my 940 aka 'the barge'

[artfulflounder]

Well here we go with my 940's project thread.

I don't know what i'll end up doing but she has to reliable and safe so better start with the basics.

The Patient: : '95 volvo 940 auto

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All seemed fine till the first time i got stuck in traffic.....i thought i had an engine fire the amount smoke and hot oil fumes coming from the bonnet....PANIC. lol
Turned out i had a slight oil leak or 2.

Ended up finding out about the breather box (pcv) and blocked hoses so the overhaul began.

New pcv box ordered and started checking/cleaning and unblocking all the hoses i could get too......mmmm not good.....

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Cleaned and flushed all the intercooler pipework, throttle body and quite a good amount flushed out intercooler itself.
Pcv box fitted along with new vacuum hoses. Several of the oil leaks caused by the blocked breather were from the engine block so i fitted new cam,crank,intermediate gear,distributor and rocker seals along with cambelt and tensioner, distributor cap/rotor arm, new plugs.

Most of it was quite easy for my first time...apart from the crank pulley bolt....ooooh what a sod.
Ended up reading about feeding a length of rope down plug hole at just off tdc and turning crank to lock it.....low and behold it worked a treat.

Heres the old girl after the basics

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Sorry for the blue hosing it was all i could get locally in any amount.

Anyway don't seem to be loosing any more oil and shes behaving herself.......Yay.

Let the fun begin.

[V70 Graham]

Good work, that engine bay looks a lot better now, must run better too. Will be watching this with interest.

[iancho]

Nice work mate keep it up

[artfulflounder]

After a thorough stage 0 i went out next morning to find some bugger had deemed it necessary to lower the old girl the old fashioned way....guessing i would say 2 coils at front and 1 plus a bit at the rear.....lol

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Also they'd put a brace across the front struts



Has sorted out some of the wallowing quite well but will be changing dampers and new lowering springs when the funds allow.

Also fitted a new mbc



Didn't have too many problems setting it up and with a decent boost gauge allowed me to set it at a safe 10psi which is certainly an improvement.

Will be having attempt at the accumulator mod pretty soon and also the official volvo camber mod.

Managed to get the petrol gauge to actually register now instead of being empty constantly but seems stuck on half full now, also possibly fuel pump relay as occasionally stalls for no reason.

Future plans will start with power through efficiency.....it currently has a cone filter dangling in the engine bay attached to non volvo intake pipe sucking in great globs of hot air so will order a silicone maf to turbo intake pipe and have a go at making a fibreglass sealed airbox.
Been interesting reading about working out volume of airbox required and cold air intake size for bhp....probably all irrelevent on power that i will ever achieve but at least it keeps me busy.lol

Thought i would change intercooler early on as well so again looking for one at the mo that fits the bill.

Set of chips will be ordered from thelostartof tb forum....?

2.5" system and hopefully a 3" dp can be made with help.

Thats the basics covered so far and everything else will follow.

[smithy]

Very nice mate looking with interest .i have an s40 1.8vvt x reg so I'm not jealous of your turbo promise lol

[AndysR]

Looks smart, got a 940 LPT auto estate myself and absolutely love it
I'll be watching your progress with interest

[artfulflounder]

The old girl has got a few miles under her belt since stage 0 and all still seems well so its time for me to start the playing......

Would obviously like some extra poke but am being realistic with my end goals......would be happy with 240 plus bhp eventually but want to do it right first time, going to start with the basics and go from there.

The first thing to tackle will be my intake system....see pics below

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The intake pipe is some unknown pile of poo that was fitted by previous owner and as can been seen actually rests against the water pipe for the radiator....mmm sure that cant be good. Also because of the run of the intake what i presume is iat sensor is not actually fitted to intake directly but sits solely in the pcv return pipe so isn't actually measuring anything beneficial.
So its sucking all the hot air from engine bay anyway and getting heated by the rad pipe too so there will be gains to be had by reducing the intake temperature.

If i'm wrong at any time pleeeease correct me i'm still learning the finer points or anything beneficial to be honest......

Anyway thought i would sort this out by getting a proper maf to turbo pipe and thought about this....



Seems a good upgrade to start with, know i can get a 3" version but i think i can run at 4bar @ 372cc with green injectors(804s) on a 15g so seems pointless at the moment....but also i'm going to attempt to make a fibreglass sealed airbox, i've done some homework and took into account possible volume required and cold air feed dimensions, but will be using the original inner wing vent as well.
Will be first time doing anything like this but will be interesting to try.

