2010 Audi TTS 8J Coupe

Glad you're enjoying it! I've found this forum to be a treasure trove, it's really interesting following on with what people are getting up to. Looking forwards to seeing your automotive idiocy!

And yes it did hit me that this car is older than the Mk2 MR2 I bought in 2010 was, it just somehow doesn't feel that way. Probably the effect of getting old!

I got a couple of bits of preventative maintenance I wanted to do on the engine done tonight. First time I've done anything engine related and thankfully it still seems to start, so I'm taking that as a win.

I did three small jobs - replacing the Cam follower, upgrading the diverter valve to a GFB DV+, and replacing the engine cover which was only held on by one bolt...

The cam follower on these engines needs doing regularly and I didn't have any paperwork to say when it had last been done, so to avoid the risk of 2 grand's worth of cam and fuel pump replacement decided to swap a new one in. I forgot to get any 'before' pics, but stage one was disconnecting and removing the fuel pump. By far the trickiest bit of this was getting the grey wiring connector off it, I spent about 15 minutes swearing at it before working out you had to push it back in slightly then pull the clip to get it to release.

I'm glad I did this as I think the follower was right on the edge of OK, apparently you don't want silver showing on the face and that was just starting to happen.

I've replaced it with a hardened version that is supposed to last longer, it was only £10 more than the OEM one so I'll keep an eye on it periodically.

Next was a very quick job, replacing the diverter valve with a GFB DV+. I had a revision D valve in here previously which apparently is rubbish at holding boost. I haven't driven the car yet to tell if the new one has made a difference, but if I go down the remap route in future this will stand me in good stead. It was a 5 minute job to fit and uses the solenoid out of the original diverter valve.

And finally, time to pop the new engine cover on - not difficult to see the effect 135,000 miles has had on the original! Some jokers on eBay seem to be trying to sell ones in similar condition for about the same as I got the new one for.

And finally, the engine bay with everything hooked back up again, you can see the new diverter valve just below the engine cover.

Did you still have the TTS?

I do, and have done many more silly things to it that make little financial or logical sense, but they make me happy. Your prompt has motivated me to do a big old update.

First up, the underbody rust. Thankfully the garage extensively covered it in their own blog, so I shall link to that rather than re-write here. In short, it was a mess but has been saved and is now considerably better than it came out of the factory: https://balancemotorworks.co.uk/2023/09/29/audi-tts-restoration-can-a-2010-car-really-be-this-rusty/

Having since posted about this on various enthusiast forums the general view is that the steel rear end of the Mk2 TT is a time bomb if not treated and driven in wet/salty conditions. The body shell is painted on the rear of the car so quite why Audi decided not to bother getting the robot to finish off covering the bottom we don't really know, but it's going to cost a lot of people a lot of money as these get older.

The upshot is that all rear end suspension components along with the front control arms were replaced, and in for a penny in for a pound we put Bilstein B12 coilovers on to replace the stock shocks and springs.

I was still getting some vibrations at motorway cruising speeds, so swapped the tyres for a new set of Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6 and they have dealt with about 80% of the problem. There is still a slight vibration which now comes in at around 85mph (so not a speed I'm seeing regularly but rather more of a problem if I choose to track it). I think I'm going to need to find a shop with a Hunter Road Force balancer to take a look at the wheels to dial the last bits of this out.

Next up, the engine...

I had the car booked in to R-Tech in Nuneaton who do a bundle deal on intake cleaning, injector servicing and a remap. They're generally known as the place to go for the EA113 engine, and do a bespoke map for every car based on what it can handle rather than just slapping a generic one on.

Having wondered off to kill some time in Nuneaton I got a call with some interesting info, and thankfully a dodged bullet. Apparently three of the inlet flaps had broken. Very luckily, they were clean breaks and matching them up to their mounts confirmed no smaller bits had broken off and got into the engine to start circulating, so a very lucky escape. Two of the injectors were stuffed which probably meant the other two were not far behind, and also explained why I was never getting great fuel economy as they were apparently just firing fuel out all over the place. Surprisingly I hadn't had any error codes for the engine so can only presume any misfires they were causing were below a threshold of tripping a code.

