The Un-Boring DD Volvo Wagon

[496truck]

I used to own an 04 Chevy 2500HD ECSB with the 8.1 and Allison combo as a DD and tow vehicle. But..... life sometimes hits you in the face and you are forced to make changes. When you are 4 months behind in mortgage payments you start looking at what you have with any equity to get back on track. So, I sold my car trailer and then the truck and DD'd the K5 for a year. Untill this little gem came along.....

$600 one owner, well maintained (with records), 1990 Volvo 740 turbo wagon. Clean, black interior and a solid body. The engine sounded like a diesel but ran great.

Started with cheap, easy fixes and mods.

Cut the front springs for a little low and to even out the cali rake.

A little vacuuming and dusting inside was all it really needed, and yes, those are heated leather seats.

Even the cargo area was clean.

I'll get to the good stuff but here is a teaser for now...

 

[Smokinthehippies]

intruiged?
I know I am...

 

[Deuling]

 

[Z71paramedic]

I've been waiting for this build for a long time...

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Interesting.

 

[496truck]

I really didn't think anyone here would be interested. But, I suppose a square body is a square body.

Found a mostly stripped/wrecked low mileage 940 turbo sedan locally that still had it's rear axle in it. The importance of this is -90 cars locking/posi rear diffs were scarce, 91- cars almost all had them. Funny thing, Volvo used the Eaton Gov-Lock, G80, Gov-bomb locker in them, and they are referred to them the same on the Volvo forums. And the rear diff is a D30 variant too.

On top of that, wagons are not equipped with a rear sway bar. Sedans are. So this gets me a rear sway bar too.

Borrowed my buddys Ecoboost and trailer and dragged it home for $200.

Nice low mileage rear locking diff and an extra driveshaft.

So, paid $200 for the parts car, threw some scrap metal I had laying around in it and got $239 for it at the scale. After topping off my buddys truck for $35 that netted me a $4 profit and a free locking rear diff along with some small odds and ends.

Got some time later that summer to swap out the rear.

Preliminary garage testing...

And a quick driveway test. My neighbors love me.

At this point it was running the stock worn out, leaky, loud, clattery engine with the boost bumped up a little.

 

[munepit]

Sweet. Didn't know those had enough power to lay rubber. We're you power braking it? I like it!

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Sweeeeet.

 

[496truck]

Sweet. Didn't know those had enough power to lay rubber. We're you power braking it? I like it!

I honestly had no idea the power potential and durability of these little 4 cylinders. And I have been working at a Volvo dealer off and on since about 1999. Nobody around here ever looked at them as having performance potential. Little did I know people were out there swapping bigger turbos, custom chips, 16v heads, custom intake manifolds, custom headers, etc. pushing these little motors upwards of 350-400 even 450-500hp on some all out builds.

Oh, the first burn out pic was only a couple weeks ago, I'll get to how it came to be. And yes, it was a brief powerbrake to where the marks go right and then it was just zero brakes and straight up funny car style burn out.

 

[COCHEV]

Sounds like the perfect sleeper...

 

[Greg Ducato]

love those cars! It begs for a 5.0 Ford or LS1 when you blow the turbo motor

 

[496truck]

As mentioned earlier, the engine was noisy. Normally these engines will run forever making noise without issue. I was beating on it.... daily. It was getting worse and starting to use oil. Like, a quart every thousand miles. A quart of oil every 1k miles, even the cheap stuff, is expensive for a $600 car.

Good thing I had a replacement in the works.

Picked up a rebuilt engine with low miles on it from one of my wholesale customers who deals almost exclusively with old RWD Volvos. Maybe had 20k on it. For $300 I couldn't go wrong.

Took the pan off and it looked good inside.

Head looked good.

Cylinders looked good.

But...... It's a "skinny rod" motor. Which means -89. And the skinny rods can only support so much power before the Kool Aid man makes an appearance through the side of the block.

Turns out, the same guy I got the motor from, has a newer block kicking around with the thicker rods in it, and he's tired of tripping over it. "Come and get it." he says.

Comparison shot, skinny 9mm rods vs thick 13mm rods. And they are interchangeable with basic hand tools.

