• RWD

  • Vert B230FT into Volvo 240

Nice work! That mount bracket looks nice and strong.

So your engine rear face of block is in the standard B230 position fore/aft relative to the firewall? Looks like plenty of clearance to access the bellhousing bolts. I thought it was tough to get at those so assumed maybe your engine was farther forward, but I’m probably wrong there. Been a long time since I pulled a 240 transmission. Maybe I’m thinking 1800 bellhousing bolts clearance.
Thanks - in the above picture of the dump pipe I think it was sitting a little forward, but there is still plenty of room for bellhousing bolt access. Perhaps a combination of it sitting lower in the tunnel and having the head adjacent to the slightly recessed centre part of the firewall. The upper starter motor bolt is difficult to access though as the hump of the starter no longer sits in the corresponding dent in the tunnel due to the rotation. So that's an offset ring spanner job from now on.
OK so tell me what’s going on at the back of the cam cover where you’ve sliced it??
carnut222;c-153346 wroteOK so tell me what’s going on at the back of the cam cover where you’ve sliced it??
Guessing that he might be combining b23 and b230 valve covers
Correct - I cut the end off a vented B23 cover and welded a B230 rear on so it would clear the rear cam cap and fit the original seal. Still to be painted!

Samman88;c-153370 wroteCorrect - I cut the end off a vented B23 cover and welded a B230 rear on so it would clear the rear cam cap and fit the original seal. Still to be painted!
Interesting...mystery solved. Somebody else recently drilled a hole and put a fitting on their cam cover for a breather. Was wondering why not use a cap with a vent hole in it from a B20? Guess your way is cleaner and you have the skills to make it look awesome! :) The easy way is often not as fun.
9 days later
I did consider a Yoshifab or B20 cap, in hindsight would have been a lot easier. This does have the benefit of using the baffling system that is unique to the B23 valve cover though.

For those that like to live on the edge, a 1/4" router bit in a die grinder works well to cut out aluminium when you've got a template to run the end bearing around.



I'm trying to work on my bead consistency with the tig, so no weld porn here but definitely learning a lot with this intake manifold. Most of all that I need a watercooled torch! I can go for about 150mm before the torch is too hot to hold through welding gloves.



Figured if I'm going to the effort of building an intake, might as well let it eat!



I may yet do something about the fuel system before this is on the dyno. On the one hand people out there have made good power on the stock fuel system. But on the other hand, most of those were with other engines that didn't require 30psi of boost (or like 75psi of fuel pressure) to get there.
4 days later
For anyone setting up an EMS for their B230, the coolant temp sensor in the head (in my engine at least) has been characterised by Bosh Motorsport as shown below.




7 days later
Drool! What a sweet project you have going on. ? cheers to all things Volvo ?
11 days later
16 days later
5 months later
Apologies for the lack of updates! I went to China for a while and this sat in the driveway the whole time. Fun fact - OzVolvo is not blocked by the Great Firewall.
But I am back in the country now and opened the bonnet up last week to see what needed doing - basically just the wiring, the intake and the fuel system (that I decided to upgrade).

The intake was taking too long and I kept burning my hand, so I just put the stock manifold on until I jerry rig up a watercooling system for the torch (spare radiator, and a washer pump comes to mind).

As for the fuel system, I remade the Volvo hanger with a DW300 pump, 6an bulkheads and tefzel 14g wiring/viton heatshrink. Bought 6m of Gates barricade 3/8 fuel line and ran that under the car to the fuel rail that had a 6an fitting brazed to the end. The stock rail feed was cut off and replaced with a 1/8npt pressure sensor port.

I am now just finishing the engine loom and preparing for the first start and engine break in - quite a stressful prospect. Looking forward to getting it on the dyno in a few weeks though! I feel like much over 250kw will make the aw71 shit the bed pretty quickly so will probably try to keep it below that - might be enough for a 12 second quarter though.

Haha not blocked by the great firewall, what a claim to fame

PM me for the B230->850 TPS .STL, free to good home if you don't want to make money off it of course.

5 days later

Fitting the standard intake manifold with the engine in the vertical position leaves very little clearance between the throttle body and the strut tower. You can see making the cold side intercooler pipe was an involved process.

Here is a closer pic of the fuel rail mod with the pressure sensor and 6AN fitting on the rear.

The Provent 200 catch can has been plumbed completely now. AQP hoses from the valve cover and block are tee'd together to the intake of the can. The can is vented to the intake and drains to the block.

Hot side is all wrapped and heat sheilded;

All the interior wiring is done (tach, wideband, shift light, launch control momentary switch and map sensor) and now making progress on the engine bay (CAS, IAT, CLT, Fuel Press, Oil Press, IGN, INJ is all that needs wiring in there).

This is to be the street car so no DR-25, boots and autosport bulkhead connectors, just cheap raychem heat shrink and tesa cloth tape.

You might be wondering why I'm using an input for launch control with an auto gearbox on a street car, and that's a fair question. I'm not sure if this is even a thing that's done and I can't find any examples of other people doing it (probably for good reason), but because I have a pretty mismatched (big) turbo and (stock) stall converter I think I'll overcome the stall before I build boost on the brake? So my thoughts were to calibrate launch control such that when the momentary switch is depressed (presumably whilst on the brake and accelerator) it would pull 10 degrees of timing at say 2200rpm to keep the revs just below the stall converter speed, but allow the turbo to make more boost at those revs and the engine to make a lot less torque because of the retarded timing, being kinder to the gearbox and making a lot of pops and bangs no doubt. I don't really know if it will work tbh but worth a try. I also took a gamble on the tach and just wired the tach-out pin in the microsquirt to the tach input on the back of the dash. Some people say it works on early tachs, some say all tachs, some say no tachs. Time will tell.

I've been putting in a few hours on the harness after work/uni to make it a little less amature hour in the engine bay than last time around. Populating USCAR connectors here for the ID1000's. Heat shrink labels and random Audi accordion boots for the wank factor of course! iS iT MilSpEc bRo?!?

Weirdly boots are off a newish Audi and have W. Germany printed on them. Kind of regretting not raiding the 2j cars parts box for the DR-25 and bulkheads now I'm half way though!

Also got a SAAB IACV from the wreckers ($24, or $320 new, difficult choice) with 2 wires rather than all my Volvo ones that seemed to have 3 wires. Still need to fit the check valve inline to stop the boost leak that occurs when not plumbed to the intake pipe.

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