The Rowdy Audi S4 B5 - is it a dog?

[DirtyDaily]

Finally a picture

[Matty]

39 minutes ago, DirtyDaily said:

Finally a picture

Sorry but them wheels dont suit it. Wants thicker spokes and rims. Otherwise thats awesome 😍

[Rustybullethole]

31 minutes ago, Matty said:

Sorry but them wheels dont suit it. Wants steels and hub caps. Otherwise thats awesome 😍

EFA

Was at Reading services West bound four hours ago. Wipers very much required.

[DirtyDaily]

And home. And goosed.

Goodnight everyone! Progress pending.

[dave j]

Same colour as my coupe, although yours will be considerably faster! Love it!

[DirtyDaily]

Same colour as my coupe, although yours will be considerably faster! Love it!

That looks epic. Always loved the coupes

[Schaefft]

What a great color! I'm surprised you got a B5 considering an RS5 was on the cards before!

[DirtyDaily]

19 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

What a great color! I'm surprised you got a B5 considering an RS5 was on the cards before!

That fell through. He didnt want to sell which is understandable.

[stuboy]

On 21/12/2025 at 21:33, DirtyDaily said:

Finally a picture

please put a TDi badge on it for fun and frolics

[DirtyDaily]

So a small update today.
Sorry i went quiet on the day. I was parting ways with £6,750 for a car that was essentially a parts car. I also wasnt fully convinced it was an RS4 engine as its hard to tell the difference between an s4 and an rs4 engine. The easy way to tell is the letters "AZR" will be stamped on the engine crane eye if its an rs4 engine and "AGB" if an S4 engine and on this car there was nothing. (I later found out engines that were replaced by Audi didnt come stamped)

The intake kit and massive turbos, water meth injection, custom turbo intake etc. Heavily pointed towards it being an rs4 engine though as it would have been wasteful to put all that on an S4. So with that i took the risk.

A quick idea on condition:
Crazy old exhuast setup going up through the boot floor and out where the reg should be means the rear boot is now basically scrap and cannot be closed.
Sunroof leaking
Power steering pump was groaning badly (leaking)
Central locking not working
No windows working
Damp inside
Interior just a bit rubbish.

However with all that said. The parts on it are wild.
Rs6 hybrid turbos, custom rs6 turbo intakes
Big front mount intercooler
Full custom exhuast
Gecko coilovers
18z brakes with braided lines
Water meth injection
Bucket seats
Roll cage
Shifter kit
£1,200 just for the clutch alone and much more yet to be discovered.

However as mentioned the main but of money is the engine. As s4 long block with cost £500. An RS4 long block is £5k. But then the intake manifold, bi pipes, timing belt covers are £1k. The turbos will be a £2k. The turbo intakes will be £500. The list goes on.

So i took a punt and took it home. It drove really well considering. Its on a manual boost controller due to the exhuast leak causing issues with the turbo management. At around 4k revs the power comes in, in a savage way. Its like youve been rear ended by a truck. This is i suspect on a "low boost" setting without the water meth. I did however take it easy for the 4 hour drive back as it was an unknown.

Today i changed the oil as its done a lot of short journeys and the oil smelt like petrol so i put in some cheap stuff just to get that rubbish out and put a new oil filter on it. As i was under the car i looked at the oil sump and took the part number and put it through google. Top result "oil sump for RS4 quattro". Now that is a top result. The oil sump for the s4 and rs4 are different and an rs4 sump will not fit on an s4 block. Its the real deal. I have an old friend who is going to remove the engine for the manifold leak and a general health check and let me know how its looking. I dont want to be removing the engine on the street so hes doing that and maybe a few other bits and then i will try and sort out the rest. I am very excited to get this thing ready for full power.

[DirtyDaily]

Just to add to the above. Those are the only 2 invoices the previous owner could find. He reckons thats about half of what he spent on it. Willows performance got a good reputation for making big power b5 S4s and then got a really bad reputation for not completing work. This was done as willows started getting bad.
This guy paid them for everything upfront and when he got the car the exhuast was blowing so he never got to enjoy it properly. Hes got a new 911 GT2 now so dont feel too bad for him.
Oh yeah the RS2 split rims are worth a fortune too!

[Schaefft]

Crazy to dump so much money into a car only for it to not function to its full potential.

[big_al_granvia]

i would check the cage, is it msuk certified, you will need that for anything more than trackdays. noticed harnesses , they need to be in date. personally i would be looking at budgeting for a fire supression system in the engine bay, call it insurance 

[tooSavvy]

12 hours ago, big_al_granvia said:

i would check the cage, is it msuk certified, you will need that for anything more than trackdays. noticed harnesses , they need to be in date. personally i would be looking at budgeting for a fire supression system in the engine bay, call it insurance 

🫣... I'd call it insane!! 🤣

Beyond Awesomness

Oof 🚀

🚙💨

[Tenmil Socket]

On 21/12/2025 at 21:33, DirtyDaily said:

Finally a picture

Interesting… looking forward to any more updates/photos. Please do something with that front reg plate though. It reminds me of those discs that tribal members have in their lips.

[Brigsy]

Hopefully wont find too many nasties when fixing the issues. Will be a weapon with a bit of work.

[DirtyDaily]

Interesting… looking forward to any more updates/photos. Please do something with that front reg plate though. It reminds me of those discs that tribal members have in their lips.