So a fair bit of my driving is round the city so interested in reducing effects of heat soak throughout the whole intake tract so want to actually measure the temperature before and after each step. Would love an autometer setup but funds wont allow that so will something like this be good enough???.....thought sensor wire looked bit big to squeeze into pipework??

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Possibly i could do it cheaply and use a food temperature probe, maybe with a half sheath on to protect from direct cold air flow so it measured air temp directly.....o.k so may not be massively accurate but at least would give me base figures and ball park reductions.
Would take readings before and after each mod in various positions (engine bay/inlet/outlet and tb etc).
Got a few things i want to try but am interested to see if they actually work.

Thats the general plan of action anyway.....

Any advice you guys can give me on any of the above would be gratefull.

[smithy]

From what I have heard you can fit me7 blues with the resistor mod at 4bar on 3in maf will fuel no probs.and you will get less fuel cut too .but I might be wrong so someone else might correct me .

[artfulflounder]

From what I have heard you can fit me7 blues with the resistor mod at 4bar on 3in maf will fuel no probs..

You are correct in what you say it is a straight swap but i'm far from that point at the moment and still got intercooler to upgrade before that.. was going to rebuild a 15g with 19t compressor/housing but thats another story.lol

One good source of info i've found is 'Anthony Hyde' he is a lecturer at The Australian National University in the school of physics and engineering. He races a heavily modified volvo 240 turbo and covers many subjects from injectors,turbos,16v head swaps,gear boxes, 531/530 head comparison.......plus many more things.
Very interesting read and has proven results........have a look see.

http://people.physics.anu.edu.au/~am...tech_index.htm

With regards to my post above found a few thermocouples that will cover temperature range i need for intercooler temps , could use a volt meter to read milivolts and a look up table to see temps....mmm still haven't found anything plug and play that is relatively cheap(scrooge).

As my hands on time is limited due to having young kids i do lots of research on all aspects so will post all interesting items and articles up that i find.

[smithy]

From what I have heard you can still fit the 3in maf and me7 injectors with the standard setup and you can run the standard turbo upto 15 psi .i also heard that the standard intercooler with take 250 bhp no probs .also the car will be better on fuel with the me7 injectors too.

[artfulflounder]

Had a little prang....nothing major new grill, headlight glass couple of support brackets so i popped down local breakers.
As luck would have it managed to get all the bits i needed and also found a complete airbox with a brand new volvo panel filter so i got that too.

In the mean time i'd ordered a digital multimeter and some K-type thermocouples thought i'd do a very basic experiment first off.
Being my daily driver a fair bit of my driving is start stop town driving and after a while the old bus struggles so thought i'd measure the under bonnet temperature at the cone filter.

I placed a thermocouple next to the cone filter....so between back of headlight and turbo......at idle it reached a maximum of 81.4*C averaging out about 76*.

During start stop city driving ranging from 58* to high 70s.....mmmm

Yes cone filter makes a nice sound and looks cool under the bonnet but completely useless for my every day driving, all that heat being sucked through the inlet....mmm can't be good. I will follow up with readings after turbo and before throttlebody with various set ups and mods but something drastic had to be done so.....

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I've removed all the foam from the lid of the airbox....well what was left, seemed quite a bit stuck to the AMM screen.lol
Removed all the foam in the bottom which i presume is sound deadening, removed the inner trumpet from the wing intake pipe and dremmeled the intake pipe inside the box so now the AMM is the first restriction size wise in the intake system.

Not managed to do a temperature test on intake temp comparisons between the cone filter and airbox yet but should be interesting as 3* decrease in intake temp is approx 1bhp so airbox by all rights will have improved things no end.

Bit boring i know but it gives me something to do when i've not got time to tinker due to kids and i might actually learn something along the way. As well as give the old girl some more poke which is always good.

[artfulflounder]

Been slowly working on the old girl.....nothing earth shattering just pampering.

When i had cone filter i ordered a new turbo to maf pipe then got the air box in the time being but the pipe turned up so duly fitted.



Very good quality item from do88 (partforvolvo).

Obligitary Satin black front grill....



Bought a hot air gun and attacked the bumpers trying to get some colour back into them.....worked well.



Managed to pick up a set of 'Auriga' alloys too......







Can't see in the pictures but got rid of those nasty clear rear lights for a standard pair.
I've got a leather interior and the boot kids seats to fit yet as well.

