snq
Active Member
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2004
- Messages
- 331
- Car(s)
- 1966 Chevelle 454
Well I figured I'd start a thread about the Volvo 244 turbo I'm fixing up, to show the world that not all Volvos are slow and have caravans behind them 
It all started in september 2005, when I came across a 1981 244 turbo for a good price. I already had a couple of 240s but I wanted one that was a bit more special. There's about 250 of these left in Sweden, of which only 35 are on the road so this car fitted my needs quite well.
So I called the seller and went to take a look at the car the same day. Unfortunately he had blown some gasket that same day so the car drove like crap, and he wanted to fix that before he'd sell the car. Anyway I went to take a look anyway so at least I could see its condition. It wasn't exactly in showroom condition, but I like a project. At least it was taxed and road legal, and it had some brand new parts on it which cost about half of the price he wanted for the car.
The next day he had fixed the gasket and I went there again (another 80 mile trip), this time with a friend and some $ in my wallet. I took a test drive and was actually quite satisfied so I bought it for, after talking down the price a bit because of its general crappy condition.
Here's what it looked like when I bought it. I actually don't have any good pic of the whole car, god knows why but I forgot
The first thing it needed was some decent tires. The whole car would start vibrating if I drove over 60 mph. So I ordered some cheap tires, which arrived after a couple of days.
Next thing was to make the tail lights legal, the ones on the car were completely black and hardly visible, even in the dark. Besides they were ugly as hell So I grabbed a tube of polish and polished up some old tail lights I had laying around.
Much better.
This is what the wiring looks like after 29 (!!!) owners!
Next I wanted to get rid of the ugly white bumpers. They're supposed to be black, so I took some bumpers off another car, and guess what, the front bumper wouldn't sit straight!
I decided to do some fault tracing, which ended up with the car looking like this
The wings wouldn't really fit properly because they had a bunch of dents, and besides they were from the wrong year. So those had to be changed as well. Here's the new front in place.
The new front was a bit rusty but no holes, and at least they fitted perfectly.
Now I obviously had a problem, because the new front had the wrong color. The season was nearing its end anyway, so I decided it'd get a quick paintjob before the winter came.
And if I was gonna paint it anyway, I might as well change the doors and whatever else was in bad shape.
Then came teh fun part, preparing for paint! I had a friend come over and help me and my backyard soon looked like a garbage tip
Winter came early, and as I didn't have a garage the painting never got done. So the car stood under a cover all winter.
Spring came, and as soon as the snow disappeared we continued!
Beautiful!
The roof was a real PITA because the car had been repainted (badly) 2 times already and the roof was full of air bubbles. After a lot of hours it finally started to look somewhat proper again.
During the summer I bought an old supermarket building with the purpose of turning it into a luxury garage For now I'm only using the basement, as there already was a garage there. So the turbo got a new home.
I haven't had much time to work on the car this year because I need to work my ass off to pay for the garage before the end of the year without taking a loan. But every now and then I get something done.
I bought some new rims and tires, I like them quite a lot and got them for a really good price at the Volvo dealer. The front needs to be lowered a bit more, and the back needs some spacers but other than they look good on the car I think
Next I came across some cheap silicone and decided to start on the engine bay.
Obviously it's VERY far from done but it's a start. I tried to bend some intercooler pipes at a friends place, but we didn't succeed very well so the rest would have to wait until we figured out the proper pipe bending technique.
As you can see, the engine bay looks like complete and utter crap. By this time I have decided that the car will get a serious paintjob, it's been way too much work already for a "quick and dirty" paintjob. So I'm gonna get some stuff welded (new floor, rear wings, wheel housings) and once that's done get the whole car painted by a professional.
Anyway there was one thing that has been bothering me since I bought the car. Some idiot removed the original injection system and replaced it with a a carburettor. I've always been a bit afraid to do anything about it because this k-jetronic injection system doesn't have the best of reputations over here.
