Slam It And Cam It

29 Aug Slam It And Cam It

Screw the whole “something borrowed, something blue” trope. Today, we’ve got something that’s slammed, and something that’s cammed.

We’ll start with the slammed, as it’s technically a bleedover from yesterday. If you recall, we were finishing up installing and fine-tuning the Bagyard Bombers/AccuAir airbag setup on the B6 A4 that’s in our garage. Well, with all that out of the way, we calibrated the level sensors (which is all done automatically and is surprisingly fun to watch) and rolled it outside for some test-driving to make sure the rolling height was correct. After a couple jaunts up and down the street, she was all ready to be handed back to the owner. One of the best things about this system is the foolproof start-up; as soon as the car is turned on, the vehicle is aired up to the normal driving height. No more forgetting to air up, only to rip off your fender by turning the wheel!

And in case you’re wondering how close this car is to laying frame when it’s aired out, here’s your answer — not very. There’s still about 1-2 inches of space between the underbody and the ground. Which, to some airbag fans, is an awful lot. But not everybody’s a fan of notching frames and spending more money. If you’re wondering what it looks like at driving height, well, Google a picture of a stock A4. That’s pretty much it.

Now that you’ve seen the slammed, let’s show you the cammed. Well, in this timeline, it’s not cammed quite yet, but give it a couple pictures. You may remember the white E64 M6 that’s currently at the shop for a slightly-secret development project. Currently, we’re just about to the apex of that development project, so it’s time to give out a little info regarding the supporting mods we’ll be adding to this M6 also. It’s already a relatively stout car, but the VANOS solenoids needed replacement, so we did that first as we started breaking down the valvetrain for the cam replacement.

Here are the new camshafts that will be going into the top of the S85 V10. They’re Schrick’s most aggressive profile camshaft for this motor, so we’re looking forward to a little extra burble in the exhaust note, along with some good power gains. And since we’re incapable of making Schrick camshafts from scratch, our good friends at VAC Motorsports hooked us up with a brand new set of ’em.

As we went to replace the VANOS solenoids, we also set forth removing the valve covers, exposing the OEM camshafts and valvetrain parts underneath. In what seems like magically no time at all, we move over to the other bank on the engine, and blammo, freshly lubed and installed Schrick camshafts.

A little while after the camshaft installation, after extreme amounts of torque wrench usage, we had everything sealed back up. Except for the airbox, mysteriously…

Speaking of mysterious things, Craig’s working with these weird-looking ring things. There seem to be ten of them, so naturally, we have no idea what they are or what purpose they serve, despite the fact that we drew them up and machined them ourselves. We have very poor short-term memory, evidently. I’m sure we’ll find a use for them somewhere, on something, sometime soon…

See you tomorrow! Good luck making it through the rest of your hump day!