Audi R8 V10 Manual Coupe. Clubsport Build
Discussion
Lets start my new build thread with a photo of my previous car 
. I know, it`s not really the way these things usually start but I feel it's necessary to explain the plans and reasoning for buying the R8.
I built my previous track car over 17 years, starting from a bare shell and learning a massive amount along the way until I ended up with a very fast Golf MK2 track car. The downside to this was that the more I developed the car, the less usable it became on the road. That wasn’t a big deal as I do a lot of track days in it, but recently things have changed.
My wife and I are now very fortunate to have been able to take early retirement, and we not only want to continue driving on track days, but we also want to do more road trips. We go to the Nurburgring at least 3 times a year helping and attending trackdays with Destination Nurburgring, but now that we have time, we want to travel further into Europe after the track day instead of driving straight back home to go to work as we've had to do in the past.
Over the last two years, we had many discussions about what we want from a car. After considering many options, we settled on an Audi R8.
The first and most obvious requirement was that we had to actually like the car! There was no point in picking a car that ticked all the boxes if we didn’t actually like the look of it.
Here are the considerations, in no particular order, that guided our choice:
A high-revving, naturally aspirated engine was high on the list. With the Golf being forced induction, I’m well aware of the heat maal about a large capacity engine revving to 8k+. My son's E36 S54 with an airbox is a great example—it sounds absolutely glorious. This led us to consider the E46 M3, but honestly, they have been done to death. That's not to say it isn’t for good reason, but it made me realize I wanted something a little different.
I enjoy working on the car, but only to a certain extent despite what people may think. My biggest pleasure is actually driving it on track. Improving it beyond its original state gives me great satisfaction, so buying an M car was ruled out. Everything I could ever do to one has already been done to a very high standard, so whatever I did would just be for the sake of it.
Porsches are similar—they are so good out of the box that I’d be modifying them for no actual benefit when the parts are readily available off the shelf.
Cars like Caterhams or similar aren’t suitable for our planned road trips. FWD is out—I’ve done that and want something new. This made me think about the driving dynamics I wanted. As I said, I have driven FWD on track a lot. Even though I don't post about it much, I’ve also driven RWD on circuits. However, I wanted something that would take longer to master. This led me to a mid-engined setup. It's inherently better balanced but also has its own driving characteristics, which will I know take time to learn.
We now had the list: mid-engine, naturally aspirated, not a Porsche. Hmmm, now we could start narrowing it down. McLarens have a poor reliability and high depreciation reputation. Ferrari or Lamborghini just isn’t me. A Noble is a step too far. A couple of people on a forum I frequent had R8s and were very complimentary about them. I've always liked the Gen1 shape—I find the later G2 far too fussy and feel they’ll age quickly. I looked at them in more detail and liked what I found. They are now within my budget, while still allowing extra for some modifications.
I started out looking at the V8 and was able to drive Ben's V8 Manual at Bedford for a couple of laps in 2023. That showed me the chassis was a great starting point, but the V8 just didn't hit the spot. For a road car, I absolutely get it. The power and chassis seem ideally matched, but for track use, I needed more. I wanted to get out of the car after a session and have that "Phew, that was exciting" feeling you get after driving a high-power car on track. Adding boost isn’t an option, so that led me straight to the V10.
It's not a bad place to end up, is it? A naturally aspirated 5.2 V10, revving to 8,700rpm. Dry sumped from the factory, so oil supply issues are a thing of the past. The GT3 race engines that compete in 24-hour races use the same engine; they don't need to upgrade anything. That's a huge positive—I don't want to open the engine up at all. Where a set of conrod bearings is £20 for the Golf, they and everything else are significantly more for the R8. Fundamentally it's a very reliable car with many owners adding boost with stock internals and gearboxes. That give me a lot of confidence that a N/A setup should last.
The chassis is aluminium, double wishbone all around. They are generally very reliable, and I don't think it's a bad-looking car at all.
