Erik Myers

* If you want to skip the crap, I summed this up at the bottom*
Strap yourselves in, because this is a story of mystery, intrigue, and an enigmatic man named John Ogden.

Hey y'all, it's been quite a few years since I've posted! It feels good to be back for sure. My red '85 4000sq has been sitting absolutely neglected ever since I moved to Montana and the cold winters proved to be too much for it to crank.
As such, I've finally gotten my hands on a replacement engine, an AAN out of what I believe to be a '95 UrS4 or S6, my AAN knowledge is too poor to even know which one it could've been. I'll keep the details to what is essential; I'm hoping to try and find some information about what was going on with this engine when it was pulled, either from the previous owner, or from someone who just might be able to look at it and knows more than a smooth-brained 10v guy like myself. Here are the gritty details, complete with pictures:

- I purchased this AAN from Chris at Force 5 Automotive up in NH and had him ship it out here to Bozeman, he said it had around 160k and was still sitting in the S4 when I bought it. I don't have a picture of the car it came out of, so I don't even know the color. I asked him to include EVERYTHING I might need for a swap into my 4000, including the harness, ECU, turbo, piping, intercooler, the works. He obliged and it arrived at my shop yesterday afternoon on a pallet:



- As I was unwrapping my 'new' engine like a kid on Christmas morning, I started to notice some peculiarities that I was curious about getting more details on. First off, the engine trim seems to have been painted red at some point and had some stickers plastered onto it. Ok, someone cared at least a little bit about it, even if the paint hasn't stood up well to the test of time. At least they pulled the wastegate cap off when they painted it to avoid overspray.

- Here's where things start to get a little odd for me, since I'm not familiar with these engines and expected to get a bone stock one. First thing I wanted to do is endo all the cylinders and look for anything concerning. As I start to take to coil cover off, I notice the five spark plug wires dangling out of the side of it. Wait a minute..... plug WIRES?? My buddy asks "I thought this thing was coil-on-plug?" I say "I thought so too." I think to myself... there's no way this thing has a distributor right? I thought that was an ABY thing? I look back at where the dizzy is mounted on my 4000, there's the familiar dizzy hole. Thank God, it has what appears to be the original block-off plate covering it up. Ok, this thing didn't have a distributor on it. Then why are there spark plug wires dangling out of it? I remove the cover, sure enough they are just raw spark plug boots, no coils in sight. I start to get REALLY confused. How is this thing getting ignition? Where are the coils?! A difficult question with yet no answer. We pull the boots off, they all look decent, at least. I pulled the plugs, they all looked old but decent; all matching NGK Iridium. No issues there either, they weren't overtightened either. They looked to be a little lighter, maybe lean burning?

- I stuck an endoscope down all 5 cylinders. They look fine, I can see the crosshatching and the pistons/valves all have what I would consider to be normal carbon buildup on them. Everything there seems to be in order.

- I endo the oil cap, I can't see much but both cams at least exist in this universe.

- We're still looking over the engine like giddy schoolchildren. Time to look at the turbo. The thing is rusty as hell, but so is everything else so I'll allow it. The intake boot is loose off of it, so I peel it out of the way and peer down the compressor side of the turbo. There are the fins, all intact at least. It looks alright, I grab the nut to check for crossplay and OH GOD THERE'S LIKE 40 THOUS OF PLAY IN THE SHAFT. It's absolutely god awful, the thing wobbles like a 3/8" universal socket joint. Well, looks like I'll be rebuilding that. I decide to ram the endo up the exhaust pipe and see if I can look at the turbine side of the turbo. It's still there in one piece, but the wobble is obviously affecting the seal of the fins on the housing. This thing must've been 2 psi away from self-destructing, I've rebuilt three KKK turbos off of things like a 912 and a 944 at this point and I've NEVER seen a turbo with this much shaft play.

- Moving on, we're starting to feel a little uneasy about this engine. What other demons are hiding in this thing? We inspect the rest of the engine, most everything else seems to be alright. Force 5 sent us two intercoolers, one with plastic ends and one with metal, the plastic one has a big chunk out of it anyways. I don't know which originally came with the car.

- Time to look at the big cardboard box that came with the harness in it. I open it up and start looking at the rats nest that is the Audi harness. It's complex, but not unexpectedly so. I drag it out over the ground and while I'm looking at it, my buddy finds a goodie in the bottom of the box:



He says "I might be wrong, but that sure as hell looks like a custom bracket with truck coils on it." No kidding, I was expecting classic A4 style coil-on-plug, not this monstrosity! Alright, well we've located the source of ignition; The previous owner obviously moved the coils off and created this bracket to hold the oversized truck (Or whatever these are) coils. Weird, but at least it makes sense as to where the coils were now.

