tobbie04
Gday all,
Thought i'd put a post up of the volvo we've just built over the last few weekends in the shed!
The car started off when I bought it super cheap with rego from some herb farm out in the sticks with a "blown auto trans" with plans to straight away do an engine conversion. I was thinking 2JZ at the time as I have one in my R32 and it is brilliant but when my mate offered me this 1UZ super cheap I couldn't say no and after watching vids of LOLVO thought it was a great idea..
The blown auto turned out to be a split tranny cooler pipe so we dodged it up, cut the springs and drove it around for 6 months as a bit of a pub bus with the seven seater haha. After wards it got a hydro handbrake and a heap of rear tyre pressure for some sliding around my mates land and it was great fun, these things have got heaps of lock stock!
Anyway a few weekends ago we pulled the ol' faithful B230F out and installed a 1UZFE and 4 speed auto from a Lexus LS400 Celsior.
Wish I'd have taken more photos of our build to post up now!
Build details as I have pretty much no photos:
We used the stock front sump from the celsior and decided to sit the engine a little further forward to save drastic modifications, as a result of this the engine mounts were not going to work off the cross member and would probably be a little flimsy anyway. We left the cross member alone and my mate Ben that doubles as a damn good fabricator welded some big duty box mounts straight to the chassis rails, despite this probably being enough we then strengthened them by welding plates into the strut towers and running some solid bar from the mounts to strut towers. Rubbers were V8 landrover mounts as they are super simple and we have used them before in conversions with good success.
This got the motor sitting in place and we installed some block hugger manifolds that fit OK although the exit pipe on the drivers side was hard up against the rubber part of the steering column, we removed the column and cut the bulky section out and replaced it with straight tube of the same size.
Ben then modified the stock auto gearbox cross member by cutting out the middle pointed section and welding back in some flat bar steel that came forward about 150mm, we then drilled out the flat bar to accept the 4 studs from the factory lexus auto rubber mount.
Once the box was mounted we cut the volvo tailshaft just forward of the centre bearing and welded the lexus front half on accordingly and bolted on to the box and back to the diff.
Biggest issue with using the lexus auto was the shifter linkage was on the drivers side rather than the volvos passenger side links - we removed the stock shifter and modified it to point out the drivers side (a lot harder than it sounds) cut up the lexus linkage from shifter to box and welded it to the right length/angle. A custom array of bolt and nuts was used to fix it all together and allow pivoting. It works well for now but for whatever reason it wont click into low gear which we will suss out later.
The wiring was surprisingly easy, the Toyota/Lexus loom only requires power to a few points to power the loom and sensors. Once it cranked and fired I wired the alternator up and connected to the volvo charge light, then connected the oil sensor to the volvo light and the water temp gauge as well - it works OK just reads high at operating temp - eventually ill go aftermarket or weld the factory volvo in a pipe between the top rad hose or something!
The exhaust was 2 and a quarter from the manifolds back running right back through the gear box cross member (it has cutout U sections like it was meant to be) then 2 into 1 connecting back to the last two volvo mufflers at the diff. We spent a while getting it tucked right up as the wagon sits on mudflaps because ben cut out too many coils... but with a small pipe diameter and the factory mufflers at the back its super quiet and will be good for surprising falcodores :p
We then moved the factory radiator back about 75mm by bolting in some alloy U brackets with some rubber insulation to the lower support and cutting out a part of the top rad support tray thing, as this sat the radiator higher we had to modify the factory volvo top supports as well. To finish off cooling we got some new rad hoses and stretched them onto the 1UZ (the outlets are slightly bigger) and installed a 15" thermo on the engine side of the rad. Heater hoses hooked up very easily as well (1uz is straight off the back of the heads) We used the volvo header tank with some fresh hoses.
We had our hydraulics guy come by and wack together a line from PS pump on the 1UZ to feed fitting on the volvo rack - as the 1U pump sits just above the rack it was only short, the factory return or low pressure line squeezed straight onto the 1U reservoir!
Intake pipe is a simple 90 to 3" pipe with IACV fitting then AFM and pod sitting down behind the DS headlight.
I'm sure there is more that i will add later and feel free to ask any questions!
We welded the diff for some strength and better skids and road tested it a few days ago - we've done a good 5 or 600 ks and it drives factory - very happy with it! nice and fast!
Will put pics up ASAP.
Philia_Bear
PICS!
tobbie04
Pic when we towed it home
First Drive (stock)
Chop springs
Looks like this now..
tobbie04
Conversion pics (not sure if the pics are working yet)
B230F in
out
1UZ sitting loosely sump on cross member
Mount fab
Fuel pump install (also ran new feed line up to the motor)
Getting there
First Drive
All done
Rob
fixing pics for you.... gimme a minute......done.
And moved to RWD section
tobbie04
Think pics are sorted, cheers as well Rob. Reallllly new to this site haha. will also update when I can - can take some crappy pics of certain things at request if people are interested too haha.
Rob
no probs. cool project btw.