The last choice is the gearbox. Matt (my son) immediately said the only sensible option was the DSG box in the late Gen1 cars. I wasn't convinced. If this was going to be an out-and-out track car, yes, it would be faster. Absolutely zero question. But it's not. It's going to be driven on the road during road trips and also on track. A few seconds a lap don't matter. What does matter is the driving experience. I can heel & toe well, the manual box in the R8 has that wonderful open-gated shifter in the cabin, and while it's not a gearbox you can rush between gears, it's very satisfying to operate. Some may call me a dinosaur for wanting to drive a manual gearbox in this day and age, but for me, the choice was an easy one—it simply had to be a manual car.
The R8 isn't perfect, though, and there are a few areas that I'll need to live with and others I can address. We're going to be going on road trips lasting several days and will obviously need to carry luggage. The front boot (trunk), shortened to 'frunk,' isn't exactly spacious, and while there is some storage behind the seats, it's not exactly cavernous and will require some creative packing.
The engine water cooling appears to be sufficient, but where it seems to struggle is oil temperature on track. There are no off-the-shelf solutions, but that's fine! It means I get to do some fabrication and come up with a better solution. I already have a few ideas. I will be carrying out extensive data logging before, during, and after the modifications to understand what is happening in detail.
It's heavy, surprisingly so for an Aluminium Coupe. I will be addressing that within reason but my options are limited and I appreciate this will have an effect on consumables. I do have plans for brakes and tyres which are the biggest regular expense.
After looking on the R8 Facebook groups for many months I posted a Wanted advert and received links to 5 cars from owners who were looking to sell but hadn't advertised them. Thought I'd found one quite local, but the seller stopped responding to messages.
That turned out to be a good thing as I then found the car I ended up buying.
It's a 2009 R8 V10 Manual Coupe. 27,000 Miles, 5 Owners, Full Audi Service History, Quicksilver exhaust, Carbon wing and a few other bits I liked. A deal was done and I drove 5 hours to collect it. To say I was happy would be a huge understatement
It needed a few things doing but I've done those already and will share in a later post. This is supposed to be an introduction.
It seems a good opportunity to discuss our plans for the car. It will never be as extreme as the Golf. While excellent on track, it's utterly impractical on the road on a daily basis, so the R8 will be a 'Clubsport.' By that, I mean I'll keep the interior but replace the seats with something comfortable but better on track (Cobra Nogaro). I'll fit a half cage rather than a full cage. Suspension, brakes, and aero will be improved, and some weight will be saved. I'll be removing the front drive assembly of the diff, propshaft, and driveshafts to convert the car to 2WD instead of the standard 4WD. Replacing the ancient head unit is an obvious requirement. The exhaust has already been replaced with something quieter, whilst incredible the Quicksilver would never pass any noise tested trackday.
I already have plans for the upgrades and a lot of the parts are already on order or have already arrived which I'll share over the coming weeks.
The biggest difference in this build is that I aim to complete almost all of it before the end of the year. I know what I need to do, the order is planned, and the budget has been set aside. I am very aware of the costs involved with this car and a few people have already commented on what I should expect compared to the Golf regarding costs, almost as if I hadn`t considered that or budgeted for it.
My first trackday is next week. The car will be almost stock, the only differences will be a full service this weekend and RBF700 brake fluid flush to try and reduce the expected brake overheating.
The week after we head off to the Pyrenees for a 3 week road trip ! Watch this space.
I will keep this thread updated with photos during the process and try to share everything I do as I did with the Golf. Rest assured, this car will be used and tracked often, I will be doing everything myself where possible but also be mindful of budget. This isn't a chequebook build, it will be done with the same principle as the Golf, only this time I have the last 17 years experience to draw on.
Lastly, let’s please avoid the "supercar" debate. Whether the R8 fits that label or not doesn’t matter to me
. I know, it`s not really the way these things usually start but I feel it's necessary to explain the plans and reasoning for buying the R8.I built my previous track car over 17 years, starting from a bare shell and learning a massive amount along the way until I ended up with a very fast Golf MK2 track car. The downside to this was that the more I developed the car, the less usable it became on the road. That wasn’t a big deal as I do a lot of track days in it, but recently things have changed.