- Moving on, I finally lay eyes on the ECU, wrapped in bubble wrap. I remove it from the box. It's a Motronic alright, and it brings a tear to my eye.



As I caress the steel box, I flip it over to be greeted with this bizarre message:



- Alright, more mystery. First off, this cryptic code written with a pen on the back. Letters and numbers that don't appear to be a VIN. Below them, a single name; John Ogden. Finally, a very robotic label-maker label, stating that this ECU received an external map sensor as of February of 2003, almost exactly twenty years ago. Who is John Ogden? Is he the mysterious previous owner of this engine/car? Was he the person that changed this ECU to run off of an external MAP sensor? What he a Russian sleeper agent? What was this strange code/index? Was this an identifier by the company that did the work with the sensor? Or was this from his own hand? Very strange, indeed.

- I put the ECU down and start looking for this external MAP sensor. Bingo, I think. It looks like it was attached to the manifold with an obnoxiously bright neon green tube:



- As for how it wires into the ECU, I haven't figured out quite yet. To be honest, I haven't even figured out what KIND of MAP sensor this thing is. I just know that it appears to be taking priority over the stock MAP sensor and has replaced it for function. One more mystery to add to the list. While I'm at it, what on earth is this thing dangling off the tip of the harness? It almost looks like a bulb filament or a really primitive MAF sensor, but I thought this engine ran off a MAP, not a MAF? Confusing indeed.




Summary - Who is John Ogden?
__________________________________________________ _________________________


With all of the details fleshed out, let me summarize what I believe is going on with this engine and/or John Ogden:

- John Ogden is the previous owner of this car, which I believe to be a 1995 UrS4. He may even be the original owner, given that the external MAP sensor was added only eight years after the car was manufactured. Because this car ended up in New Hampshire at the Force 5 Automotive scrapyard, my intuition tells me that in the early 2000's, John lived in close proximity to at least the state of NH. Given that the MSRP for an S4 appeared to be in the high teens in the '90s, and that the S4 was a purely pleasure driving sedan with not much utilitarian function, AND since John apparently lived in the New England area in the late '90s-early '00s, we can infer that John was most likely a well-off white collar business man living in the New England suburbs somewhere near the Atlantic coast during his ownership of this car. I need to call Chris and see if he has any more details on John Ogden.

- John wanted to get more power out of his S4, and so in 2003, he decided to do some work to the engine. The first thing he did was replace the wastegate spring with a stiffer one. This allowed him to get more boost out of an otherwise stock turbo. It's relatively simple to do, as well. How am I so sure? The red paint on the engine trim gives it away. This was obviously rattle-canned, because even now I can flake pieces of it off. While the paint job hasn't stood up to the test of time very well, it was done with at least some degree of care, because the wastegate cap was completely removed during painting to avoid overspray and keep the boltheads clean. This presents the perfect opportunity for John to both paint the trim in the red color he wants while also replacing the wastegate spring with a stiffer one. This is a little strange however, because John, being a working businessman, doesn't fit the modus operandi of a standard S4 tuner that would want to spray paint their engine trim. I suspect that he may not have been the person to actually pull the trigger on these upgrades or actually do the painting himself. John may have has a son that was interested in doing this. At the very least he was knowledgeable enough down the road to fabricate components and get his ECU flashed/rewired. He would also have needed either the knowledge/resources to even get him on the track of modifying the engine himself, or known a tuner that would do it for him. Regardless, in late '02/early '03, John got his feet wet into the tuning business with a stiffer wastegate modification.

- Next up, the external map sensor. After stiffening the wastegate, John was now pushing slightly higher boost at high RPM's. While this was fun, it posed a problem; John was now challenging the ECU fuel map and ignition with an abnormal boost profile. This was costing John some horsepower, and he/his tuner decided it was time to unlock the full potential of this new boost profile. As such, The ECU was sent off to receive its new upgrade; a new external MAP sensor which could be replaced to accommodate a different boost range/profile. When it was received by the company/person doing the job, they applied a handwritten note to help them remember where this ECU came from; JOHN OGDEN became an identifying mark at this point. When the job was finished, a label was applied to help them remember what work was done. A this point, it was received and reinstalled by John/his tuner.