 

[noJeepshere]

 

[496truck]

Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned and then prepped and painted everything before reassembly. Even painted the aluminum head with "aluminum" paint.

Engine swap time.

The hood hinges are equipped with little latches that, when flipped, allow the hood to fold straight up. No need to remove the hood, Thank you Volvo!!!

Pulled the engine/trans out together. Set the trans up on the bench and did what's called the "accumulator mod". Basically limits movement of the shift accumulators and firms up the shifts, kinda like a shift kit. I didn't take more pics of the process as my hands were covered in ATF.

Swapping parts, cleaning and painting accessory brackets and intake mani.

All assembled up and ready to bolt up to the trans.

One thing I didn't mention earlier... The stock turbo is a Mitsu 13c. I went to the junkyard and found a low mileage Mitsu 15g out of a FWD Volvo 850 turbo. More turbo = more fun . With a simple disassemble/reclock/reassemble it is a direct bolt on and a GREAT upgrade for a DD status RWD Volvo. Spools quick with very little lag and flows a lot more air than the 13c. Here it is assembled to the new motor and still looks stock.

All installed and running, pic was taken before I installed the timing belt cover.

 

[496truck]

love those cars! It begs for a 5.0 Ford or LS1 when you blow the turbo motor

I have already been tossing around the idea of a quick and dirty LS swap for this car. The old 5.0 is outdated at this point, just like the good ol' SBC.

 

[Greg Ducato]

I agree, man that thing is sick! Nice group of mods put together on the cheap

 

[496truck]

Drove it around like that for a while, the car got up and moved when you wanted it to with that 15g set to 15 psi of boost. Shortly after that the stock exhaust (2.25" at best) rotted off. So I did a cat delete and custom 2.5" system in it's place with only 1 muffler instead of the stock 2 mufflers. I just got a cheapo Summit turbo muffler and had a local shop bend up the pipes. I don't have any pics of this.

But, because I can't leave well enough alone....

Bigger cam. This is an R Sport Int (RSI) stage 1 cam vs the stock cam (left).

The stock cam was OK. It literally poured on tons of torque at 3000 RPM under full boost and would break the tires loose from a stop light. And it was funny, not right from the start, it would take 20' or so before the turbo kicked in and lit the tires. Man, the look on peoples faces when this old soccer mom wagon is burning tires while passing them is priceless. The problem was that the stock cam ran out of breath at about 4500 rpm. You could feel the engine flat line in power and watch the car in the next lane catch up. Yuk.

The new cam changed everything. I lost some of that tire burning torque down low but gained straight up pull all the way till I didn't feel comfortable any more. Rev limiter is set at 6500 rpm and I have yet to hit it. Now this old wagon flat out moves. If I brake stand it a little bit to get the tires spinning and the RPMs up it will leave wicked pavement stripes. That's how I got to this...

 

[496truck]

Ooooh, I forgot a very important part of this recipe....

Custom chips for the ECM and Ign module (EZK) made by one of the Turbobricks members. I got these from a car being parted out complete with the ECM and EZK that they were in. I still have my stock ones for spares.

And 40lb injectors out of a Ford Mustang SVT (2.3 turbo) or T-bird Turbocoupe.

The fuel management system is Bosch LH 2.4, stock for the car (except the chip). It is learning/adaptive to a point. It is MAF based so it can adjust the fuel delivery based on how much air it takes in. Works well for a DD, the guy who makes these chips even has a low 12 second car with this system, although he is running a Holset turbo from a Cummins.

 

[Big Ray]

niiiicccccceee......


that is one hell of a sleeper...I've always had a soft spot for Volvo wagons...hell, any wagon. they're like baby suburbans...


that is a very kewl build/ride!

 

[blazinzuk]

When I opened this page I thought to myself, wonder if ol Brain got himself an old school 740 turbo wagon?!

Love em dude, they were always quick cars. In the 90s they were a huge sleeper. As guys were modding em when they were dang near new. Especially the bigger turbo.

Very cool stuff man very cool stuff. One of those was on my list of cars to look at last time we got a car but couldn't find a clean one at all. All of em pretty beat up