My wife and I are now very fortunate to have been able to take early retirement, and we not only want to continue driving on track days, but we also want to do more road trips. We go to the Nurburgring at least 3 times a year helping and attending trackdays with Destination Nurburgring, but now that we have time, we want to travel further into Europe after the track day instead of driving straight back home to go to work as we've had to do in the past.
Over the last two years, we had many discussions about what we want from a car. After considering many options, we settled on an Audi R8.
The first and most obvious requirement was that we had to actually like the car! There was no point in picking a car that ticked all the boxes if we didn’t actually like the look of it.
Here are the considerations, in no particular order, that guided our choice:
A high-revving, naturally aspirated engine was high on the list. With the Golf being forced induction, I’m well aware of the heat maal about a large capacity engine revving to 8k+. My son's E36 S54 with an airbox is a great example—it sounds absolutely glorious. This led us to consider the E46 M3, but honestly, they have been done to death. That's not to say it isn’t for good reason, but it made me realize I wanted something a little different.
I enjoy working on the car, but only to a certain extent despite what people may think. My biggest pleasure is actually driving it on track. Improving it beyond its original state gives me great satisfaction, so buying an M car was ruled out. Everything I could ever do to one has already been done to a very high standard, so whatever I did would just be for the sake of it.
Porsches are similar—they are so good out of the box that I’d be modifying them for no actual benefit when the parts are readily available off the shelf.
Cars like Caterhams or similar aren’t suitable for our planned road trips. FWD is out—I’ve done that and want something new. This made me think about the driving dynamics I wanted. As I said, I have driven FWD on track a lot. Even though I don't post about it much, I’ve also driven RWD on circuits. However, I wanted something that would take longer to master. This led me to a mid-engined setup. It's inherently better balanced but also has its own driving characteristics, which will I know take time to learn.
We now had the list: mid-engine, naturally aspirated, not a Porsche. Hmmm, now we could start narrowing it down. McLarens have a poor reliability and high depreciation reputation. Ferrari or Lamborghini just isn’t me. A Noble is a step too far. A couple of people on a forum I frequent had R8s and were very complimentary about them. I've always liked the Gen1 shape—I find the later G2 far too fussy and feel they’ll age quickly. I looked at them in more detail and liked what I found. They are now within my budget, while still allowing extra for some modifications.
I started out looking at the V8 and was able to drive Ben's V8 Manual at Bedford for a couple of laps in 2023. That showed me the chassis was a great starting point, but the V8 just didn't hit the spot. For a road car, I absolutely get it. The power and chassis seem ideally matched, but for track use, I needed more. I wanted to get out of the car after a session and have that "Phew, that was exciting" feeling you get after driving a high-power car on track. Adding boost isn’t an option, so that led me straight to the V10.
It's not a bad place to end up, is it? A naturally aspirated 5.2 V10, revving to 8,700rpm. Dry sumped from the factory, so oil supply issues are a thing of the past. The GT3 race engines that compete in 24-hour races use the same engine; they don't need to upgrade anything. That's a huge positive—I don't want to open the engine up at all. Where a set of conrod bearings is £20 for the Golf, they and everything else are significantly more for the R8. Fundamentally it's a very reliable car with many owners adding boost with stock internals and gearboxes. That give me a lot of confidence that a N/A setup should last.
The chassis is aluminium, double wishbone all around. They are generally very reliable, and I don't think it's a bad-looking car at all.
The last choice is the gearbox. Matt (my son) immediately said the only sensible option was the DSG box in the late Gen1 cars. I wasn't convinced. If this was going to be an out-and-out track car, yes, it would be faster. Absolutely zero question. But it's not. It's going to be driven on the road during road trips and also on track. A few seconds a lap don't matter. What does matter is the driving experience. I can heel & toe well, the manual box in the R8 has that wonderful open-gated shifter in the cabin, and while it's not a gearbox you can rush between gears, it's very satisfying to operate. Some may call me a dinosaur for wanting to drive a manual gearbox in this day and age, but for me, the choice was an easy one—it simply had to be a manual car.
The R8 isn't perfect, though, and there are a few areas that I'll need to live with and others I can address. We're going to be going on road trips lasting several days and will obviously need to carry luggage. The front boot (trunk), shortened to 'frunk,' isn't exactly spacious, and while there is some storage behind the seats, it's not exactly cavernous and will require some creative packing.
