I bought my car in the spring of 1996 from the second owner for $1000. The interior was/is in really great shape and and it had a sunroof (I didn't know at the time that wagons do not have sunroofs from the factory). The silver paint is not the best paint to withstand time so the car needed a paint job to look it's best. In '81 the GLT wagons had everything that the turbo cars had like cruise, AC, vented disks, except the turbo! The car looked like a turbo but just didn't have the get-up-and-go it needed to have. I found a complete 82' turbo motor with computers and transmission for a transplant and then the madness started! I joined Turbobricks and the idea of just dropping in a tired, used motor started making no sense at all. I took the plunge ($$$$) and did a complete rebuild of the motor and did a 'few' modifications along the way to turbocharging my car. I'm very happy I didn't just drop in the used motor because once I took the bottom end apart I found out how bad a shape the motor was in. Picture of a couple of the connecting rod bearings.
Who am I?
My name is Stu and I live in the Portland/Vancouver area in the great Pacific Northwest. At this time I am a 31year old Mechanical Engineer working at Hewlett-Packard designing printer parts, husband to one, and Dad to two. If you are ever at a Volvo event in the Pac NW, please say hello. I look like this if you suprise me at my desk.
General Philosophy about Modifications:
My goal for this project is to have my little 2.1 put out about 225 streetable (wife will still drive this car too) horsepower and the handling to match. I want this car to be quick, not necessarily fast, and to handle very well. In other words, I want a kick ass 0-60 time but am not so concerned about the 1/4 mile and therefor am more concerned about torque than top end horsepower. Most of the 'races' I have been in are from light to light and you don't have very long to keep at WOT.
Others may wonder why the hell I would want to hotrod a Volvo, and a station wagon to boot! I have always liked the looks of the 81-85 240s and after I sold my truck, I needed something that could haul stuff too. Anyone can hot rod an American V-8 (probably for less money too), but I like to have things that not 'just anyone' can have. Contrary to what some others on Turbobricks may think, this car will never beat a Porsche on a road course or whip up on a built Z28 in the quarter mile, but it will kick the crap out of a lot of cars out there. Even if I don't beat the other car, I'll leave them scratching their heads that a Volvo station wagon kept up with them for so long. My modifications are intended to give me a respectable and reliable level of performance without having to get too crazy and reinvent the wheel.
Keep in mind that I do drive this car just about every day but my commute is short. I would not endorse all mods for a car that is driven long distances every day. My car can seem noisy and rough riding after a long commute in traffic on not so perfect roads. Don't get me wrong, I love driving this car, it goes like crazy and handles great too. Every modification has its trade-offs.
Preparations To Transplant The Turbo Motor:
Because the wiring is different between the NA and turbo cars, I went to a U-Pull yard and removed the complete engine management wire harness and labeled all the termination points. I then took this home, using a DVM verified the connections on my car. To my surprise only hand full of wires were different. The #7 on the Lambda computer needed to be moved on the engine plug and a wire for the oil pressure needed to be added. My car had the constant idle system wiring already installed, so I just had to plug in the CIS computer. I added the overboost switch for the fuel pump relay, the 3 psi enrichment switch, and the cold start relay (mounted by the ignition module on the turbo motor) also. The connection for the frequency valve needed to be extended to reach the new fuel distributor. The turbo Lambda computer plugged right in place of the old Lambda computer.
Because the ignition module and windshield reservoir in my car was mounted behind the passenger headlights they needed to be moved for the fuel distributor of the turbo motor. I extended the wires for the ignition module and got a bracket to mount the module on the driver's side strut tower. Because my car is a wagon, I have that little spot in the rear wheel well to put my windshield reservoir. I didn't like the way the stock turbo washer reservoir sits and the plumbing for the squirter already was there. Now it just pumps forward instead of backwards. Picture of the reservoir.
This small description in no way shows how much work this really was. Rebuilding and transplanting a motor takes time, patience, and MONEY. It took me over a year and a half to find all the parts I needed like the APC, intercooler, B23 intake, 90+ exhaust mani, to completely rebuild the motor, and do all the research for wiring and such. If you take you car to someone else to have your oil changed, I would recommend against doing an engine transplant. In retrospect, I should have just bought a turbo car in the first place and saved myself lots of time. If I knew what I now know, I would have also converted to a 1988+ B230FTi so I could have EFI and all the associated advancements in engine management. I have not included very much detail about this conversion because if you get it into your head that you want to transplant a motor, every car is different and will need different details to make it work. If you have any questions, drop me a line and I'll try to give you some advice, but I did not want to write a "manual" on how to convert from NA to turbo.
