You guys gonna think I'm crazy...rwd b5

[vitaliko]

I know most of you will think this is an insane idea, but lately ive been wanting to buy a quattro b5 and make it into rwd. Now, to my knowledge this hasn't been done and especially hasn't been done to a point where the car is actually used for drift events. So to me, originality is the name of the game here, not to mention 1.8t would be a pretty sweet engine for drifting with all that low end torque(even when i had my quattro a4 it was).
Sooo, what would it all take to make it RWD? I also wanna be able to switch back to AWD relatively easy say for example if I go to the snow. So far I got this: Removal of front drive shafts, weld the center diff(get a spare one from junk yard), for improved and more predicable drifting I would also probably weld the rear diff. I don't really understand how the tranny works on quattro's so how would it cope with this, any modification necessary? What kinda ECU work would have to be done? Any way to reinforce rear drive shafts?

P.S. Please don't tell me this isnt what audi's are for blah blah. It's a car and this is the project that has been giving me a tingly sensation cos b5's are pretty close to my heart :)

Update. To do list so far consists of:

front drive shafts removal
weld center diff shut
weld rear diff or a locking type rear diff
disconnect ABS to get rid of EDL(no ABS better for drifting anyway)

[Stampy]

I remember SCC had that white WRX that the dude converted to RWD on the cover......years ago. He had a Custom center differential made I believe. You should do some research into that car and see who made him the Diff. I'm sure they could hook you up too homi. Hope this helps somehow.

[Stampy]

I think in the article the dude worked for Apex-i.

[fred2ka4]

The car is to heavy and there would be way to much work involved especially when there are far better platforms to start off with as far as drifting is concerned, your 240SX being one of them. Anything can be done with enough money so if you have deep pockets then by all means try. It has been done before and I have seen the video posted on here somewhere so if you do a little searching I'm sure you'll find it.

Have fun with your project and I hope everything works out for you.

P.S. Your STaSIS diff and Nuespeed rear sway bar are quite happy with their new home ......... (sorry for your loss)

[Calabria]

Theres a WRX and EVO drifting in D1GP...

[Revolution02]

I think it would be cool if you could get that to work. I found a previous thread about the same question here it is

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...&highlight=rwd

[biketsai]

I think its definately possible, anythings possible with the right sized pockets.
But I think the main thing everyone might say is that its not going to be easy.

[vitaliko]

The car is to heavy and there would be way to much work involved especially when there are far better platforms to start off with as far as drifting is concerned, your 240SX being one of them. Anything can be done with enough money so if you have deep pockets then by all means try. It has been done before and I have seen the video posted on here somewhere so if you do a little searching I'm sure you'll find it.

Have fun with your project and I hope everything works out for you.

P.S. Your STaSIS diff and Nuespeed rear sway bar are quite happy with their new home ......... (sorry for your loss)

Hey Fred, glad the diff and the sway bar are working out. Yeah the 240 drifts quite well and thats the dedicated drift car that im slowly building. I know there're other platforms that would be quite easier way to go(first thing comes to mind is e36). But just the idea of having RWD Audi and seeing peoples' faces when im at drift event seems magical to me lol. B5's weight was never an issue, 3300lbs thats like 400 lbs more than my 240 and that has way less power(at least for now lol). I think the bigger concern is the engine being mounted way forward upsetting the weight distro. BTW i searched for RWD conversion all i got is fwd people trying to go AWD lol.

[vitaliko]

I think its definately possible, anythings possible with the right sized pockets.
But I think the main thing everyone might say is that its not going to be easy.

I know its possbile. The difficulty is going to depend on whether the tranny would need to be modded or not. Otherwise i dont see this being very difficult. Like i said best thing for drifting would be weld the center and rear diffs. I am however concerned with what the ECU is gonna do(if anything). FYI on my 240sx thats being built for drifting i have a welded diffirential and it beats anything by a mile for the amount of money you spent on getting it welded(free in my case) it's pretty much a 2way locking diff thats always engaged.

[vitaliko]

I think it would be cool if you could get that to work. I found a previous thread about the same question here it is

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...&highlight=rwd

Woah how did i miss that when i searched. Thanks buddy.

P.S. Well no real info in there. Just some hypothetical crap.

Common quattro gurus pitch in :)

[Snow]

Your probably gonna need to use bigger/stronger rear drive shafts if your sending all of the power to them.

[onemoremile]

Call Tapp Auto.

Can you dyno tune my AWD car?

Currently we can convert Eagle Talon / Mitsubishi Eclipse from AWD to FWD for tuning. We can now also convert most Audi Quattro cars to RWD or FWD (depending on the model) for Dyno tuning.