The engine water cooling appears to be sufficient, but where it seems to struggle is oil temperature on track. There are no off-the-shelf solutions, but that's fine! It means I get to do some fabrication and come up with a better solution. I already have a few ideas. I will be carrying out extensive data logging before, during, and after the modifications to understand what is happening in detail.
It's heavy, surprisingly so for an Aluminium Coupe. I will be addressing that within reason but my options are limited and I appreciate this will have an effect on consumables. I do have plans for brakes and tyres which are the biggest regular expense.
After looking on the R8 Facebook groups for many months I posted a Wanted advert and received links to 5 cars from owners who were looking to sell but hadn't advertised them. Thought I'd found one quite local, but the seller stopped responding to messages.
That turned out to be a good thing as I then found the car I ended up buying.It's a 2009 R8 V10 Manual Coupe. 27,000 Miles, 5 Owners, Full Audi Service History, Quicksilver exhaust, Carbon wing and a few other bits I liked. A deal was done and I drove 5 hours to collect it. To say I was happy would be a huge understatement
It needed a few things doing but I've done those already and will share in a later post. This is supposed to be an introduction.
It seems a good opportunity to discuss our plans for the car. It will never be as extreme as the Golf. While excellent on track, it's utterly impractical on the road on a daily basis, so the R8 will be a 'Clubsport.' By that, I mean I'll keep the interior but replace the seats with something comfortable but better on track (Cobra Nogaro). I'll fit a half cage rather than a full cage. Suspension, brakes, and aero will be improved, and some weight will be saved. I'll be removing the front drive assembly of the diff, propshaft, and driveshafts to convert the car to 2WD instead of the standard 4WD. Replacing the ancient head unit is an obvious requirement. The exhaust has already been replaced with something quieter, whilst incredible the Quicksilver would never pass any noise tested trackday.
I already have plans for the upgrades and a lot of the parts are already on order or have already arrived which I'll share over the coming weeks.
The biggest difference in this build is that I aim to complete almost all of it before the end of the year. I know what I need to do, the order is planned, and the budget has been set aside. I am very aware of the costs involved with this car and a few people have already commented on what I should expect compared to the Golf regarding costs, almost as if I hadn`t considered that or budgeted for it.
My first trackday is next week. The car will be almost stock, the only differences will be a full service this weekend and RBF700 brake fluid flush to try and reduce the expected brake overheating.
The week after we head off to the Pyrenees for a 3 week road trip ! Watch this space.
I will keep this thread updated with photos during the process and try to share everything I do as I did with the Golf. Rest assured, this car will be used and tracked often, I will be doing everything myself where possible but also be mindful of budget. This isn't a chequebook build, it will be done with the same principle as the Golf, only this time I have the last 17 years experience to draw on.
Lastly, let’s please avoid the "supercar" debate. Whether the R8 fits that label or not doesn’t matter to me
Thanks for the positive comments. Much appreciated 
Initially, no, it won't be as quick as the Golf but I suspect but the end of the year when most of the mods are complete it will be prety close, then it'll just be me who needs to improve.
In preparation for Cadwell next week I gave the car a service today. Up on axle stands and undertrays removed to gain access.
As it`s a dry sump, you need to drain the oil reservoir, chambers in the scavenge pump which is a bit more involved than a simple drain plug. I drained the oil into a 10 litre container then ran it through a 150micron filter. To say I was relived to find no metal fragments in the oil would be an understatement
Having a drain point on the oil cooler is a great idea! On the Golf I had to disconnect the pipes to drain the cooler, but this is way easier. I used the opportunity to measure the cooler in the hope of being able to get a custom core made to improve oil cooling.
I used Motul 8100 engine oil, 300V is more suited to track use but as I`ll be driving it on the road quite a lot, the 8100 is a better choice.
The current brakes on the R8 are still stock and I`m well aware they aren't up to the job of sustained track abuse. I will be upgrading the fronts to larger discs and AP calipers but for now, I want to see what it's like as a standard car however uprated fluid obviously a benefit.