This meant the trip got rather more expensive than planned as I had four new injectors installed, but it was 100% worth it. Apparently they've only seen these symptoms with bad maps, and an initial dyno run confirmed the car did have a map on it and was producing around 293bhp and 298 ft/lb, however this was after the injectors and inlet had been repaired so no doubt was quite a bit down on it when I was driving it. I've either got lucky with the stock clutch or it's been upgraded at some point as they were able to tune the engine up to peaks of 327.5bhp and 332 ft/lb without any slipping.

I now understand how a TTS is supposed to feel! I've never had a high performance turbocharged car before - I had a Civic Type R and a Mk2 MR2 back in the mists of time, and then more recently company cars were a BMW 330e and an Audi E-Tron, so a hybrid and a full electric. When I got the TTS I did feel that the throttle response was very poor low down and then the power came on all at once when it hit boost, and now see that was a characteristic of the old map. The new one has a wonderfully progressive throttle response which picks up early and doesn't let off when you're foot's on the floor, but is also really easy to drive sensibly. I have gained about 5mpg on long runs too, which feels like it will more than pay for having to run it on V-Power.

Before and after graphs are as below:

Now onto the interior. As mentioned upthread the seats had seen better days. As may be becoming apparent, I have a habit of allowing scope to creep somewhat, so having initially been looking at just doing a like for like seat replacement, I ended up getting hold of a set of the Recaro Wingbacks from an old RS4. These have inflatable bolsters around the back and legs along with lumbar support, but most importantly of all, look cool.

I had to retrofit a power feed to support these functions as the previous seats were purely mechanical. I didn't get any pictures of this but it was relatively straightforward following an online guide. I also found that irritatingly despite the RS4 and TT seat wiring having identical pin positions, they used a different plug and pin type, so I spent a fun day de-pinning the connectors on the Recaros, crimping new ends on and pinning them into TT plugs.

Mine were showing their age, and also didn't match the rest of the interior, so I got in touch with Lawrence at LG Trimming in Camberley to get them refreshed and retrimmed and also got the door cards and rear seat inner panels done at the same time to pull everything together. I'm pretty happy with the end result:

That pretty much brings us up to date. I am really enjoying the car - it's great fun to drive but also surprisingly practical. I can haul my five year old around as needed and with the back seats down it's surprisingly spacious, so I can get my five-piece drum kit in for travel to band practices and gigs. What I've spent on it doesn't make much sense from a pure financial standpoint, but I think it will give me a lot of happy years of use to come. I could have spent quite a bit more initially on one in 'good condition' and still found similar underbody issues hiding away so I at least know that this one has had that dealt with and to a standard that I trust.

I'm not quite finished yet though, future jobs are:

1. Replace rear ARB and droplinks, likely with Whiteline 24mm. The rear ARB on these isn't the best out of the factory, and the only advisory on January's MOT was for the rear drop link bushings, so that feels like a good excuse to do both at once
   
2. Respray. The paint job that is currently on the car is evidently a rattle can job, and an awful one at that. I'll get the alloys reconditioned at the same time
   
3. Other exterior cosmetic stuff. I'm umming and aahing about going gloss black on the front grille, rear diffuser and wing mirrors. I'll likely see how they look offset against a nicer paint job before making a final decision here
   
4. The remaining front bushings that weren't replaced when the back end of the car got dealt with
   
   

After that I might just leave it alone and drive it. There's always the temptation to stick an aftermarket exhaust on and go Stage 2 though...

This is mad. Great but mad.

Interior looks amazing.

What I've spent on it doesn't make much sense from a pure financial standpoint, but I think it will give me a lot of happy years of use to come

In a similar situation, I need to hear this more! Underbody work looked very thorough, good to see another car firm doing things right and happy to share the information. How were LG trimming to work with? I'm about to do some very budget repairs to my interior but am keeping tabs on someone that can do a proper job down the line.

Thanks! To start with I did a load of mental gymnastics trying to justify what I was doing and then decided to just let the madness take hold. Much like my bike builds really...

They were good, Lawrence caught Covid the week the car was due to go in so we had to push things back but that wasn't a problem. Once he had the car he kept me regularly up to date, didn't deviate from the quoted price and sorted out the mess I'd made trying to glue the parcel shelf bracket in place for free too. He spent plenty of time both via email and in person when I was dropping it off confirming the design and going over thread colours so we could make sure the seats matched the paintwork.