Vee_Que
Wow. So much writing! Is it going to be engineerable with the mounts on the body not the crossmember (that's how I read it? Oh the radiator was moved forwards in the engine bay!
Thought about putting some dvs/king springs in it so it will get traction? Or is it just a skid/burnout car And has to be low?
I'd love to put a 1uz into my 760, manual, megasquirt, mounted on the crossmember. Wouldn't be a skid car with a welded diff.
What sump would it need to sit right in the car? I always forget to ask the guy with the 1uz powered 242, he only made 130rwkw with a manual Originally on a stock tune. what would this make?
What did you change the pump on it to? Stock one is good for over 200wkws on turbo volvo motors, let alone turbo volvo pumps, or are there plans to put a turbo on?
SirNemesis
Damn that's a tight fit, I thought the LS was hard work. Epic achievement, good work!
Tree
Hell yeah for more FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER BUILDS!!!
tobbie04
Doubt its engineerable spec, wasn't on the cards with the build - if it gets really defected I'll consider reshelling it into my other wagon to spec and getting a blue plate.
Definitely something I want to look into and a big reason for me getting on here is to get an idea on what everyone is doing with suspension (the choppies suck in the back and bring so many bumps and rattles to the car haha), diff mounts and sway bars etc, I also want to find out what the cheap easy mods are - what bolts on from other cars and things like that (seats, wheels, suspension spoilers etc) - I've seen a few with those GLE gauges and stuff like that which would be pretty sweet! We will modify the LCAs and steering components for crazy lock and some negative camber but we'd also like to suss out modifying the diff mounts to correct pinion angle and possibly make an adjustable pan hard rod etc. Keen to hear peoples opinions and experiences there too? We want to raise it back up a fair bit but would like to keep it stiff as well, we want to keep it original spec for more surprise when it goes flying past all the chev badged commis, it will also help with the police attention!
I used the front bowl sump the celsiors come with - the soarers come with a rear bowl sump which may suit the 7series better but no experience there sorry, a lot of guys mount it closer to the firewall than we have but have to modify the sump wether front or rear bowl. Rear bowl allows a little less modification required due to the 240 rack and sway bar being at the front of the cross member.
Power wise I don't know - Ben will probably run it on the Tafe dyno we have down here but I've seen a lot of stock ones with intake and exhaust make ~170kw. Either way it has plenty enough torque and is as fast as my mates VR SS commodore easy! Manual is very tricky with the 1uz as they never came factory - meaning flywheel, bellhousing clutch etc is all custom stuff, we were happy with the auto for now and may manualise the auto at some point!
The fuel pump was swapped simply because the stock volvo one ran some weird hard plastic line from the pump to a fixed fitting at the motor, I had a Bosch 070 sitting about so decided to plumb that in making it heaps easier just to run fresh fuel line the whole way to the motor, we also put in a fresh bosch filter at the same time. Eventually we will run some sort of forced induction - the only issue being clearance in the bay, supercharger would be easiest or we may run twin turbos (something small like TD05s) This is an early 1UZ which had the bigger rods etc so take a good bit of power with some steel headgaskets and more fuel!
Thanks SirNemesis and Tree its heaps of fun and makes the all nighters worth it :p
Ghettobird
Mad build!
Not to Hijack, but Ive got a 1UZFE to W58 Adapter plate for sale, Hydraulic throwout bearing, lines and bleeder setup available if interested? I bought them for my T5 build but decided to go a different route - Would be perfect if you were pining for a 3rd pedal :)
tobbie04
Thanks Julian but I'm going to stick with the auto for now! PM me a price though as a few of my mates play around with these a bit and may be interested!
tobbie04
Couple of vids:
First fire with nothing hooked up:
Running before we finished the mufflers and a few other bits:
shanepike
i always wanted to put a 1uzfe in a 240 wagon good to see someone do it hows it go with the v8 I'm keen to do something like this one day
Vee_Que
On suspension, you can buy everything you need from
http://www.kaplhenke.com/ but it's not cheap, it is high qaulity however. DVS.net.au also supply parts as needed to make a 240 handle very well locally. But for the most part people stick DVS Spec king springs on the front, with king spring lows rears and bilstiens and it handles well, DVS can do coilover spec stuff too if needed.
tobbie04
Thanks Vee_Que! What sort of things are people doing with sway bars? Does a larger rear sway bar give them an oversteery feel and is it crap or still handles OK?
Pikey - it goes pretty well mate - they deliver a fair bit of torque these motors, and they love revving!
Philia_Bear
Falcon 27mm el front bar
Stock 19mm rear bar
Ghettobird
Im running a 27mm falcon bar up front and a 23mm GT bar on the rear, Apart from being as high as an xc90 and running stock shocks she handles so much better than before
The ford bar will run you a tops of $25 and a bit of cutting on the ford bushing... 100% worth it
tobbie04
Sweet, thanks!! I'll need to modify the front one slightly to clear the sump but will keep an eye out for a falcon bar, anything cheap and easy to get a hold of for the rear? Any major improvements noticed in going to aftermarket shocks at all? The stock items seem pretty well built.