After flushing the brake fluid with some fresh RBF-700 I ran through the ABS test / bleed procedure on VCDS, then cleared the service indicator. I've cleared all ECU error codes and will check again after Cadwell to see if anything is amiss, but there was nothing of concern highlighted before resetting.
Removing the drivers side coilpacks and plugs is easy, the passenger side is a bit more of a challenge.
My final check was a compression test. I just wanted to know that the engine was healthy and this is a great way to see if everything is OK. The compression range is between 11.5Bar (~165 psi) and 12Bar (~170 psi) which is excellent. Finding a low pressure cyclinder would have been a big issue so this was the last big weight off my mind.
Last job was to replace the expansion tank. This is a known weakpoint on the car and they can fail along the seam with little warning. Whilst the current one wasn`t leaking, it makes sense to replace it, I`ll keep the old one in my spares package just incase.
New tyres were supposed to arrive yesterday from Camskill, a set of PS4S for the road and wet trackdays and Cup2`s for the dry. With it being bank holiday weekend, that means they most likely won't be here before I load it up now. Fortunately the tyres on the car have a fair bit of tread, but they are 4 years old so past their best, especially in the wet.
Quite what happened to the 8th tyre is something I don't have the answer to yet, but I'm sure it'll work outeventually
Court_S said:
That’s very cool.
I’m a big fan of the early R8’s….a manual V10 with your planned mods sounds absolutely fantastic.
Re the ability to carry luggage, Seefar and his good lady seemed to manage well enough for European trips.
I asked him what luggage he used a while ago thanks. I'll be running a half cage so need to wait until I fit that before ordering anything as space behind the seats will be reduced and the seats I'll be fitting won't be reclining so access will be trickier.I’m a big fan of the early R8’s….a manual V10 with your planned mods sounds absolutely fantastic.
Re the ability to carry luggage, Seefar and his good lady seemed to manage well enough for European trips.
Om said:
Good to see this come to fruition at last! Do you think it will be as fast as the Golf on track?
I look forward to hearing the updates.
I've been planning this for the last 3 years, I can't quite believe it's here myself !I look forward to hearing the updates.
Initially, no, it won't be as quick as the Golf but I suspect but the end of the year when most of the mods are complete it will be prety close, then it'll just be me who needs to improve.
In preparation for Cadwell next week I gave the car a service today. Up on axle stands and undertrays removed to gain access.
As it`s a dry sump, you need to drain the oil reservoir, chambers in the scavenge pump which is a bit more involved than a simple drain plug. I drained the oil into a 10 litre container then ran it through a 150micron filter. To say I was relived to find no metal fragments in the oil would be an understatement
Having a drain point on the oil cooler is a great idea! On the Golf I had to disconnect the pipes to drain the cooler, but this is way easier. I used the opportunity to measure the cooler in the hope of being able to get a custom core made to improve oil cooling.
I used Motul 8100 engine oil, 300V is more suited to track use but as I`ll be driving it on the road quite a lot, the 8100 is a better choice.
The current brakes on the R8 are still stock and I`m well aware they aren't up to the job of sustained track abuse. I will be upgrading the fronts to larger discs and AP calipers but for now, I want to see what it's like as a standard car however uprated fluid obviously a benefit.
After flushing the brake fluid with some fresh RBF-700 I ran through the ABS test / bleed procedure on VCDS, then cleared the service indicator. I've cleared all ECU error codes and will check again after Cadwell to see if anything is amiss, but there was nothing of concern highlighted before resetting.
Removing the drivers side coilpacks and plugs is easy, the passenger side is a bit more of a challenge.
My final check was a compression test. I just wanted to know that the engine was healthy and this is a great way to see if everything is OK. The compression range is between 11.5Bar (~165 psi) and 12Bar (~170 psi) which is excellent. Finding a low pressure cyclinder would have been a big issue so this was the last big weight off my mind.
Last job was to replace the expansion tank. This is a known weakpoint on the car and they can fail along the seam with little warning. Whilst the current one wasn`t leaking, it makes sense to replace it, I`ll keep the old one in my spares package just incase.
