240 turbo

Ben83 · 2024-09-19T06:02:00+00:00

Anyone here put a turbo on a non turbo mechanical injected engine?

242GT

Do you know what year the dealer brought the 6 turbo kits in , I've just put my 242GT Turbo on historic plates and had a bit of push back about it being turboed , I showed ghe a chart I've got listing all cou tries models etc and mention the 6 240's in Victoria but as I've lost the photos I had it all came back to hear say , in NSW historic plates are 30yrs

dmc

Oddly this came up a couple of days ago and there is a story of another of the 6 being in another workshop under a cover. I will ask around about them and attempt to get some photos and permission to share them. More to come (ideally).

Forg

Free The Victorian 6 !!. ⚒️

Paul_Roodenrys

This is an interesting discussion, I've been considering registering my GT on club plates but the idea hasn't been received as well as I thought. This surprised me a bit because I have a couple of classic bikes on club rego and neither are completely standard. If I can establish that there were turbo 240s here then it might just sway the discussion in my favour.

VolvoHordz

Paul_Roodenrys just put it on the Classic Vehicle Scheme instead of historic. A standard looking turbo setup is unlikely to generate any questions when trying to get a blue slip without am engineers certificate

dmc

Which state?

Paul_Roodenrys

dmc

NSW

242GT

I've got my 242GT Turbo on club plates as they were factory biult in 1979/80 for the American market and others , and can be imported here.
Also they raced them here in 1986 , so plus 30yrs for NSW Historic plates is definitely doable.
If you use all period correct volvo red turbo blocks , some red blocks were available in Europe before here and could be imported if you chose to.
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This is a great charted history of the 242GT including turbo models.
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There is also Historic plates that cover mild modifications provided its based on available versus no longer available parts , suggest tastefully done.

Major Ledfoot

242GT If you use all period correct volvo red turbo blocks

Ahhh…. there's a bit of a caveat with that.

All (factory, road-going) 240s had either B19 or B21 turbos with K-Jet - B19ET and B21ET for Europe; B21FT for the USA / Canada, initially with the compressor outlet passing straight over the valve cover. Later on came the intercooler, and Volvo made a big selling point about that in the US, but they were still K-Jet turbos, like all factory 240Ts.

I'm not including the Volvo Turbo Cup cars as 'factory, road-going' 240s here, with their blow-through Stromberg carby.

AFAIK, no turbocharged B23 or B230 engined 240s were available to ordinary customers from factory.

2.3 litre turbos didn't arrive in showrooms before the 760 Turbo in 1984 with its B23ET and Motronic system.

If you're going 'period correct redblock' for a 240, that means using a B21 and K-Jet, and those who are not inherently masochistic would wisely avoid that expense and drama. While the B21 bit is fine, the K-Jet components are hard to find (and expensive, when and if you can) and nowhere near as easy to set up and maintain as an LH 2.4 system. Seems to me like it's way cheaper and easier to swap in a B230 LH 2.4 and pay for the engineer to do the certification.

Forg

Unless registration rules (as possibly distinct from historic reg eligibility) have been relaxed, you can't just convert your Australian-delivered 242GT by fitting a B21FT, 'cos those weren't ADR 27A (intro'd 1976) tested. You'd need it engineered anyway.

If Volvo were still selling a turbo kit to suit K-Jet in 1979-1981 and it was road-legal at the time, you might get away with doing that, of course with all the maintenance & rare-parts-cost issues Major Ledfoot just mentioned? But then it sounds like maybe they didn't offer a kit for the B23E at all?

However I assume registration & legality is a different thing to whether something can be put onto historic plates?
For all I know historic plates may be allowed on something, on the basis of it having been standard overseas, even if you need an engineer's certificate to register it at all?
Even so, for those in the states with a "modified historic" rego is there much difference between the requirements for eligibility? I thought they were basically the same as each other, with someone in the club needing to be the person who approves & log-books etc?

Slowbrick

VolvoHordz
Can confirm. My 77 245L runs a B23ET with LH2.4 and I was able to blue slip it back in 2018 with next to no drama. Explained to the certifier that 240 turbos existed in other markets, he went over the car and printed off the slip with the updated engine number. Has been pink slipped every year since then without drama. It looks mostly stock so that helps.

Forg

Slowbrick Can confirm. My 77 245L runs a B23ET with LH2.4 and I was able to blue slip it back in 2018 with next to no drama. Explained to the certifier that 240 turbos existed in other markets, he went over the car and printed off the slip with the updated engine number. Has been pink slipped every year since then without drama. It looks mostly stock so that helps.

Wow, things HAVE relaxed!!

Late 90's to early noughties there was zero way anyone would've approved that. I guess partially 'cos there were still 240's running around that were only 8 years old; maybe it's not a relaxation thing so much as a flying-further-under-the-radar thing.
I'm probably less paranoid than I was then about whether the registration was legal or not & whether there was a risk of insurance not being paid out etc etc. 🙂

Slowbrick

Forg
They no doubt have. When I did a +T in my sedan I had to go through engineering for it to be insured. That was in about 2011.