And as the car was actually running fine with the carburettor I had never bothered. I estimate it had about 180-200 HP, 0-60 MPH took a bit under 8 secs, and the top speed was about 120 MPH (this was with 3 passengers in the car tho), after that it couldn't deliver enough fuel.
But then one day, the carburettor started leaking and then I'd totally had it Now I was going to put in the original k-jet system. I had to get it done before paint anyway, because I don't want to have to experiment with it in a newly painted engine bay later on. So I got rid of the carburettor and its intake manifold, and started collecting k-jet parts from my storage room.
Be gone!
The new manifold
Fuel distributor, air flow sensor and filter box, and a bunch of lines to the injectors and pressure regulator.
Everything in place. I couldn't use my one nice intercooler pipe because it just wouldn't fit. The current solution is very temporary, just to get it tight
Obviously shit didn't work as it should. I was getting fuel to the injectors, but there was not enough pressure for the injectors to open and start spraying. I blamed the fuel pumps, so I bought 2 new pumps. A week later they arrived, and things still didn't work! The pumps sounded much better than the old ones tho so I'm sure the old one was nearing the end of its life anyway, and one was dead already.
I started this about a month ago, and since then I've mainly been waiting for new parts to arrive. But yesterday after a lot of swearing and changing parts, I finally got the engine running! And immediately noticed a huge difference compared to the carburettor shit, it revs up a lot nicer
Now I'm just waiting for a new throttle wire which will hopefully come tomorrow, and then I'll drive it to my friend who will do the welding for me.
The goal with this whole project is to get a 26 year old Volvo that can pull away from most other cars. I'm aiming for somewhere in the 250-300 HP range to start with, which shouldnt be any problem with a bigger turbo, better IC, renovated engine, 3'' exhaust all the way. The injection system I have now is already modified to handle over 300 HP.
Once it's done it'll be my summer car, I'll never drive it during the winter because I don't want it to rust away again. I might take it to a track some day as well
Anyway, I gotta get back to work, so to be continued!
And comments are welcome
It all started in september 2005, when I came across a 1981 244 turbo for a good price. I already had a couple of 240s but I wanted one that was a bit more special. There's about 250 of these left in Sweden, of which only 35 are on the road so this car fitted my needs quite well.
So I called the seller and went to take a look at the car the same day. Unfortunately he had blown some gasket that same day so the car drove like crap, and he wanted to fix that before he'd sell the car. Anyway I went to take a look anyway so at least I could see its condition. It wasn't exactly in showroom condition, but I like a project. At least it was taxed and road legal, and it had some brand new parts on it which cost about half of the price he wanted for the car.
The next day he had fixed the gasket and I went there again (another 80 mile trip), this time with a friend and some $ in my wallet. I took a test drive and was actually quite satisfied so I bought it for, after talking down the price a bit because of its general crappy condition.
Here's what it looked like when I bought it. I actually don't have any good pic of the whole car, god knows why but I forgot
The first thing it needed was some decent tires. The whole car would start vibrating if I drove over 60 mph. So I ordered some cheap tires, which arrived after a couple of days.
Next thing was to make the tail lights legal, the ones on the car were completely black and hardly visible, even in the dark. Besides they were ugly as hell
So I grabbed a tube of polish and polished up some old tail lights I had laying around.
Much better.
This is what the wiring looks like after 29 (!!!) owners!
Next I wanted to get rid of the ugly white bumpers. They're supposed to be black, so I took some bumpers off another car, and guess what, the front bumper wouldn't sit straight!
I decided to do some fault tracing, which ended up with the car looking like this
The wings wouldn't really fit properly because they had a bunch of dents, and besides they were from the wrong year. So those had to be changed as well. Here's the new front in place.
The new front was a bit rusty but no holes, and at least they fitted perfectly.
Now I obviously had a problem, because the new front had the wrong color. The season was nearing its end anyway, so I decided it'd get a quick paintjob before the winter came.
