What the heck, I thought I might do a project thread too instead of just randomly glomming pics into other threads. Belatedly, since it's nearing completion.
Background: In Dec 2005, I bought a pristine '93 245 Classic (#1141/1600) on ebay. Looked brand new still, not a speck of rust underneath, and a brand new (actually, not 'nearly') tan leather interior. And under the hood, a very neatly swapped '93 940T drivetrain - round toothed B230FT and AW71 trans. When I got it it was running a nice healthy 12 psi. Felt fast and peppy!
(Shouldn't all late model 245's have come from the factory with this under the hood???)
The skinny 14" wheels came off, 17" wheels went on. IPD lowering springs and Bilstein HD's (it already had IPD sways).
And gradually, I'd gotten used to the amount of pep it had, and wanted more. The 13C was quickly out of puff, so the next step was browntops, NPR intercooler, 3" exhaust, and a 16T turbo.
That was more like it. Somewhere along the way (as planned) I got rid of the AW71 and put in an M47. Which lasted about 8 months.
So a T5 went in.
It ran a 14.0@97 with that setup.
During the spring of '08 I put on a 531 head, with an IPD Turbo cam and 37.5 exhaust valves, with some mild porting to match the larger valves.
Was it faster? Butt dyno was a little ambiguous on the matter. In the fall of '08 it did run a 13.8@100.
However, it wasn't running quite right that evening. Bad tank of gas? I'd tried to compensate for that by putting in some octane booster, which seemed to make it slightly worse if anything. I fidgeted with the plugs some. It got a little better. I should have gone home, but no, I pushed for some improvement over the previous year's 14.0 and got the 13.8. But only with some fairly high boost levels and a little pinging. Here's one of the runs in a datalog:
Car survived the night, I drove it home, all seemed well. But inside the motor, 2 rods were slightly bent, a 3rd bent even more. And probably stress cracked from bending. They survived a few more days of normal use, until on the way to work, #2 let loose at around 15 psi. BAM*crunch*clatter*crunch*smoke*clatter. Yay, cross flow crankcase ventilation!
Bendy rod:
Got a '94 940T junkyard motor. 240K miles, still crosshatching in the cylinders. However, also a lot of copper showing on the bearings. Briefly considered just slapping bearings in it and putting it right into the car. ... ... Nah!
Got some blingy rods and pistons...
...before realizing that they didn't work together. Crank-steered pistons, and piston steered rods. D'oh! RSI to the rescue with crank steered H-beam rods in the stock length. Uber strong Pauter rods sold.
Cruising the PnP for a aux. shaft with dist drive gears, I spotted a 940GLE. New addition to the sleepy Volvo section of the PnP! Opened the hood, yep, 16V head still on. Yanked off the t-belt cover, yep, timing belt still intact. Score!!! (Oddly enough, there was a parking violation sticker on the driver's side window, AFAIK it was jsut abandoned somewhere too long, got towed, then sold off). My project just got more complicated and expensive. D'oh!
J/Y shortblock with J/Y 16V head sitting on top:
Striving to make it fairly easy, I used sdturbo's intake adapter to put an 8V intake on the 16V head. Did some porting to match the round shape of the manifold to the oval shape of the head:
Also used sdturbo's tensioner setup. A very nice bolt on solution that still uses Volvo parts (belt, idler, tensioner):
Also, tried a HE351VE Holset for size, as they are intriguing (variable aperature for quick spool and mega flow). But the shear physical size of the hotside made me scrap that idea. Just didn't fit, and I don't want to reconfigure the entire engine compartment just to fit an extremely bulky, 50 lb 400 hp turbo. Even if it was dirt cheap and the variable gate stuff was very intriguing:
To mount the block distributor, I got on eBay.UK and ordered some dinky little Citroen cap. Clips right onto the distributor body, but the 'roof' is somewhat lower inside the cap. So I had to trim about 1/2" off the tip of the distributor shaft, re-notch the stub slightly, then chop the bottom 1/3" (+/-) off the stock rotor so it would sit down a little lower inside, then the cap fit properly. And it can barely be removed and replaced with the head on. The dist body itself, however, is there for the duration. Zoidberg cap:
After putting the motor in to check for fit on the Holset, I started to see some problems with the intake manifold. The problem with the 16V manifold is that it points right at the master cylinder. Well, the mounting point for the intake on the 16V head is farther out and I think angled up slightly more, as compared to the 8V. So the 8V intake isn't quite a miracle solution to that clearance problem (although it probably avoids that anecdotal flow issue under boost the 16V intake supposedly has).
