Gidday Aus Volvo lovers, and excuse the necrophilia on this old discussoin :-)
I stumbled across this thread in search of data on the performance of the old-school B230F oil pump setup at high RPM - no such info in this thread, but after reading about 65% of it, I felt inclined to comment on a few things! :-D
Given this is my first post I should supply some credentials to back my comments:
First Volvo in 2009, drove it 21000km around the USA for 3 months, left it with a friend who sold it for half the 2k US I paid for it to the parents of his friend, who drove it around for their business for a year or two before scrapping it. Good car, great adventure, the Volvo bug partially bit. In late 2013 I was in Vancouver and had the pleasure and privilege of driving around a friend's early quad round 240 with custom fuel injection using my firmware and the ECU I started designing in December 2007 and that has since run 44 different engines in a dozen countries (but not Aus! yet). That manual snot-green 240 wagon stole my heart, head over heels. In early 2015 I had been watching NZ's "trademe" for a 240 wagon and found one in champagne gold and bid on it sight unseen paying a bit under 4k NZD for it with 290k km on it and some minor issues. I still have it, 310k on it now, and I currently own 8.75 RWD Volvos, 7 redblock, 1 whiteblock, and 1 940 caravan with double mattress that gave up its B234F for my first 240 sedan :-D That B234F in the 240 sedan is running on my ECU with 4 toyota COPs and is bone stock aside from mounts and chassis. Even bolted to the AW72L that it always was in the 940 caravan it came out of. In 2006/2007 I built my first custom turbo setup, surge tank, dual pumps, 3" plumbing hot and cold, R32 GTR intercooler, 2.0 4 cyl 16v non-vvt 80s/90s Mazda 4 cylinder in my 89 Ford Courier, making about 400hp at the crank, maybe 350rwhp or thereabouts. I did everything except balance the flywheel and tighten the LSD. I machined the flywheel and fuel rail and so forth, though :-) So, with that out of the way, my Volvo creds sorted, my ECU creds sorted, and my turbo/engine/build/mod creds sorted, my comments:
I intend to build a "hot" NA 2.3 16v engine for my little 360 because it's light enough to make such an engine truly fun. Anyone that's driven a BEAMS 3SGE Altezza knows what I mean, spectacular 210ps 2.0 spinning 8k all day, but in a heavy chassis it's just not that fun, feels slow, isn't all that fast, etc. In the 360 with a 200kg weight advantage over a 240 or 740 and 50/50 weight split across the axles, a hot 2.3 would be excellent fun. My plans differ significantly from the information presented here as the only way to go, though.
I see repeatedly "late squirter block" as the call for a high revving NA redblock - couldn't disagree more. Yes, these are less likely to be worn out, but any non-worn out B230 will do, and in particular the small-main-journal pencil-rod variant is a better choice, with or without the skinny stock rods, because it's far lower friction. The only caveat to this is that the thrust bearing design in them IS inferior and on a manual trans with the wrong driver that could present an issue down the line (if they sit with their foot on the clutch at the lights instead of in neutral). If using the stock skinny rods on the SAME rod journal size/bearings the lower mass of these rods is a benefit in every way - you won't bend them NA and they will happily spin higher than the 13mm rods will with the same big end cap bolts. Or go for something aftermarket and light weight like pauter titanium if you want to pour some cash in to TRY to get close to the figures posted early in this thread. I'll probably do that, because I can, but if I was on a tight budget I'd have no hesitation in building a hot NA 16v 230F based engine using the factory skinny rods.
Secondly talk of decking blocks and cylinder seal etc are a mixed bag - yeah, it's better to skim the block to give a dead flat low RA finish to mate a gasket to, especially if MLS, or even if ordinary composite from Elring, but not mandatory. The block was decked at the factory 30 or so years ago and hasn't changed. NA engines don't make massive cylinder pressures, simple as that, fact. This is not overly expensive to do, either.
Thirdly I see talk of 8k being sky high and scary and likely to wear out quickly and so forth - well, the more you rev, the more that's true, but practically speaking you won't be up there long and it's short stroke, so the average piston speed is pretty reasonable at a measily 8k. After all, my 89 ford courier can rev to 8k, why can't a Volvo? Spoiler: Maybe the oil pump! :-D But I'm not sure about that, just speculating, hence searching and hence finding this thread in the first place. 7000 RPM is fine all day on 86mm stroke, on an 80mm stock Volvo stroke, you guessed it, 8000 is just fine. For example the blacktop 4age revs 8k bone stock with 77mm stroke and can go higher reliably until the oil pump fails. To make power up past 6k though, you WILL need a regrind on the cams, no doubt. If you go too far with that, the bottom end will suck. If you don't, it'll be a great balanced street engine. For example, in that ute of mine torque is falling from 6500 up on bone stock cams, but power is pretty flat from 6500 up to 8k as torque falls - simple math to see that. Still worth revving it hard for *highest average power*, shift to shift. Will the oil pump supply good quality flow at 8k? No idea. But I intend to either find out the hard way or find out before hand somehow. Modern engines (80s up) use trochoid oil pumps that, when well designed (2jz, whiteblock, NOT RB) are happy to very high RPM just fine.
Finally, the call for ITBs, how many factory Honda B16A/B18C/F20 engines have ITBs? How about BEAMs 3SGEs? That's right, zero. I love ITBs, but: they're about noise and response, not outright power. A good size plenum, well designed runners, and a decent size throttle will get you the power you want, no worries. ITBs, unless barrel style, or sliding plate style, make less power because the throttle plates are in the way causing turbulence and non-linear flow. Again, I love them, but you don't need them for power, just for looks, style, noise, and response if you're the sensitive type.
So to do this on a budget what do you need?
The usual (gaskets, seals, etc) and 16v top end setup + yoshifab bits to make it workHead skimmed for flatness and a minor compression bump16v pistons, new ringsSkinny rod/small main block in good condition - honed onlyStiffer valve springs - yoshifab sells some - not sure about the options presented here, but I'll look into them, tooMaybe solid lifters? But I've had that ute of mine with HLAs that people in the internet say pump up revving high with 18psi and no issues, so I'd try with stock lifters and if they float then sort it out, but I doubt it at a mild 8kReground cams for more duration and a smidge more liftECU - no need to spend 3k, you can do it for far less in various ways - for me it's under 500 bucks
Probably looking at 2500-3000 all up including the donor engines and ECU setup, self tuned.
Baller version? Skim block too, fancy coated short skirt pistons, pauter titanium rods, shim-under-bucket lifters, and some sort of custom manifold with shorter runners and bell mouths, non-ITB is fine. Then you're up around 6k doing it all yourself and 10k if you pay someone to do it, but you do not have to go that route. I will not, I may get pistons/rods, or I may rock stock ones, but the work will all be done by me. I'd rather spend the extra money on tools and great aussie red wines :-D
Cheers, Fred! :-)