242GT

I had mine engineered ( have RMS number to prove) & converted by one of the best volvo mechanics in Sydney Gerry MacCarthy in 2005.
When I got historic reregistered this year , I was amazed at how little anyone apart from the enthusiasts on forums like this know about early turbo Volvo's.
The main thing they wanted to see was all early volvo parts that were available in the day , so the early 760 Turbo mechanicals parts used wasn't a problem as such.

Forg

242GT When I got historic reregistered this year , I was amazed at how little anyone apart from the enthusiasts on forums like this know about early turbo Volvo's.

Heh heh heh ... when circa 1997-ish I was looking for a car to drive to the station, to replace the Liberty RS which was stolen, and wanted something with readily available parts & yet which would NEVER be stolen ... I'd totally & completely forgotten the 242GT had ever existed. I was only reminded 'cos my best mate was working for council and had been dealing with a lady who had a minty one in the garage she insisted on showing him every time he visited regarding the noise-complaints she was making about a neighbour's rooster.
And that's a car enthusiast. 🙂

Major Ledfoot

242GT When I got historic reregistered this year , I was amazed at how little anyone apart from the enthusiasts on forums like this know about early turbo Volvo's.

Not just early turbo Volvos. It appears there is much cluelessness among vehicle inspectors in general about such things as chassis numbers, body numbers, and engine numbers on late 20th century Volvos, before the standardised VIN system was introduced. My recently-registered 1800ES was an ordeal to get done, when the body number was entered as the chassis number, and 4 digits of the engine's 6-digit part number (!?!?) were entered as the engine serial number. Thanks to Lars at Volvo Heritage, I was able to show evidence that all the numbers incorrectly entered in the registration databases of two states for my car somehow all tallied up with the car at issue.

But it seems some states will accept any old numbers for historic rego. If they enter any numbers at all ….

The 242GT I picked up from SA some years ago had SA rego and papers, but no engine number, chassis number,or body number was on the registration papers! Only the make, model, and plate number. You can imagine how much fun it was to get it registered in NSW……

With regards to what mods various states and territories will allow: IIRC Spac and I had some back and forth ages ago about what was allowed in NSW, as he believed it was as restrictive as Victoria. But the regs had changed since he'd last looked, and we discovered NSW was easier going that VIC - at that time at least.

AFAIK now, the regs are pretty much a national standard, but it's been so long since I looked, I can't say for certain if that's the case.

Also, the engineer certification scheme has changed since that discussion, and appears to have gone to a national scheme. I found this out when I needed to register the 780 here in TAS (which has an engineering cert because LHD and ex-USA) and the TAS authority was happy with an engineer's report from a NSW engineer.

242GT

Thankfully they're are some inspection mechanics with common sense and understanding of what constitutes a good road worthy classic/historic motor vehicle.
.
But becarefull when you get that engineers report as the NSW RMS took mine , luckily in my 35yr old log book I had old rego papers in it and on the bottom of them was the engineers report number , so when transferring from standard road rego to historic ( the whole process starts from scratch in NSW) I was able to provide said engineers report number.
DONT give the rms the original , colour photo copy it and use that as they will keep it when processing your rego at payment & picking up plates time in the RMS office, which if you give them the original leaves you with nothing to pass onto a new owner should you sell the car.

dmc

If in Vic take the car to Berry's, historically they have RWCd a turbo 240 easily so long as it is a tidy car. They are aware of the original turbo cars so are happy to register/CPS them.

Regarding the original k jet turbos, I would approach it as mentioned above, make it look stock and just say it is Bosch fuel injection from a 740.

Paul_Roodenrys

It seems I'm far from Robinson Crusoe dealing with this issue. The car has a Haltec and a few other modern goodies but only because I found it easier that way than playing with the old loom and ECU. And I got carried away. I think the car will be ready sometime next year so it will be interesting to see how I go. Some very interesting comments too. 🙂

tery

folks, im involved with a group looking to introduce a new class of amateur historic touring car racing into Australia. The proposed cut-off date is Dec 1983. This of course will capture the Volvo 240 series. It will not however allow for the much improved 240 turbos that raced here and around the world in 1984-85-86 period.

is there a resident 'technical expert" on these cars that might like to get involved in preparing specifications (or better still , get involved in the racing if this comes about). This is a technical data list against which cars can be compared if needed. Of course it covers all the simple things like body dimensions, but also more detailed stuff like gearbox gear ratios, diff ratios, fuel injection components etc etc. Thankfully, the world governing body, the FIA, has a lot of this info freely available, but for older cars there are sometimes errors, so subject matter experts are needed to check it thoroughly. These ideally need to be real hands-on folk, not internet warriors simply repeating what they read elsewhere.

Apart from the above tech data, we need confirmation of production numbers of the individual MODEL, eg 242GT, 240 turbo etc. it seems Volvo only list combined tallies for each year, eg all the 240 range lumped together.

The Volvo turbo cars were very contentious in their race time, so it will be really important to get the tech data for the proposed early versions, just right, even though im aware they were not sold here in Oz when new. I do remember however new 242GT's being sold here as a friend was our local dealer at the time, so i expect the 242GT wont be so difficult to "specify".

At some point, copies of volvo sales brochures, tech bulletins etc might be required to clear up anything really contentious