1995 Volvo 940 LPT project, from daily to semi-sleeper build

[Jelturbo]

Greetings,

Been lurking on this forum for quite some time now but never really contributed so I figured I make an thread which could be helpful/entertaining to some people.
I own a 1995 Volvo 940 2.3 LPT sedan for about 5 years now. Its been my daily and over the years I added some stuff and made some mods.

This is how I bought it, I was looking for a cheap street drift car but the guy who was suppose to sell me his beater ended up selling it to someone else. He happened to have a daily volvo 940 lpt which was rough but had some potential to be a nice daily. It had 387.xxx kilometers on it (240.000 miles) This is how I bought it:

The bumper almost fell off at the rear so I made a bracket for this and it had the usual rust spot underneath the battery so I welded in a fresh plate.

Ofcourse it couldn't remain standard, so first I bought some steel wheels I had widened by someone and painted them myself.
I also added some aliexpress cheap rubber strip to the front bumper which really improved the front lip without having to buy a better bumper. Maybe later
Lowered the car 4 centimers (2'') with some cheap springs and replaced the shocks with bilstein ones.
I wanted to keep some comfort and improve the handling because stock it was literally a boat in the corners.

Obviously I added a manual boost controller to add some boost because 0.3 bar is wayy too low.
Everytime I pressed the clutch I had some shitty noises so I figured the clutch release bearing was on its way out. A perfect opportunity to remove the heavy dual mass flywheel and install a Diesel clutch and pressure plate for handling the potential power increase in the future.
bye bye dual mass

Hello dogdish flywheel

pressure plate and clutch disk

This is where I got all the information for the m90 gearbox and optional clutches and stuff. Helped me tremendously!
m90

I drove around like this for awhile and took the car on a roadtrip through Denmark, Sweden en Norway. The Volvo had to visit the homecountry ofcourse

you can really see the depth of the steelies in this one. Rear was 9.5 J and front 8.5J! In the end it was a bit too much because I was rubbing the whole way to norway in the fenders and lost quite a bit of rubber along the way haha.

Next to its swedish brother

Camping in the motherland

loads of electric charging points (this was in 2019)
rather have the ole b230 guzzling the fossil juices hehe

And finally in Norway, Lysebotn to be exact

Drove this road to arrive in the small village:

Because the rims were too wide I couldnt fit tires that wouldnt rub. Also the rims were only 16 inch so it was a nightmare to find really wide tires that are only 16 inch.
Price wise a nightmare so I figured I do it right this time.
I bought some peugeot 407 spare wheels. They are 5x108 and 17 inch so a perfect candidate for widened steelies.

 

[Jelturbo]

Part number of the Peugeot rims:

Widened

And in colour
The black was nice but you can't see any depth so from certain angles the looked like standard steel rims. This time I opted for a grey colour.
Also went conservative with the widht. only 8.5J if I remember correctly. All 4 rims the same so I can rotate them if necessary.

Polished

In the meantime I added some gauges to keep an eye on temperatures, oil pressure and boost

And recently I added a wideband sensor with afr gauge but later more on this.

The next trip was to the famous Nordschleife aka the Nurburgring in Germany.
Did some laps here but the old brick had some small issues.
Firstly I had some problems with the clutch slipping. I knew my rear main seal was a bit dodgy and probably the clutch has gotten some oil on it so I couldnt really push uphill.
Secondly the oil temperature was a bit on the high side (120 degrees celcius)
And lastly my brakes were not really up to the task with all the downhill sections
A good reason for some more upgrades in the future!
Got some decent pictures from all the photographers on the side of the track!:

Also fitted the towhook I had removed and went racing with my motorcycle in Zolder (Belgium). The old brick really can do it all

 

[Jelturbo]

During last winter I blew my heater core unfortunatly. I had heard before they are prone to breaking but I had hoped it wouldn't happen to me.
Well I was drifting on one of the only snowy days and I had smelled some coolant but thought nothing of it.
A couple days later the carpet was really wet and everything started to fog up.
This was not a task I looked forward to but it had to be done.

behold the carnage:

I recently learned that maybe a precaution for preventing the heater core to be blown is to fit a lower pressure coolant reservoir cap. Mine is standard 150kpa but the older 740 and 240 had 100 kpa. Maybe someone can confirm this. I rather have some coolant spill from the reservoir then to replace the heater core again!

Well that was the story from the last couple years of the daily driven Volvo 940.

 

[Jelturbo]

Recently I found some new inspiration to add some mods and upgrade the daily driver with some more power and goodies.

First I had to replace the exhaust system. When I bought the car I fitted a full 3 inch steel exhaust but after 5 years the whole thing was corroded to shits. I wanted to go stainless this time so what a good time to also change the turbo since I had to change the downpipe as well.

