Jason @ Streetwerke

Customer brings in a B5 S4 with a slipping clutch. He wants us to install a B5 RS4 clutch. No problem. He also mentions that he just purchased the car not long ago and doesn't care for the gearing. Says it's too short for highway cruising. Being a B5 S4 owner myself, that didn't make a lot of sense to me. The gearing in the EDU code 01E is good for 175mph no problem. That's a fact. Good enough for me to cruise in. Moving on...

So then we start to remove the gearbox from the B5 S4 in question. We notice that the shifter rod has some kind of aluminum makeshift adapter on it and a few of the bell housing mounting bolts are missing or incorrect. Odd.

Get the gearbox out and find out it's not an EDU box at all but a CBL box! Surprise, it's a C4 S6 Euro tranny. Doh! There was also a lot of underbody damage, including an AWE drivetrian stabilizer bent up into the shape of a parabola. Yeah...pics to come on that. It's no wonder why he didn't like 6th gear cruising. Where in the world did this car get this tranny from? It was originally a Texas car, now in California. Hmm. Where did somebody get a Euro tranny from? German Ebay?

OK, so now we're having to do all kinds of research to determine if this setup will work with the new clutch/flywheel. Seems like it will. We go to reinstall it and I noticed something odd about the case of the tranny. At first glance, it looked like a later model 01E with the wider 1st gear installed. Then upon closer inspection I noticed it was fake! The simulated "bulge" in the housing was nothing more than two weld beads carefully grafted into the case to make it appear like an OEM wide 1st gear box. For those that don't know about this 1st gear issue, just read up <a href="http://www.elektro.com/~audi/01E/ind1.html">here</a>.

Take a look at this close up view:

<img src="http://www.streetwerke.com/images/CBL_fake2.jpg">

Now take a look at it from a distance on the bench. See what I mean? From afar it looks like a newer tranny with the stronger/wider 1st gear. Not sure what I'm getting at? Take a look <a href="http://www.elektro.com/~audi/01E/parts/">here</a>.

<img src="http://www.streetwerke.com/images/CBL_fake1.jpg">

So, anybody ever see one of these gearboxes with the welds in that spot? Fake or repair? Anyway, we're installing the CBL box back in the B5 S4 right now. Hope it all works out...

|skolnick

damn...

Stroker//S4

Looks like he had a nice coolant leak as well...

Jason @ Streetwerke

Major coolant leak from the aux. pump under the intake manifold. We're fixing that too.

MingsS4

Interesting. Please keep us updated.

mtg

Be interesting if someone would run a CarFax on it and see if anything came up.

lemieux@curbside

LOL the euro connection @ its best .. someone got screwed there ..

Ram@S4-MTM

What's the car's VIN? I can do a trace on it if you'd like?

VR_Life

Looks like your doing UrS4 work after all ;-)