The reg plate will be sorted out some way or another. May put it over the holes and only remove for track use etc.

[Tenmil Socket]

3 minutes ago, DirtyDaily said:

9 minutes ago, Tenmil Socket said:

Interesting… looking forward to any more updates/photos. Please do something with that front reg plate though. It reminds me of those discs that tribal members have in their lips.

The reg plate will be sorted out some way or another. May put it over the holes and only remove for track use etc.

A square one to the side perhaps?

[chaseracer]

7 hours ago, Tenmil Socket said:

A square one to the side perhaps?

Lightweight sticky vinyl... 😉

[DirtyDaily]

So quick update.
Not a huge amount of movement and I am afraid no real pictures. Shocking of me i know...

I have been doing some light fettling on the car before it goes off to have the engine out which is looking like itll be this sunday. Very exciting.

So first off is the car has a fairly severe water ingress issue. Unfortunately i think the damage this has done is potentially unlimited. A lot of the connection in the fuse board have the corrosion signs around it and generally the buttons and switches feel rubbish. I suspect this is all due to corrosion. I started out by removing the seats and taking up the carpets, the passenger side carpet was the issue and the drivers side was pretty much dry. My first thought was the sunroof drains but this looks like someone has fitted larger pipe work to these so they werent blocked. Then then noticed the passenger side rear door had water near the bottom and i think this is the main entry. This was kind of confirmed as underneath this is a box section where the cage has been welded up.
There is a common theme with this car, crazy expense and great parts poorly executed. The roll cage is all completely bare metal and as you will of seen there was a very think layer of orange corrosion on it. Why wouldnt you treat it? So i did. I got a wire wheel on all the worst bits, cleaned, rust converter aerosol on it and then finally once that had cured an etch primer. The result is actually really good. The cage looks really good now and hasnt got any corrosion.
Next thing was addressing the absolute state that is the back end... the previous owner has cut out the spare wheel well and out in a sheet metal with an exhuast connector as it then went out through the boot lid. This has now been removed but now all the sheet metal again was untreated and surface rust was showing on all of it. Similar process again and its looking "better". Ultimately i am getting a new boot lid which will have to be painted because there are no lights and no latch in the boot lid so its always open.
Next on the list was diagnosing the following electrical issues:
No central locking
No electric windows
No sunroof
No interior lights (with the doors)
Voltage meter on dash showing 8v

Now the first 4 point towards the central locking pump which doubles up as a comfort control module. I have ordered a good looking used one for £45 so i will see if that helps. I hope it does but the wiring in the boot is looking very suspect due to the hackery of the prior owner. When i am looking at the car i am getting the bits from i will take a look at where and how the wiring is to see if i am missing anything. I really hope it all comes together because i am very excited about the prospect of getting this thing driving well again. When the engine comes out i am preparing for a list of "heres more they did badly". On the bright side the engine sounds good and starts great and runs smoothly. I feel like thats half the battle!

[DirtyDaily]

Is the intention that this becomes a daily driver? Or going to use it for time attack or whatever?

Spirited drives and track stuff. Itll never be a dily driver but I am a bit OCD and i can not stand stuff not working properly. I dont think would tolerate not having working windows and a boot that never closes. I am happy to put wind up windows on it and have everything working but I want it to be good to drive anywhere.

[DirtyDaily]

Is the intention that this becomes a daily driver? Or going to use it for time attack or whatever?

Spirited drives and track stuff. Itll never be a daily driver but I am a bit OCD and i can not stand stuff not working properly. I dont think I would tolerate not having working windows and a boot that never closes. I am happy to put wind up windows on it and have everything working but I want it to be good to drive anywhere.

[DirtyDaily]

Well we are in for some more news soon. The bits on the car keep getting better.
The turbos are not just rs6 turbos, theyre rs6 hybrids with a much larger impeller. Confirmed ASJ engine code (rs4).
Doesnt look too horrific but he reckons the silly exhaust was the cause of the manifold blow. It didnt give the exhaust any room to expand with heat, hence breakage. He also thinks the heads have been off at some point which would suggest it may have rods in it. He is currently taking off the sump and taking a look and we will know what it has. If it has rods, with the turbos it has he had a car with the same spec that made 686ps. Ooft.
I counted 7 RS4s on the property.

[Brigsy]

Definitely had money spent in the past. Be mega with all the bits sorted.

[DirtyDaily]

So verdict is in. Stock RS4 rods and pistons. Cant be too sad, he reckons 26psi of boost will be the sweet spot for the setup and this will "easily" make 600hp. We took the sump off and the engine is very clean and has clear indications of a rebuild which stacks up with what has been said. Happy days really. It will be at his for a while as he has a lot on but he is going to whip the engine out and assess. Also we need to assess what the rest of the car is like and if we can make it a reasonable motor. List of jobs
Engine out
Inspect manifolds
He has manifolds in stock which are v good and v not cheap
Check for leaks and fix as necessary
Fix the boosting situation
Timing belt, water pump, tensioners, thermostat, oils etc.
Gearbox service
Abs fix, suspect ring on drive shaft
Refit and remap/clean up map.

Then once i have it back i will go about tidying up the other bits over time.

He also offered to buy it off me a couple of times and suggested he should have bought it. Fortune favours the brave.

[DirtyDaily]

I found the video of when the exhaust was out the boot. Acquired "taste".
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7rYCS-oMO7/?igsh=MWQyNW00d3pnenEzMA==