Two pronged solution - first, carefully bend that brake line over so it runs closely along the master cylinder. Secondly, go to the PnP and get an 850 throttle body. I found two different sizes there, and got the larger one (3" OD). Much shorter, bigger throttle, nice non-rigged TPS mount. w00t! Only problem was that it mounts with 4 bolts, not the 8V's weird 3 bolt pattern. I found that two of the 8V bolts would work once the 850 TB holes were enlarged, with the TB just rotated a few degrees off level. For a 3rd bolt, I just drilled a hole in the intake and put in a stud with some JB-Weld for sealing. For the 4th hole, I would have done the same, but it was aimed at a tricky transitional area on the 8V plenum where the side drops down sharply to the #2 runner. I didn't think the same trick would work there, so I left that one off. 3 bolts out of 4, should be OK. I think. Clearance issue is now gone:
Started dressing the motor. Engine harness back on, injectors/fuel rail back on. Throttle cable and throttle spool back on. Hmmm... (really should have taken a picture at this point to illustrate things). Well, on an 8V manifold the brackets hold the cable and spool up above the manifold fairly far. Which isn't a problem when the 8V manifold is sitting down farther in the engine bay. But on a 16V head, it's poking up higher. To the point where they'd leave dents in the hood when you close it. So I hammered, bent, trimmed, hacked at both brackets until they sat down a little over an inch. Even after all that, they are still the high point of the motor, and I'm slightly uneasy about their proximity to the hood. I guess on the positive side, the hood does curve upwards across the center from the sides, and the center section is raised even more. Fingers crossed that I don't have to do more. Or that the engine doesn't rock over under power and jam the spool against the hood. *THINKFASTANDSHUTTHEKEYOFF*
.
I put a short (1" tall?) PV motor mount on the left side, to lean the motor over a little and get it away form the A/C line on the firewall. With stock mounts (well, diesel mounts) in, the engine was about 1/8" away from these lines. I considered gently bending them to the right, but I didn't like the odds on that. So I left them alone and did the motor mount thing.
The JGSTool's log mani is arriving very soon. And I already got the (I'll regret this at some point in the future) knockoff ball bearing GT3076R turbo. Yes, non-optimal cheapness afflicts that side of the motor. But it's been dragging on long enough and cost enough at this point that I'm jsut getting it done for now. In the future, I'll likely revisit it with a 'real' manifold and a 'real' turbo. For now though, a log mani (1.6" ID tubes), GT3076R turbo with ATP 3" V-band adapter and internal wastegate going into the 3" Dp and exhaust.
Background: In Dec 2005, I bought a pristine '93 245 Classic (#1141/1600) on ebay. Looked brand new still, not a speck of rust underneath, and a brand new (actually, not 'nearly') tan leather interior. And under the hood, a very neatly swapped '93 940T drivetrain - round toothed B230FT and AW71 trans. When I got it it was running a nice healthy 12 psi. Felt fast and peppy!
(Shouldn't all late model 245's have come from the factory with this under the hood???)
The skinny 14" wheels came off, 17" wheels went on. IPD lowering springs and Bilstein HD's (it already had IPD sways).
And gradually, I'd gotten used to the amount of pep it had, and wanted more. The 13C was quickly out of puff, so the next step was browntops, NPR intercooler, 3" exhaust, and a 16T turbo.
That was more like it. Somewhere along the way (as planned) I got rid of the AW71 and put in an M47. Which lasted about 8 months.
So a T5 went in.
It ran a 14.0@97 with that setup.
During the spring of '08 I put on a 531 head, with an IPD Turbo cam and 37.5 exhaust valves, with some mild porting to match the larger valves.
Was it faster? Butt dyno was a little ambiguous on the matter. In the fall of '08 it did run a 13.8@100.
However, it wasn't running quite right that evening. Bad tank of gas? I'd tried to compensate for that by putting in some octane booster, which seemed to make it slightly worse if anything. I fidgeted with the plugs some. It got a little better. I should have gone home, but no, I pushed for some improvement over the previous year's 14.0 and got the 13.8. But only with some fairly high boost levels and a little pinging. Here's one of the runs in a datalog:
Car survived the night, I drove it home, all seemed well. But inside the motor, 2 rods were slightly bent, a 3rd bent even more. And probably stress cracked from bending. They survived a few more days of normal use, until on the way to work, #2 let loose at around 15 psi. BAM*crunch*clatter*crunch*smoke*clatter. Yay, cross flow crankcase ventilation!
Bendy rod:
Got a '94 940T junkyard motor. 240K miles, still crosshatching in the cylinders. However, also a lot of copper showing on the bearings. Briefly considered just slapping bearings in it and putting it right into the car. ... ... Nah!
Got some blingy rods and pistons...