New tyres were supposed to arrive yesterday from Camskill, a set of PS4S for the road and wet trackdays and Cup2`s for the dry. With it being bank holiday weekend, that means they most likely won't be here before I load it up now. Fortunately the tyres on the car have a fair bit of tread, but they are 4 years old so past their best, especially in the wet.
Quite what happened to the 8th tyre is something I don't have the answer to yet, but I'm sure it'll work outeventually
Edited by Wh00sher on Saturday 25th May 22:01
Fantastic looking car to start with. Your plan is what a lot of us Pistonheads followers would love to do but don’t have the time/finances/skill to commit to.
I am one of many who will be following this closely and enjoying the journey. I hope the car plays ball and the project progresses well. Good work!
I am one of many who will be following this closely and enjoying the journey. I hope the car plays ball and the project progresses well. Good work!
DanG355 said:
Fantastic looking car to start with. Your plan is what a lot of us Pistonheads followers would love to do but don’t have the time/finances/skill to commit to.
I am one of many who will be following this closely and enjoying the journey. I hope the car plays ball and the project progresses well. Good work!
Thanks. I've been planning this for 3 years and I still can't quite believe it's mine. I want to do the build as well as I possibly can. It's a great base and I'm very keen to get it completed. I am one of many who will be following this closely and enjoying the journey. I hope the car plays ball and the project progresses well. Good work!
I say completed.... I had the Golf 17 years and that's not finished..
jon-yprpe said:
SP reg, so it’s a Scottish car hence why it might be a little crusty. Dundee area.
One thing I always look at when buying a car is that the reg doesn’t start with an ‘S’.
There are so few for sale, you can't be that picky One thing I always look at when buying a car is that the reg doesn’t start with an ‘S’.
d_a_n1979 said:
Wow! That's hell of a car; lovely colour too
I couldn`t agree more. I love it !The head unit in the car was the original 2009 Audi unit that quite honestly was out of date in 2009...
Removal tools inserted into the corner and the entire assembly pulls straight out.
The patch cable supplied with the kit, I used the Incartec one which plugs into the main plug on the left, the others are unsued.
Original Headunit is 3.4kg
The Kenwood 8021 AND all the wires for the kit is 2.4kg. That's 1kg saved over the standard one.
The patch lead for the steering wheel controls was the only thing to configure.
The supplied GPS aerial is used so the headunit can save using as much of my phone data. In the UK it's not a problem, but in Europe with 12Gig a month the data can disappear quite quickly if also streaming music.
When stuck in place the Aerial will be hidden once the A pillar trim is replaced.
Wires for GPS, Microphone and DAB aerial fed from the drivers side A pillar across the lower dash into the centre behind the headunit..
Where wires passed through holes they were protected from abrasion with a sleeve.
Rear shelf cover removd so the CD player and cage can be removed.
That's 2.1kg.
Total so far 3.1kg saved.
Microphone has a balljoint that is trapped between the roof lining and the A pillar trim, it can still be rotated and the quality of the sound is very good from the test this evening.
Did anyone ever use this mmi adapter ? No I thought not. Thats another 0.1kg
Total so far 3.2Kg
I don't need the AM / FM radio antenna, I'll stream it or use DAB and if I'm ever in an area with no signal or DAB, I'll listen to the engine instead
Total saved 3.5kg
All the trim replaced, facia fitted and tested. It works ! The quality seems pretty good too. Levels adjusted on the inline amplifier which sets the maximum volume, the lower that is, the more sensitive each increment of volume up/down. Found the right balance where Max is certainly loud enough for me
With Matt helping we were able to get this done in a few hours, part of which was understanding how to remove bits of trim. I went for the 8021 as I prefer physical buttons which give more screen real estate instead of ones on the screen.
I now have up to date navigation, can stream Spotify or other online music sources as well as making hands free calls. It`s not the cheapest setup but none of them are.
The bonus is we managed to save 3.5kg in the process and that's without remoing the unused loom. Weight saving will be an ongoing part of this build and whilst it may not seem much, by the time we've finished I expect it all to add up to a meaningful saving.
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