Did another oil change and flushed the rad so new coolant.

Got to say a big thanks to Smithy who gave up his time to speak to me for sometime pointing me in the right direction on performance mods and what i'll need for each stage......thanks mate. At least i sort of know what i'm looking for now.

While picking the wheels and interior up i also managed to get a full saab apc system which i was contemplating fitting also the ignitor,coils and leads from an mx5 for a wasted spark system but don't know if i'll attempt these yet.
A garrett t3 50 trim from a saab also found its way into my shed but again need to investigate more how suitable this could be .....many 740/940s running cossie housings with 60 trim so again could be an option further down the line.

Have a larger oil cooler again from a saab to fit for the autobox so going to attempt the accumulator mod at the same time.

Well thats about it for now....

[artfulflounder]

Still lovin the old girl.....trying to keep her marching on. On the whole its going alright.

This is a bit of a budget runner so you'll have to excuse me for my tightness.lol

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Did some research and looked at all the ebay intercoolers piping and such like and ended up going with an isuzu npr intercooler.
very much the same size as a standard volvo one but with better flow and efficiency.
I know its a second hand truck intercooler but they were a well recieved upgrade in years gone by.

I did flush it out before offering it up....went on well even using standard volvo piping and car is certainly more responsive but just need to finish it properly before i put more pics on.

Now the bad bit...

Did another oil change....mmm car has 240k mls on her and think she's been neglected abit. just don't know how bad the oil sludge may be after all these years, have run an oil flush through each time hoping it will be helping.
Getting a bit of positive crankcase pressure again and i've gone through the pcv system so ordered an engine compression gauge kit so i can see what the damage is.....

Possibly with the miles it could be rings or head but i'm gonna give it a go and replace /service any parts on this engine rather then swap another lump in.....gotta learn somehow as i've not gone any deeper than valve stem seals on a mk3 escort or rings and pistons on my bikes 20 odd years ago.lol

I'll post up the readings when the bits get here,i cant do a leak down test as no compressor but i believe if one cylinder reads low ( 15% or more ????) if a put a smidgen of oil in there doesn't it seal the ring enough to raise psi on a retest..if it doesn't then its the head..yes

I've got 10w40 synthetic in but thought i could even get away with another oil flush and 15w40 maybe if the readings aren't too low and that may help...or is that being too tight???

I told you i was a noob.....

OOOOh if anyone has an A or V cam from a b2** 8v n/a then i may be interested.....

[smithy]

Still lovin the old girl.....trying to keep her marching on. On the whole its going alright.

This is a bit of a budget runner so you'll have to excuse me for my tightness.lol

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Did some research and looked at all the ebay intercoolers piping and such like and ended up going with an isuzu npr intercooler.
very much the same size as a standard volvo one but with better flow and efficiency.
I know its a second hand truck intercooler but they were a well recieved upgrade in years gone by.

I did flush it out before offering it up....went on well even using standard volvo piping and car is certainly more responsive but just need to finish it properly before i put more pics on.

Now the bad bit...

Did another oil change....mmm car has 240k mls on her and think she's been neglected abit. just don't know how bad the oil sludge may be after all these years, have run an oil flush through each time hoping it will be helping.
Getting a bit of positive crankcase pressure again and i've gone through the pcv system so ordered an engine compression gauge kit so i can see what the damage is.....

Possibly with the miles it could be rings or head but i'm gonna give it a go and replace /service any parts on this engine rather then swap another lump in.....gotta learn somehow as i've not gone any deeper than valve stem seals on a mk3 escort or rings and pistons on my bikes 20 odd years ago.lol

I'll post up the readings when the bits get here,i cant do a leak down test as no compressor but i believe if one cylinder reads low ( 15% or more ????) if a put a smidgen of oil in there doesn't it seal the ring enough to raise psi on a retest..if it doesn't then its the head..yes

I've got 10w40 synthetic in but thought i could even get away with another oil flush and 15w40 maybe if the readings aren't too low and that may help...or is that being too tight???

I told you i was a noob.....

OOOOh if anyone has an A or V cam from a b2** 8v n/a then i may be interested.....

I would check the head gasket because they are prone to go if running higher boost .best put a head gasket in it and get the head skimmed why you there.

[artfulflounder]

I would check the head gasket because they are prone to go if running higher boost .best put a head gasket in it and get the head skimmed why you there.