I found a good deal on ''marktplaats'' (the dutch version of craigslist I suppose)
This guy offered a td04hl-16T turbo with downpipe and 440cc injectors. He included the resistor and also a stage 2 chip set from a company called Harrieco Harrieco

When I removed my old 13c mitsubishi turbo I noticed some cracks in the exhaust manifold. Ofcourse now was a good time to address this problem as well.

ready for welding

I used this guide for welding the manifold (a friend of mine welded it) some minor cracks came back unfortunatly but they were minor luckily

Also a good time to open up the manifold for the bigger turbo

And here is the new stainless steel exhaust:

Fitted the chips from Harrieco

I had no idea it would be this easy to fit some chips to an old volvo like this.
I knew beforehand you had to have an motherboard that would receive these chips but luckily my car is one of the newer ones and it had the EZK goldbox

I dont have pictures of fitting the actual turbocharger and injectors but I will make some soon.
Ofcourse I also needed the bigger MAF sensor and I found a good deal on craigslist and bought an 960 MAF but after installing this the engine ran like shit.

The solution was to buy a bigger housing from KL-racing in Sweden en fit my old maf sensor in it.

It was no easy task to remove the old MAF insert from the old housing. The 4 screws are easely accesable but there are 3 more behind the cover (I only knew this when I found some obscure swedish forum). I dremeled one away but the other ones are behind the chip so you cant dremel the plastic away. After a lot of wiggeling I managed to crack the screws from the old housing.

The middle and top one you cant dremel. the bottom one is just plastic so you can dremel untill you see the screw and untighten it.
The guy on the forum said you can drill the top one as well but I tried and there were some metal shavings so i stopped drilling.

After fitting the old MAF in the new housing the car started right up and idled perfectly.

 

[Jelturbo]

Next up was installing a cheap LSD differential. I always wanted a lsd because one of the best things about these old volvos is that they are rear wheel drive. The problem is that they dont come with a limited slip. Yea a locker diff but they are only for low speed traction. I once bought a locker diff and wanted to try the modifications so it would always lock. The local shop here who specialises in differential said it would be russian roulette to drift and slide with that diff and hope it would survive.

I found a company in serbia that sell a cheap alternative.
racingdiffs
I think I can always try this and see how I like it. No harm done if it doesnt work because it is not that expensive

A real ''OPEN diff'' hehe

the ''lsd'' fitted

I would say its not the hardest thing to install but I had a problem removing the locking pin from the housing because my abs/speed signal sprocket is in the way. I managed to make a tool and remove it partially so I could fit the new central pin and then hammer the locking pin back into place.

It would be way easier if you dont have the abs/speed ring on your vehicle.

I can say the diff works quite well but on less angle I still get some one tire fire. I think they claim about 30% lock. I will keep you guys posted with how well it holds up. The slipping discs inside can get worn so its not for hard use on track or something. I dont drive many kilometers so its perfect for me right now

 

[Jelturbo]

I also fitted a new intercooler to add to the current power mods and keep the intake temperature a bit cooler
I chose the kl-racing one because it suppose to work great while being much cheaper then the Do88 one.

Fitment was ok but I had to made some adjustments because it was quite tight. the bottem doesnt line up perfectly and the at the top it sticks out towards the engine. I want te keep my airconditioning so this makes it much tighter. Kl-racing does sell 2 versions, one with and one without airconditiong so it suppose to fit like this.

The current project I am working on is fixing the oil heat issue when pushing the engine hard. I always wanted to fit the 240/740 factory oil cooler system with air to oil cooling. Currently the car is fitted with the stock heat exchanger that uses the coolant to cool the oil. The benefit is ofcourse that the oil heats up faster also.

Recently I found someone who sold the complete kit from a 240 second hand.

I knew it came off a volvo 240 because the reading on the sandwich plate read 75 degree celcius. I rather have the 740 one because that one is 95 degrees.
I tested the thermostat and noticed it was stuck, put it in boiling water but nothing happened. Damn I thought I had a nice deal with this buy.
I found someone who opened the sandwich plate so I figured I try to do this as well and hopefully try to unstuck the thermostat within.
Well what a job this was! It was probably 40+ years stuck in there because the O-ring was seized in there. I tried everything from heating to soaking it overnight and hammering it as well.
I finnaly got it unstuck by dremeling a slot into the little plunger and hammering it from 2 sides with a punch (i dont know the english word) Then with ratchet with a flathead attachment I managed to turn it bit by bit. But it wouldnt come out yet. I managed to cover the sandwich plate with 2 rubber plates and some wood between the vice and also blocking the oil threads. Now I used and old valve stem and a tire pump to put pressure on the plunger from the inside while at the same time turning it. FINNALY IT CAME OUT

Now how to fix the thermostat within....... I got an idea
There is no part number for this and I am sure back in the day they just replaced the whole sandwich plate.
Sandwich plates are hard to come by where I live and the aftermarket ones are expensive and have different threads and sizes for the oil filter etc.