- Next came the coil pack relocation/upgrade. At this point, John's S4 is making higher boost and better power with a stiffer wastegate spring and a new MAP sensor. Now the notorious S4 coil power is rearing its ugly head, dropping spark at high RPM. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the higher boost is making it harder for the spark to jump the plug gap. John needs a solution to fix his weak spark problem. This is the early 2000's, and ignition conversion kits for this car are difficult. His tuner has the perfect solution; being near the Atlantic coast, he has recently come upon some components for a Mercury Optimax; Mercury's premiere saltwater two-stroke engine during the early 2000's. Among these components, are the ignition coils for one of Mercury's 225HP 3.0L V6 Optimax's. The coils are high output, relatively straight forward, and easy to wire up. These Optimax two-stroke saltwater coils are perfect for John's ignition issue and are brand new around the time John needs them in '03. John (Or his tuner) fabricate the bracket and harness adapter to fit these coils to his AAN, effectively converting his ignition to coil-near-plug, and solving his ignition problem. This concludes most of the work that John will do to his S4, besides small things such as replacing the intercooler piping with aftermarket hardware.

- By mid 2003, John has finished the upgrades to his S4 and will drive the car in this state until its demise. At some point between 2003-mid 2010's (When Chris states the car entered the lot at Force 5), John's AAN begins having performance issues again. This time, however, the problem is more sinister than a coil pack or MAP sensor. John's S4 slowly begins loosing boost pressure. Unbeknownst to John, the upgrades that he has made to his wastegate are beginning to hurt his turbo's health. The turbo has begun to roast the bearing, and the subsequent shaft wobble is wearing the turbine/compressor fins down against the turbo housing. As the fins slowly erode, air begins to slip by the turbo with greater volume. This drops boost pressure, and makes less power. Years later, when John finally realizes that his AAN isn't as healthy as it used to be, the problem of his tune becomes apparent. Given that at this point, the car has accumulated over 160,000 miles, and John (being a well-off business man in New England) has a taste for newer model Audi's, John makes the difficult choice to relinquish ownership of the S4 to Chris over at Force 5 around the mid 2010's. This theory is backed up even more due to the fact that Force 5 Automotive is less than an hour away from the Atlantic Coast, where John lives. This makes the exchange convenient and profitable to John, who can no longer trade his car in given the dubious modifications he has made and the subsequent failure of the turbocharger.

It is at this point that John sees his S4 for the final time as it is parked in the lot of Force 5, where it will sit in waiting for the next eight years until having its entire engine assembly retrieved and shipped here, to me, in Bozeman MT.

What do you think? Does this story make sense?

Who is John Ogden, and what was his S4 like? Only the Lord above may ever know for certain.

yodasfro

Name sounds familiar but searching audifans etc. didn't turn up any results. As far as the external map sensor goes likely a Bob Pastore tuned ecu. Although I have seen the blue writing on intended acceleration ECU's before could of previously had IA chips in it. https://www.audiworld.com/forums/aud...beast-2166748/

Erik Myers

Wow thanks for the insight Yoda. I'm so new to the AAN world, are there only a handful of tuners out there, to the point that you could recognize ones handwriting? That's super impressive. I would love to track down more info on this engine, I might try to track down more info from IA, if they're the ones that touched it last.

yodasfro

Like I said it probably currently has a Bob Pastore tune in it. You can open the ECU up and see what the chips say on them.

Erik Myers

I'm gonna open it up and see what's inside.
Chris from Force 5 got back to me with some details about the car. My story, while intriguing, was completely wrong, go figure.
Turns out this engine came out of a white 1995 S6A. It came to Force 5 after a shop in Massachusetts had removed its cats for scrap.
As far as the ECU goes, I'm gong to try and figure out who did the tuning. I'm considering switching this engine over to a Megasquirt MS3X that I have lying around. The turbo is shot and unless I can find a rebuild kit for the K24-7000 that's reasonably priced, I'm just going to put one of the M26's I have on it. I'll update this thread if I find out any details on it.

QuattroCakes

So the donor car was a 95 S6 Avant? Definitely open the ECU and see the chips to figure out the tune. I used to run a Bob Pastore tune on my first 93 S4 and it was an amazing tune. Pushed that k24 for all it was worth. NEA New England Automotive from NH was the shop back in the day. K24’s used to be super cheap like $150 bucks for a used one. The early 92-93 S4’s got full metal intercooler and the later cars got them with the plastic end tanks. I doubt you will use either for the 4k as it’s the wrong dimensions and style IMO.

I would use the harness and the motronic ECU if possible but that’s on you. Visit Quattroworld.com for some extra advice btw.

I met Chris years back in NH when I went down and had an exhaust put on my first car a 90q20v. Good guy, the engine is probably fine, most the cars have aftermarket ignition coils now. My current car has an old 034 system that uses the mercury coils. I bought some spares from JEGS I think. I’d have to look in the garage to see them.

good luck on the swap. I’m sure it will require plenty of beer

S-CARSGO

Might have to dig a bit into this one to see if I have any old info for that one. ;-)