Yeah had a look through over the weekend and defo loosing coolant so head gasket it is......my compression tester turned up today so will still take some readings anyway.

So this is an opportunity to have a go at some upgrading/tinkering......

Will be my first attempt at port matching and some basic smoothing and polishing. Google books has 'David Vizards- how to port and flow test cylinder heads' very educational read. i Certainly won't be doing too indepth. JUST THE BASICS.

Ideal time to change the T cam..... here's cam specs for b2** 8v engine.
http://www.turbobricks.com/resources...ontent=camspec
So if anyone has a slotted A cam pleeeeease message me.

Injectors changed to bosch 830s (blue t5)....the lh2.4 can adapt to injectors up to 42-46Lbs/hr without needing 3" amm so even at 3.8 bar these should be sufficient for a 16t/15g.

That will be a good start anyway...

[artfulflounder]

First attempt with compression tester.

http://www.vpcuk.org/forums/showthre...lt-help-needed

so outcome was probably not head gasket but valve stem seals.....so makes sense to get complete head gasket set, and also as suggested do thermostat and water pump at same time......

Soooooooo.......

This is where some basic tools and see what happens attitude gets you....

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Live in first floor flat with a single parking space and a poxy little shed so had to store the bits in here.

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Got the inlet and manifold all off, just need to drain the oil and get head off now. was really surprised how easy it was to take it all off, only thing that annoyed me was that poxy bracket under the manifold gggrrrrr.

Now this is where the upstanding helpfull pillars of the forum come into play.

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Still trying to track down an 'A','V' or 'K' cam, tried a few breakers and volvo specialists but no joy yet, anyway if it comes that i keep the 'T' cam i might as well check the shims, will it be easier to measure clearences now while the belts are still connected and head on car or does it not matter.
Also do i take cam out before removing head or again do it after?

I'll no doubt be posting up info as i'm going to have a go at gasket matching the inlet ports, will leave exhaust ports alone apart from a polish and WILL not mess with combustion chambers.

With a load of junk out the engine bay its clear that i need to clean it up a bit. Looks a bit scabby under radiator and also behind the head lights. Will be going over and prepping for a touch up. Probably only be rattle cans or possibly look into the electrical sprayers as don't have space for a compressor and costs are too much.

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One thing thats clear is that its in dire need of a good degrease....



Anyone recommend a heavy duty cleaner that will shift some of this??? local factors do 'Gunk' and similar but need something that does what its supposed to.
Would liked to have painted the block but it'll be staying in the car so that makes it hard so just a good clean up will be all i can do.

Overall its been a good learning experience so far and will stand me in good stead later on.

[graemewelch]

i use pound shop degreaser everytime i do a engine rebuild. works a treat.

[artfulflounder]

Just been organising stuff for the old girl.

Just waiting for some abrasive drums,tapered cartrides and various mops and wheels to turn up.

Mr Kingsford needs a big thanx for selling me these:



Nice and easy bolt on upgrade .....a conical 15g and a set of bosch whites.

So from what i've read so far the potential of these are:

350cc at 3bar or 443cc at 3.8 bar this equates to 42lb/hr........with the standard 016amm it will cope with 42-46lb/hr injectors without going to 3" 960 012amm.
Fuel cut may be an issue but someone local has experience with tuner pro and lh2.4 so will be played with to suit.

Matching the Injector to the Engine

To calculate the horsepower capacity of injectors based on their flow rating:

Fuel injectors max HP (lb/hr)* =

Injector flow rate x Number of injectors x 0.8 BSFC(0.6)

Which gives a potential for 220bhp....not ground braking but it will do for a start. hopefully thats if i got things right.

Before anything i needed to clean everything up, all those years of grease and crap.....easier than it sounds.
I tried degreaser,parrafin, brake and clutch cleaner etc all with various brushes and bits.
And it still looked dirty.....then i has a break through.....normal oven cleaner, worked wonders and takes alot of the hard work out of the job.

Before:



After:






Heres a quick look at the inlet:

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Thought now would be a good time for the before pics of the exhaust side:
Looks like there is a fair amount that can be done:

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Should be starting the interesting bit by end of the week....sort of looking forward to a bit of porting and polishing but very nervous as it'll be my first attempt.

Sorry for the size of the pics i will edit them to a more pleasing size.

[Biff]

Coming on a treat mate, these older volvo's have opened my eyes.
I want one.

[stribo]

Some good progress being made, obviously I can't comment on the figures, as I have no idea, Smithy's your man for that.