...before realizing that they didn't work together. Crank-steered pistons, and piston steered rods. D'oh! RSI to the rescue with crank steered H-beam rods in the stock length. Uber strong Pauter rods sold.
Cruising the PnP for a aux. shaft with dist drive gears, I spotted a 940GLE. New addition to the sleepy Volvo section of the PnP! Opened the hood, yep, 16V head still on. Yanked off the t-belt cover, yep, timing belt still intact. Score!!! (Oddly enough, there was a parking violation sticker on the driver's side window, AFAIK it was jsut abandoned somewhere too long, got towed, then sold off). My project just got more complicated and expensive. D'oh!
J/Y shortblock with J/Y 16V head sitting on top:
Striving to make it fairly easy, I used sdturbo's intake adapter to put an 8V intake on the 16V head. Did some porting to match the round shape of the manifold to the oval shape of the head:
Also used sdturbo's tensioner setup. A very nice bolt on solution that still uses Volvo parts (belt, idler, tensioner):
Also, tried a HE351VE Holset for size, as they are intriguing (variable aperature for quick spool and mega flow). But the shear physical size of the hotside made me scrap that idea. Just didn't fit, and I don't want to reconfigure the entire engine compartment just to fit an extremely bulky, 50 lb 400 hp turbo. Even if it was dirt cheap and the variable gate stuff was very intriguing:
To mount the block distributor, I got on eBay.UK and ordered some dinky little Citroen cap. Clips right onto the distributor body, but the 'roof' is somewhat lower inside the cap. So I had to trim about 1/2" off the tip of the distributor shaft, re-notch the stub slightly, then chop the bottom 1/3" (+/-) off the stock rotor so it would sit down a little lower inside, then the cap fit properly. And it can barely be removed and replaced with the head on. The dist body itself, however, is there for the duration. Zoidberg cap:
After putting the motor in to check for fit on the Holset, I started to see some problems with the intake manifold. The problem with the 16V manifold is that it points right at the master cylinder. Well, the mounting point for the intake on the 16V head is farther out and I think angled up slightly more, as compared to the 8V. So the 8V intake isn't quite a miracle solution to that clearance problem (although it probably avoids that anecdotal flow issue under boost the 16V intake supposedly has).
Two pronged solution - first, carefully bend that brake line over so it runs closely along the master cylinder. Secondly, go to the PnP and get an 850 throttle body. I found two different sizes there, and got the larger one (3" OD). Much shorter, bigger throttle, nice non-rigged TPS mount. w00t! Only problem was that it mounts with 4 bolts, not the 8V's weird 3 bolt pattern. I found that two of the 8V bolts would work once the 850 TB holes were enlarged, with the TB just rotated a few degrees off level. For a 3rd bolt, I just drilled a hole in the intake and put in a stud with some JB-Weld for sealing. For the 4th hole, I would have done the same, but it was aimed at a tricky transitional area on the 8V plenum where the side drops down sharply to the #2 runner. I didn't think the same trick would work there, so I left that one off. 3 bolts out of 4, should be OK. I think. Clearance issue is now gone:
Started dressing the motor. Engine harness back on, injectors/fuel rail back on. Throttle cable and throttle spool back on. Hmmm... (really should have taken a picture at this point to illustrate things). Well, on an 8V manifold the brackets hold the cable and spool up above the manifold fairly far. Which isn't a problem when the 8V manifold is sitting down farther in the engine bay. But on a 16V head, it's poking up higher. To the point where they'd leave dents in the hood when you close it. So I hammered, bent, trimmed, hacked at both brackets until they sat down a little over an inch. Even after all that, they are still the high point of the motor, and I'm slightly uneasy about their proximity to the hood. I guess on the positive side, the hood does curve upwards across the center from the sides, and the center section is raised even more. Fingers crossed that I don't have to do more. Or that the engine doesn't rock over under power and jam the spool against the hood. *THINKFASTANDSHUTTHEKEYOFF*
I put a short (1" tall?) PV motor mount on the left side, to lean the motor over a little and get it away form the A/C line on the firewall. With stock mounts (well, diesel mounts) in, the engine was about 1/8" away from these lines. I considered gently bending them to the right, but I didn't like the odds on that. So I left them alone and did the motor mount thing.
The JGSTool's log mani is arriving very soon. And I already got the (I'll regret this at some point in the future) knockoff ball bearing GT3076R turbo. Yes, non-optimal cheapness afflicts that side of the motor. But it's been dragging on long enough and cost enough at this point that I'm jsut getting it done for now. In the future, I'll likely revisit it with a 'real' manifold and a 'real' turbo. For now though, a log mani (1.6" ID tubes), GT3076R turbo with ATP 3" V-band adapter and internal wastegate going into the 3" Dp and exhaust.
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