He was going to strip some of the internal trim and get it hydro-dipped, but the company we were planning to use weren't answering their emails and then when they finally got in touch quoted a month's turnaround so we knocked that on the head and I've since vinyl wrapped some of the bits myself, which has come out OK.

Thanks, sounds like a good option. Ideally i'd have my interior restored instead of retrimmed but no one is interested in doing that.

I've been lazy with updates again here. I got the respray done and the wheels refurbished and am happy with the results. It wasn't a full bare metal job and you can tell in places, but the key things I wanted to address with the bonnet looking hideous, overspray all over every seal, and bobbling have been dealt with. As the fuel cap had been sanded over when the previous owner did their awful job we went body coloured with it and with the front end being a bit of a mishmash of black and grey out of the factory, the shop recommended going for grey with the fog light grilles and I like how they came out.

Of course, sods law being what it is, I'd had it back for about a month when entering a car park I've used many times without issue, I managed to scrape the skirts and kerb the rear wheel... I'm hoping I can get away with a smart repair on the skirt, just very irritated I did it now and not any other point since I bought the car.

Otherwise it's been great mechanically, I've done a few long round trips with work and a stag do and it hasn't missed a beat.

The alarm horn has gone, which is par for the course with VAG cars of this age as they have an internal battery that leaks over time. I tried to replace it this morning (requires removing a front wheel for access), but found that with the low ride height of the car if I jack it up high enough to get a jack stand under it also lifts the rear wheel on the same side off the ground, which feels hilariously unsafe. Any recommendations for low-rise axle stands would be appreciated...

Looking really smart. With yours being that much newer than mine i like the lighter approach to the outer shell with the underside been treated more thoroughly. I keep thinking about getting my wheels done but that money will be going towards the chassis revamp i can't afford right now!

Any recommendations for low-rise axle stands would be appreciated...

How high are we talking? Could you not just slide something under the lifted wheel to make it stable?

Looking great now.

Sorry I missed this response initially. My current stands are minimum height of 280mm, there look to be some on amazon around the 240mm range which might be enough. I do have wheel chocs, the drive has a very slight downwards slope (probably no more than 2-3 degrees) so I wasn't sure if it was safe to just wedge something under there.

I thought I'd managed to get away with doing this job having turned the wheels all the way to the right and peeled back the arch liner, only to find that the bolt that holds the siren in place has corroded in place. I now need to take the wing off so I have access to remove the whole unit and then work out how to get the bolt off. These jobs always seem so simple until you start doing them...

Being off work at the moment I strapped on my big boy pants and had another go at the alarm horn. Got the car up high enough for an axle stand and put a brick under the rear wheel and then went to work. Of course, the 13mm nut that holds the alarm siren in place had completely corroded in place and nothing was moving it. I ended up having to take the wing off to get at the cage the horn sits in and then Dremel out the offending nut and bolt . What should have been a 45 minute job ended up taking 2 and a half hours, but it's done now and the alarm is once again functional. Noticed one of the wing mirror indicators has died so next job will be attacking that....

Excellent work. Both in fixing things and making me feel better about my project!

Thank you! I feel as though yours is objectively an actual classic whereas at the moment mine is a silly man spending unnecessary amounts on an old car, but as mentioned above it does everything I want it to and in a rather fun way too.

Sorting out the passenger side wing mirror indicator was another fun job that took many times longer than it should have done. The issue was easy enough, in that whoever last had it off (I imagine the body shop when it was resprayed) hadn't plugged the wires back in to it. Unfortunately as with everything else on the car it had evidently been bodged around with multiple times and of the four mounts that attach the mirror cover to the mechanism, only one was still present, and that snapped when I unscrewed the torx bolt from it. Cue plastic welding it back into place, waiting a day for it to set, and very carefully reinstalling everything.

I also realised the reason the bolt that holds the whole assembly to the car had been replaced with one with a big button head was because that jammed it still to stop it shaking. As it stripped on the way out I replaced it with a standard sized one and the mirror cover now has a slight wobble. I'll try and sort it with some tape short term and then add new mirror covers to the shopping list...