RWD A4 dyno vid <right click and save as>
http://www.tappauto.com/images/picsv...gas%20dyno.wmv

[iwearpro]

I used to rally a Celica All-trac and there was a lever on the side of the trans,you unbolt a 10mm hold down bolt,move the lever and then reinstall the hold down bolt in the new position to secure the lever and the car was rear wheel drive...Took all of one minute to do once under the car..I drifted that car once in a while..Is this similar on the Quattro?

[20vpower]

man vitaly, you're in for a fun project. hope you get off to the right start and follow through

[mike-2ptzero]

If you weld the center diff and remove the front axles doesn't this mean your still sending a % of the power to the front and only putting a % of the power to the ground since the front diff is still spinning?

Only problem I see with trying to put all the power to the rear on our cars is the weak rear diff and the tooth pick size rear axles. Only way I would make a B5 a true rwd car is to replace the trans and rear diff setup to something with a rwd only trans and a solid rear end. Someone is doing this with a EVO they are building as a rwd drag car.


BTW aren't the old audis setup so that they can be awd or rwd?

[onemoremile]

Some cars are easy to change. Our Outback has a separately mounted fuse under the hood. Pull it and the car is front wheel drive. STIs have that sweet DCCD control. We've got center differentials that can be swapped (housing and all) in a half hour.

[offroader1006]

The power goes down the main shaft to the center diff, then splits back through the shaft(its hollow) to the front, and directly to the driveshaft for the rear.

so if you did weld the center diff, you would still need to remove the shaft to the front final drive gear to get 100% power.

you might want to research if the front axle nuts keep preload on the wheel bearings. i don't think they do, but if so you'll need to run a bolt/washer to keep it together.

i dont see a problem with trying to drift this setup.

trying to launch it may pose a problem though.

[onemoremile]

The big problems may be in the rear suspension geometry. The reason some cars like the 240 work so well for drifting is the anti-squat rear geometry and the toe curve.

[Yaktizzle417]

This will be interesting, but ehh..

Motor is a million feet infront of the front axle
Weight
Power
Reliability under drift settings

I'd say DD the Quattro B5 and slide the 240. Thats what I'm going to do.

[vitaliko]

Concerning the weak rear end and the drive shafts...I'll address that later, when they snap :) Rightnow im just trying to see what it would take it to send all the power to the rear

[mike-2ptzero]

Concerning the weak rear end and the drive shafts...I'll address that later, when they snap :) Rightnow im just trying to see what it would take it to send all the power to the rear

It has already been done, just talk to Ctapp. They use this to dyno quattro cars on their single roller dyno.

[maxspeed]

if you want a rwd, 4 door sedan, buy an e36 4 door m3...

[sean1.8t]

i love it..

everyone on here wants a drag/autoX A4.. and when people tell them to go buy an EVO/Civic/Mustang/Bimmer because the A4 was never meant for such things, they all say, screw you i want to do it in an Audi, i like a challenge..

but then these same people are telling you to keep your 240, or go buy a Bimmer, because the A4 was never meant for such things..

he want's to have an audi, and a drift car people, what's so hard to understand

good luck man, i hope to see an A4 drift vids in the near future

[audiness]

i think you should do it man.

my friend took an AWD eclipse GSX and made it into a RWD car and it was soo fun.
Great Driver.

I'd love to see a RWD A4 drift car. You'd be the only one in the world prolly....

[maxspeed]

theres plenty of people that drift a4/s4's, myself included, AWD drifts everybit as much as RWD, its just harder

[mike-2ptzero]

theres plenty of people that drift a4/s4's, myself included, AWD drifts everybit as much as RWD, its just harder

But if he is going to use it for actual drifting events then he is going to want it RWD. Huge difference between drifting 1 corner vs drifting in different directions one after the other.

[HIERLEVELZ]

i love it..

everyone on here wants a drag/autoX A4.. and when people tell them to go buy an EVO/Civic/Mustang/Bimmer because the A4 was never meant for such things, they all say, screw you i want to do it in an Audi, i like a challenge..

but then these same people are telling you to keep your 240, or go buy a Bimmer, because the A4 was never meant for such things..

he want's to have an audi, and a drift car people, what's so hard to understand

good luck man, i hope to see an A4 drift vids in the near future

I agree and all that bs about it being to heavy, some weight loss can retcify all that. Hell if there are dodge vipers in competition why cant a rwd modified audi be. I sure dodge never intended the viper or envisioned the viper as a drift car.

