If you’re at all familiar with the current car channels on YouTube, you might have noticed a new trend these past couple years. Creators like Samcrac, Hoovies Garage, Tavarish, Rich Rebuilds, and B is for Build have been buying salvage title cars at auction with the intention of rebuilding. Sometimes the goal is to bring the cars back to their former self, other times it's to make them look like they're straight out of Mad Max. Samcrac recently embarked on one of the most ambitious rebuilds thus far with his salvage Audi R8 (V8).
This early Audi R8 suffers the fairly common issue of the chassis tearing at the front shock mounts. The authorized fix for this is the replacement of the entire front end of the chassis. Being remarkably expensive (the reason the car is totaled by insurance), realigning and TIG welding the chassis is the only cost-effective repair.
To revive the project, Sam does just this, bringing in a welding professional to do the bulk of the repair. Very precariously using jack stands, a hydraulic pullback, and a hammer, the frame is brought back into alignment. From there it is prepped, welded, and reinforced with additional aluminum plating.
Once the frame was repaired and reassembly of the suspension began, it was apparent that one of the original magnetic ride shocks was bent and would need replacing. With a new shock costing over two thousand dollars, Sam called us up to go over what his options were in the aftermarket. That same day we had a BC Racing coilover kit on route to him. The BC Racing coilovers are a direct bolt in replacement for the failure-prone magnetic shocks.
Now that the R8 is back on the road, it will prove interesting to see how the repair holds up. Will the area around the welds fail? Will the added harshness of the coilovers create additional stress? How will the R8 align after this budget fix? Hopefully, all of these questions will be answered in future videos. Either way, this project seems to be stirring up quite a buzz from proponents on either side of whether or not this fix is appropriate.
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