And if I was gonna paint it anyway, I might as well change the doors and whatever else was in bad shape.
Then came teh fun part, preparing for paint! I had a friend come over and help me and my backyard soon looked like a garbage tip
Winter came early, and as I didn't have a garage the painting never got done. So the car stood under a cover all winter.
Spring came, and as soon as the snow disappeared we continued!
Beautiful!
The roof was a real PITA because the car had been repainted (badly) 2 times already and the roof was full of air bubbles. After a lot of hours it finally started to look somewhat proper again.
During the summer I bought an old supermarket building with the purpose of turning it into a luxury garage
For now I'm only using the basement, as there already was a garage there. So the turbo got a new home.
I haven't had much time to work on the car this year because I need to work my ass off to pay for the garage before the end of the year without taking a loan. But every now and then I get something done.
I bought some new rims and tires, I like them quite a lot and got them for a really good price at the Volvo dealer. The front needs to be lowered a bit more, and the back needs some spacers but other than they look good on the car I think
Next I came across some cheap silicone and decided to start on the engine bay.
Obviously it's VERY far from done but it's a start. I tried to bend some intercooler pipes at a friends place, but we didn't succeed very well so the rest would have to wait until we figured out the proper pipe bending technique.
As you can see, the engine bay looks like complete and utter crap. By this time I have decided that the car will get a serious paintjob, it's been way too much work already for a "quick and dirty" paintjob. So I'm gonna get some stuff welded (new floor, rear wings, wheel housings) and once that's done get the whole car painted by a professional.
Anyway there was one thing that has been bothering me since I bought the car. Some idiot removed the original injection system and replaced it with a a carburettor. I've always been a bit afraid to do anything about it because this k-jetronic injection system doesn't have the best of reputations over here.
And as the car was actually running fine with the carburettor I had never bothered. I estimate it had about 180-200 HP, 0-60 MPH took a bit under 8 secs, and the top speed was about 120 MPH (this was with 3 passengers in the car tho), after that it couldn't deliver enough fuel.
But then one day, the carburettor started leaking and then I'd totally had it
Now I was going to put in the original k-jet system. I had to get it done before paint anyway, because I don't want to have to experiment with it in a newly painted engine bay later on. So I got rid of the carburettor and its intake manifold, and started collecting k-jet parts from my storage room.Be gone!
The new manifold
Fuel distributor, air flow sensor and filter box, and a bunch of lines to the injectors and pressure regulator.
Everything in place. I couldn't use my one nice intercooler pipe because it just wouldn't fit. The current solution is very temporary, just to get it tight
Obviously shit didn't work as it should. I was getting fuel to the injectors, but there was not enough pressure for the injectors to open and start spraying. I blamed the fuel pumps, so I bought 2 new pumps. A week later they arrived, and things still didn't work! The pumps sounded much better than the old ones tho so I'm sure the old one was nearing the end of its life anyway, and one was dead already.
I started this about a month ago, and since then I've mainly been waiting for new parts to arrive. But yesterday after a lot of swearing and changing parts, I finally got the engine running! And immediately noticed a huge difference compared to the carburettor shit, it revs up a lot nicer
Now I'm just waiting for a new throttle wire which will hopefully come tomorrow, and then I'll drive it to my friend who will do the welding for me.
The goal with this whole project is to get a 26 year old Volvo that can pull away from most other cars. I'm aiming for somewhere in the 250-300 HP range to start with, which shouldnt be any problem with a bigger turbo, better IC, renovated engine, 3'' exhaust all the way. The injection system I have now is already modified to handle over 300 HP.
Once it's done it'll be my summer car, I'll never drive it during the winter because I don't want it to rust away again. I might take it to a track some day as well
Anyway, I gotta get back to work, so to be continued!
And comments are welcome
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Its gonna be lovely. I always had a soft spot for rwd Volvos
. Keep it up!!