[mike-2ptzero]

I agree and all that bs about it being to heavy, some weight loss can retcify all that. Hell if there are dodge vipers in competition why cant a rwd modified audi be. I sure dodge never intended the viper or envisioned the viper as a drift car.

I guess you missed the point of the audi engine being forward of the front wheels, that isn't a issue with the viper seeing that nearly most of the engine is in the center of the car. Funny part about that is that nearly every viper that has been used for Pro Drifting has wrecked and one was flipped over on its roof when it hit the wall really hard. The first pro driver to use a Viper is no longer driving it and moved over to a Dodge Charger.


No car company built they cars to be a drift car, but some cars just are better setup for it straight from the factory then others.

[HIERLEVELZ]

I guess you missed the point of the audi engine being forward of the front wheels, that isn't a issue with the viper seeing that nearly most of the engine is in the center of the car.


No car company built they cars to be a drift car, but some cars just are better setup for it straight from the factory then others.

No i didnt miss any point....My point is that someone has to break the mold of "you cant do this or you cant do that." Until someone has the balls to do it itll never get done. Props to the OP for trying. Im sure years ago many were saying that audis are pigs and cant run good times at the track. Youre proof enough to shut up the naysayers.

[mike-2ptzero]

No i didnt miss any point....My point is that someone has to break the mold of "you cant do this or you cant do that." Until someone has the balls to do it itll never get done. Props to the OP for trying. Im sure years ago many were saying that audis are pigs and cant run good times at the track. Youre proof enough to shut up the naysayers.

Thanks. Well if someone wants to do something they want they aren't going to listen to other people anyway. They just do it, find out if it works or not and go from there.


I just wonder how much further along I would be with my drag A4 if I had actually opened my own Audi/VW performance shop up 5 years ago like I had planned. Well better late then never, ok just doing online sales right now.

[Capt. Obvious]

I like this idea and it's an idea I've toyed with as well for the shits and giggles of it.

From the ECU standpoint, you won't have any issues (except for the ABS like you mentioned earlier) since Quattro is a mechanical AWD system and the ECU has no part in it's functioning.

You'd want to weld the crap out of the center diff, remove the connection to the front diff. In theory, you should have all the power going to the rear wheels now. I would look at the possibility of putting an S4 rear diff and axles in. And then once you break those, moving up to custom units.

[sirswank]

do this




worked on a coupe...

[Capt. Obvious]

That is one seriously welded center diff.

[maxspeed]

But if he is going to use it for actual drifting events then he is going to want it RWD. Huge difference between drifting 1 corner vs drifting in different directions one after the other.

i know theres a difference, ive dirfted both rwd and awd cars. MOST drift events have an AWD class at this point anyway. AWD can drift just as much as RWD, just as i said before, and i guess you missed the crucial part where i said it is harder

[audiness]

do this




worked on a coupe...

wow

[mike-2ptzero]

i know theres a difference, ive dirfted both rwd and awd cars. MOST drift events have an AWD class at this point anyway. AWD can drift just as much as RWD, just as i said before, and i guess you missed the crucial part where i said it is harder

I have yet to see an AWD class at the pro events. They have plenty of AWD cars that have been converted but none of them are running awd anymore.


Yes I know it is harder and I read that. I just dont see a awd car pitcing it sideways while going 20-30 mph on a tight course they use at most of the events.

[marcini]

I'm looking into doing this also, just for fun, see how it feels to have rwd a4, at the moment i'm at the stage of gathering parts, but as far as i know removing front axels and welding the diff should be enough, unless you wanna lock your rear diff then you weld it as well.

Can someone give some good information.

[vitaliko]

As far as the rear end goes...well I do have two skyline r33 LSD pumpkins laying around...but for drifting nothing beats a welded rear diff for the price.

[vitaliko]

Whomever said you can drift a4s in AWD...yes you can and i used to do it quite a bit when I had my a4, but it's far different from drifting RWD in terms of driving dynamics, in fact I fancy some AWD drift its just feels different. But from practical stand point for someone like myself who is not your Bill Gates it's not such a good idea. You need a lot more power, stronger clutch, more tires, higher strain on power steering system dude the list goes on.
Point is its a lot more fun to drift RWD and not necessarily because of driving dynamics(that's part of it) but things involved when you're not behind the wheel.

[Kievskiy]

Vitalik, do it! man, i am gathering the parts now also, to make my c5 a6 rwd, pm Jay at JHM, he can help you with rwd conv., it can be done easy way or hard way, easy: weld center and rear, take out front axels, but leave the ends (take apart the joints), hard way involves the modifications to the tranny, taking out the full front diff.