I found an old box of coolant thermostats on the attic. Many of them are from the same brand ''Wahler'' and I hoped I could find one that had a similar size. I found a couple!

I tested them all and some were not working great and others were to short or too long. One was working great and had the same dimensions. Unfortunatly the box it came from didnt had a number on it. The thermostat read 92 degrees so its perfect for my application

When I removed the lines from the oil cooler itself one off the threads strippped my luck...
I figured I go to AN lines anyway because then I could mount the cooler exactly where I wanted.
So the sandwich plate received some new adapter fittings to become AN8 fittings.
Added some special crushwasher with rubber on the inside to prevent leakage

This page has great documentation about the volvo oil to air oil cooler:
240turbo

Now onto fitting the oil cooler, I want it directly in the wind so behind the turbo grill would be perfect and there is ample space here.

 

[Jelturbo]

hardly noticeable

And here is the stripped thread I hope some welder can fix for me. A good time to fit the cooler with some AN8 fittings to match the sandwich plate.

Now I want to remove the coolant lines. The red circle is the one I want to block with a simple closed line. (anyone know what inside diameter I need?)
And the red circle I want a drainage fitting but I am unsure what kind of thread are on this fitting. Does anyone know this ??

This is the fitting I mean:

 

[bgpzfm142]

Liked the awesome pictures of driving in Europe in your first post.

Here's hoping your repair of the Wahler sandwich plate works out. I'm replacing my non-working one with a new sandwich plate.

Sorry, I don't know the thread size of the 977619 nipple in the yellow circle.

 

[Acke]

The pipe outside diameter is 12mm. I don't remember the threads for part 13, but it should be replaceable with the corresponding parts from a NA block. Nut 3531383 + drain valve 966723 (Pipe 1332032, without the red cicled outlet - in case you want to eliminate it)

 

[nibroc]

good work and excellent pics

 

[OttoB]

hardly noticeable

And here is the stripped thread I hope some welder can fix for me. A good time to fit the cooler with some AN8 fittings to match the sandwich plate.

Now I want to remove the coolant lines. The red circle is the one I want to block with a simple closed line. (anyone know what inside diameter I need?)
And the red circle I want a drainage fitting but I am unsure what kind of thread are on this fitting. Does anyone know this ??

This is the fitting I mean:

Nice car! Thumbs up from another 900-series traveller,also 1995.

That is 3/8" NPT and pipe side is DIN 2353 L12

 

[Jelturbo]

The pipe outside diameter is 12mm. I don't remember the threads for part 13, but it should be replaceable with the corresponding parts from a NA block. Nut 3531383 + drain valve 966723 (Pipe 1332032, without the red cicled outlet - in case you want to eliminate it)

Thanks for the info! much appreciated

Im guessing these threads can be pretty stuck in there? It probably has lived in that hole for 29 years...

That is 3/8" NPT and pipe side is DIN 2353 L12

Cheers!

 

[Acke]

Im guessing these threads can be pretty stuck in there? It probably has lived in that hole for 29 years...

Not necessarily. I had to remove it from my (also -95) block a couple of years ago when I rebuilt my engine. It came out without any hassle.

 

[Jelturbo]

Today I got some new goodies.
Always disliked the standard Volvo steering wheel and my wheel had seen better days. The left side was completely worn down and even the top layer was peeling off.

Opted for the QSP steering wheel with hub. I thought it was a quick and easy job but the unfortunatyl it wasnt plug and play.
Had to make a ground wire for the horn and the resistor that came with the kit didnt stay in the standard airbag connector. Had to superglue it in there so I can always remove it and make its stock again if I change my mind.

Old wheel with removed airbag

Resistor

Ground wire installed

Not too shabby if I say so myself

 

[Jelturbo]

So my SRS light came on so I guess the resistor is not working great.....
Today I deleted the fault code so I will see if it comes back or not.

Also had to adjust the steering wheel because it was kinda crooked. Also it made a really annoying scratching noise.
The noise came from the horn connector that presses against the sliding connecting ring. Luckily you can remove the top cover and have easy access to add some grease to the connection.

Also added some steel brake lines from V-parts (swedish company). Fitment was awesome. Also the original brake hoses came off easy. Only had to heat the left rear one a bit to break it loose. Crazy. Normally the brake lines always twist when you try to loosen them.

Also got me some Adhara alloy wheels for my winter tires. They were really caked with brakedust but managed to get them kinda clean. Only missing the covers.... Can you still get these or should I look for them second hand?

 

[Appelsap]

Nice car.
The center caps are still available, 1343663. Skandix has them.

 

[Jelturbo]

Nice car.
The center caps are still available, 1343663. Skandix has them.

Thanks!!

 

[Westmees]

Cool car! And good to see more dutchies here. They’ve started to become expensive cars over here.