Project A3: The Parts Bin Special – Part 1

[by: Carson Heter]

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the Q1 2025 issue of quattro Magazine. Audi Club members receive both print and digital access to the magazine, with the latest issue now available online. Click here to read the full issue and explore the quattro Magazine archives. Not a member yet? Join today to unlock this exclusive benefit and much more.

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Back in 2006, Audi began importing the A3 to North America with the 8P chassis. Audi USA initially offered three engine and transmission combinations: 2.0T front-wheel drive with the 6-speed manual or 6-speed DSG, and the 3.2 VR6 quattro equipped with the 6-speed DSG. I was working for an Audi dealer as a certified Technician at the time, and I lamented that Audi USA chose not to bring a manual quattro model with either engine.

Fast forward to 2012 – I bought a 35,000-mile 2006 A3 2.0T DSG for my wife. It was a used car traded in at the Audi dealer, with full service history, and I knew the previous owner. My wife loved the A3. Things were good for us until 2017, when our son’s medical needs (Cerebral Palsy) required us to get something bigger for her to drive in order to fit his wheelchair and walker. Unable to sell the A3, I took over driving the car.

Two years passed by, and even though my wife loved the A3 as it was, I found it lacked involvement—I missed driving a manual. I was bored!

In early 2019, I mentioned this to my friend Matt. After pledging his support (and his garage) to the project, I decided to swap the A3 from a DSG to a manual. So, I started looking for a parts car to buy and get what I needed to perform the swap.

Sometime later on Facebook Marketplace, I found my donor car. I borrowed my wife’s SUV, rented a U-Haul tow dolly, and drove north to Ocala with $500 cash in my wallet to go look at a 2007 VW GTI that had been hit on the passenger side. That GTI (Mk5) was based on the same PQ35 platform that underpins the 8P A3.

We removed everything we needed for the swap in Matt’s garage—the clutch pedal/master cylinder and brake pedals with matching gas pedal (all aluminum), wiring for the clutch switch, the transmission, the passenger-side axle, shifter assembly/cables, and the starter. Then we found it had an undamaged APR Intercooler installed—that’s roughly $1,000 new. The engine was undamaged, so I sold it. Whatever could be sold was removed and sold, then Matt and I cut the GTI up into smaller pieces with a reciprocating saw and cutoff wheels, threw it in the back of a van, and I scrapped the metal, netting $61.75 in scrap value.

The clutch, pressure plate, and flywheel were not in reusable condition, so I searched around and found someone selling an unused SPEC Stage 1 clutch, pressure plate, and flywheel. After acquiring all of the needed parts for the swap, I set aside a weekend to head down to Matt’s with the A3 and get started on making it manual.

We took our time, swapped the gearboxes without removing the subframe, and dropped the center heatshield out of the floor tunnel to swap the shifter assembly. We also threw in the APR Intercooler while we were at it. After hooking up the clutch switch to the purple/black wire going to J519 (Central Electrics Module), and recoding a few control modules with VCDS, it fired right up! I drove it home after almost two full days of working on it in a home garage on jackstands.

Driving the car was a night and day difference. I loved it so much more, later elevating the engine to Stage 2+. But I still felt like I wanted to go further. Knowing how the transmission swap works on the 8P chassis, I began to consider what it would take to swap a facelifted A3 2.0 TFSI quattro to manual and make it a fitting recipient for a 07K 2.5 TFSI 5-cylinder engine swap. I also lamented how Audi never brought the 8P RS 3 here and never offered any generation of the RS 3 with a manual gearbox.

I drove the A3 for two years as a manual, all throughout the pandemic. Then, in 2021, I got into an unfortunate accident and the car was totaled. I considered getting something else entirely to drive until Matt and a couple of my other friends lobbied me to get an A3 quattro and swap it. So, I bought the A3 back from the insurance company and parted it out. I sold what I didn’t need and kept everything I did for a manual gearbox swap since I already had it.

I then located a Monza Silver 2011 A3 quattro in Chicago with a clean history. I reached out to Audi Club contacts in the area and had it looked at and test driven. I then flew up and drove it home.

Next, I set about acquiring the parts I needed to swap a quattro from DSG to manual. The CCTA engine in the quattro has an eight-bolt crankshaft, so I couldn’t use the SPEC clutch from the BPY in my old car since it was a six-bolt. I also couldn’t reuse the gearbox without extensive modification and adding an angle drive.

I acquired another used SPEC setup, but the clutch was bad due to oil contamination from a failed rear main seal. I cleaned up the pressure plate and flywheel and bought a new clutch disc separately. For the gearbox, I acquired an NFQ-code Euro-spec all-wheel-drive 02Q gearbox from Cascade German in Oregon. It has taller 5th and 6th gears and would be perfect for the 07K swap to come later.

Discussing the previous swap with Matt, we decided we were going to drop the subframe this time, so I purchased a subframe collar kit from 034Motorsport. I deduced through the parts catalog that the all-wheel-drive cars didn’t really have any difference in the passenger-side CV axle, so at that point, I had everything I needed to attempt the swap.

Setting aside another weekend, I headed to Matt’s house to start swapping. We began on a Saturday morning the week before Christmas, 2021. It was much easier to drop the subframe to remove the transmission. We put in about a day and a half this time, and as we went to bleed the clutch, we found out the brand-new clutch slave the transmission came with was leaking. I got a ride home in Matt’s TT RS, and we agreed to get back at it after Christmas while I ordered a replacement all-metal clutch slave from FCP Euro.

Matt, the awesome guy that he is, pulled the gearbox back out by himself and had it ready for us when I made my way back down there the day after Christmas. We installed the new clutch slave, bolted everything back together, and it fired up right on the first try. I drove home happily after that.

I then documented the whole swap and uploaded it to YouTube. At the time I’m writing this, the video has eclipsed 31,000 views, with many commenters reporting they have successfully swapped their cars as well using my video guide.

I didn’t get to enjoy my new setup for long, though. Five months later, I lost the silver quattro in another accident. Undeterred, I bought it right back and parted it out while looking for another quattro to replace it.

Having located a Meteor Grey 2010 in New Jersey, I called my brother up and had him go look at it. I shipped up the silver car’s RNS-E/Audi Music Interface to my dad’s house, along with some tools and the silver car’s AC blower motor since my brother reported that to be inoperative.

Matt flew up with me this time and we drove it back down I-95 to Florida. I installed the RNS-E/AMI, the blower motor, and hardwired my V1 radar locator into the car for the trip. The AC compressor quit somewhere in North Carolina, but we made it back to Florida safely.

After flushing the AC system out and replacing the compressor, valve block, and drier, I drove it for just under three months before performing a third DSG-to-manual swap. This time, Matt and I had it done in under a day. Practice makes perfect!

Stay tuned for more to come in this series!

Read Part 2 of The Project A3 series in the new Q2 2025 issue, available online now.