colour balance?

The valve failure gives me nightmares just thinking about it!

Yep, that's normal - it shows as 99 when searching and tells you to e-mail qmbh or whatever it is to get confirmation. As per Barzya8 LY7J sounds right, from memory for Avus Silver.

Wood is Myrtle - mine also said Vavona and it most definitely is not!

The avus/red FEs have a lower level of extended leather compared to the mauve/purple. They were correspondingly a little cheaper new.

All FEs had plastic painted window switch surrounds from the factory. I upgraded mine to Myrtle all round to break up the colour and it was very effective, I thought. The lower handle shells are NLA though, so mine had the last 3 in the correct shade of grey that I could get, but retains purple on the driver's door as the one they thought they had turned out not to be on the shelf in Germany....

Great info Adrian thanks +++ I want to change the door inserts as well as the painted red ones are a bit ugly. Wood would be much better :)

Factory spec shows correct wood and extended leather. S3G is a common element in all FE's.

Attached.

As many discussions here have highlighted, the FE specifications were varied and not well documented on the build sticker. The use of extended leather, colour coding to the gear shift, wood/plain platinum door inserts and so on, seems to vary from car to car.

At one point, I'd thought all FEs had dark myrtle wood trim, but that doesn't seem to be the case in some FEs.

The few constants seem to include the colour coded steering wheel, the phone prep and the well documented paint and leather colour combinations. Beyond that, there's a lot of variation.

Found the smoking gun - a broken valve spring!

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/valvespring.jpg

The spring broke and released the tension on the collets, which promptly fell out. The next engine cycle pushed the valve down in to the cylinder where it was hit by the piston, and with no tension on it the hydraulic element dropped out of the rocker arm. The valve then got smashed up by the piston, and at the same time the element got smashed up by the rocker. Once the valve stem was sufficiently bent, it got jammed in the guide and the top broke off at the collet grooves. That bit stayed in the guide and the rest got ejected back up the inlet port.

The collets are the only bit left of the assembly that are intact, as they had escaped by the time all the destruction happened. One of them was sitting by #7.

More carnage pics:

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/head1.jpg
http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/head2.jpg
http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/head3.jpg
http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/head4.jpg
http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/head5.jpg
http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/head6.jpg

The chain guides needed doing. Looks like 100K is the norm for these.

http://www.corradov8.com/pics/s8/fe/guides.jpg

Legend +++

well done for saving another 8!

Best get on with that job then! :ROFL:

If it helps at all, I got my replacement tensioner pads from this place, installed in March 2014, engine hasn't blown up yet :)

http://www.cs-parts.de/index.php?a=237

Thanks :) The tensioners will get re-used in my other engine so they will need doing.