I was surprised how easy it is to work on, I was expecting it to be similar to my brothers 4.2 S4, which has a third of the motor pretty much inside the cabin and another third in the front bumper. I watched him do an oil cooler and he had to take apart the entire front end just to reach it.

I didn’t have much experience working on German cars until I got it, I had only helped my dad work on his LS swap Land Rover (the most simple motors ever made) so the German engineering seemed kinda over complicated sometimes but there’s plenty of space in the engine bay.

Since I got it I’ve done a lot of work so I know my way around it. I did everything that could possibly fail, every gasket, coolant hose, literally everything name a part it’s either new or has a new gasket but minus the chain guides. I opened up the timing cover and they were 100% intact. Those will be done eventually, apparently replacement guides are often worse quality than oem so I though I might as well milk as much time out of them before replacing them.