The LOLvo

dfettell · 2022-08-30T02:30:48+00:00

Subscribed, this should be good! There's a few other LS builds floating around on the forums and I remember at least one of them used a Ford 9" but...

dfettell

The rear floor of the LOLvo is pretty low and doesn't leave much room for suspension so shock length/stroke is an issue and there isnt much room for the ARB. The ARB can only sit behind the top of the diff housing at the highest point of the chassis so I made brackets to be welded in on each side to fix the ARB to. These are currently bolted in using the origonal shock mount bolt and will be welded later. I included some adjustment where the ARB spherical bearing bolts to the bracket to allow for providing more range of movement of the ARB arm in compression so the arm is horizontal at ride height. Also made the top shock mount and tacked them in place.

With the existing diff and shock brackets we could only use a shock that would give 4" of travel which is just not enough for a drag and drive car that will tow a trailer so I made new lower shock brackets to lower the shock mount so we could use a longer shock that would give us 5" of travel.

Threw everything under the car for a trial fit and very happy with set up. Enough room to clear the diff housing for the ARB in either mount position and cycles through full travel with no issues but will need to fine tune the bar lengths. Shocks are Strange double adjustable and will start with 160lb springs.

dfettell

Mocked up the ARB to see how it looked throughout travel.

Full compression, arm clears floor with 10mm clearance:

Ride height, arm is at desireable horizontal position:

Full droop, arm isn't at full extension or holding up the axle:

GingerNinja

Great stuff. I'm following with much interest.

VolvoHordz

Awesome looking setup. What are you doing for a handbrake? I'm running a BA Falcon diff in my 242, which looks to have pretty similar brakes to what you have gone with. It was a pretty simple affair to flip the brake brackets to put the handbrake cables on the front side of the diff, then custom cables to adapt between Falcon diff and Volvo handbrake.

dfettell

Handbrake? ?

dfettell

It's nearly weldin time but before that we need to address the issue of axle location. This one hurts but there is no other way, ideally we would go with a diagonal locator or wishbone but because it will be street driven we need to run a full exhaust and want to retain the original fuel tank meaning that the only alternative left is the panhard rod. The rod uses the original chassis mount on the passenger side and a fabricated double shear mount on the diff housing. The rod has a bend to clear the back of the 9" housing meaning it needs to have a bush at the diff end and rod end on the chassis end so that it doesn't flop around depending on extension or compression. Its just tacked for now with the back and bottom brace in place and the top side brace will be completed once the diff is pulled for final welding.

Next is bump stops. Never having had a drag and drive car thar will probably need to tow a trailer we are concerned with pounding our rear shocks on bumpy country roads so have taken the position that we need effective chassis bump stops that dont rely on the shock bump stops. The original Volvo stops are long and pretty compliant so we wanted something more positive so that when the bumps contatced they didn't compress very much or at all.

A trip to Pick a Part yielded some bumps stops off a white van (L300 I think) which were very solid and should fit the bill. With some fabricated brackets these sit in the same position as the Volvo stops and provide 7mm of shaft travel before the shock bumps bottom out. Hopefully this will be sufficient to protect the shocks but we can add more if neeeds be.

The top shock mounts, bumps stops and ARB chassis mounts all occupy the same real estate so we thought it best to fit and confirm the springs and everyting else would all clear. Fortunately they do but everything is very close and tightly packaged but will work. Pretty releived that we could fit this all in under a stock floor pan!

Finished final location of ARB arms so tacked to the bar. Likewise for lower mounts to housing and final length of moly tube for drop links.

Now its time to weld!

dfettell

Bit of a waiting game at the moment......turbo is ordered, pistons and rods ordered, 9" centre is ordered. Good news is that spacers for lower shock brackets, panhard rod and front 4 link mounts are done:

dfettell

Picked up a few bits today.

9" centre: nodular, 1350 yoke, fully studded, tru trac, 3.5. Rear end is now finished other than brake lines so can go together for final time and the car will be a roller finally. Keen to vacate the hoist as I've got other cars that need attention and I refuse to do it on the ground!

CP pistons and Callies rods

dfettell

Its a roller.

Diff centre in and everything else all bolted on at the same time for the first time. Ride height is near spot on with no preload and enough scope in the shocks to lower it a bit more yet. Will need some serious lows in the front though.

Turbo manifolds will be ordinary log manifolds but room is a bit tight on the drivers side rear so invested in one of these https://www.stsmachininginc.com/coll...olvo-1993-1975

Standard steering shaft has a bulky rubber isolator built in and with the straight STS shaft there is actually enough room to bolt in a VE LS3 manifold but it just touches and no way of making more room. I fully expected to have to do fabricated manifolds for both sides so no great issue.

Just for shits and giggles I chucked the other manifold on the passenger side......this could work with a reverse rotation turbo or you could do something ghetto with a normal rotation.

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