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Chris Wiita's 1995 960R

the poi

Has been
Joined
Jan 5, 2003
Location
Pasadena, CA
1995 Volvo 960R​

Last update: 12/30/2013

Project: 1995 960 Wagon
Goal: Legit daily driver
More specific goals: Good motor, good suspension, good brakes, good interior, kinda ridiculous bodywork (sorry!)

At the moment:
96 B6304, 2OS, tight squish, decked to 11.5 CR
Ported/polished head

3" exhaust post cat, 1 Dynomax Turbo muffler and 1 Ultraflo

AW30-40LE with locked out accumulators
Homemade Paddle Shifters w/ BASIC Stamp microcontroller
B&M cooled

Seam-welded engine bay
Koni adjustable front coilovers, 450lb Eibach barrel springs, Kaplhenke upper mounts
Fabricated 50mm drop spindles, increased steering ratio
ipd HD endlinks
QA1 rear coilovers with machined spacers to clear framerail, 450lb springs with helpers

BBS LMs: F- 255 AD08s on 19x8.5 R- 295 AD08s on 19x10
14"/355mm STS-V/CTS-V 4-piston brakes on all 4 corners
Wilwood proportioning valve for the rears

Battery in the boot

850R bumper, 740se side skirts, flared fenders
Side markers, clear corners
Valeo HID projectors, giant muffin cup bezels
LED lighting

Charcoal grey Ozite carpet, black unisuede door inserts
LED interior lighting
Autometer Cobalt oil pressure, Orange TPMS
Sparco R505 driver's seat, Momo GTR2 wheel with spacer
Schroth Rallye4 belt

Pioneer Pioneer FH-P8000BT head unit, HD radio tuner
Infinity Kappa 6.5" Components in rear doors and dash
Infinity Kappa 6.5" Two ways in rear doors
Elemental Designs Nine.4 amp


Why?
I posted this, like, 4 years ago. My first thread on this board I think: Heh, a V8! At this point, I had a 97 850glt. Over the next couple years, my brother flung that into a pole, I got an 87 760t, flung that into a tree, bought a 760t wagon, riced it the hell out, and then blew up the trans. So a bought a 95 960, cause hey, that makes sense right?

Motor:

The condensed version: I was driving the car around for awhile with the stock motor. I built the parts needed to turbocharge it. It blew the HG on the shakedown run because of a preexisting cracked cylinder liner. So I bought a T6 motor. I built that up, did some minor surgery on the car, and put the turbo parts on the T6 block, and put that in the car. All was right with the world. I never drove the car as much as it deserved though, because it was totally not steet-legal, and a cop could pretty easily ruin my day. I never knew the probability of this scenario, but it was enough that I just couldn't drive the car without worrying. So I bought a 1964 122S. The big turbo motor goes in the old timey car, unrestrained by smog laws, and the wagon gets something else. I'll be putting a E-Rod LS3 in it. Overdone, but it'll be neatly engineered and dependable/fast.

The long version:

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->
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->
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References: manifold design,manifold construction, more manifold, big pimpin', the bumpercooler makes an appearance, finishing up...the first time, THE T6 MOTOR THREAD

Flappy paddle gearbox!

This thing is fun, but its time is ending. Originally I did this because I would need to when I Megasquirted the car, but it's going away when the V8 and the T56 goes in. For the record: I made a really simple Basic STAMP-based controller to control the solenoids on the transmission, controlled by two paddles mounted to the steering column. The transmission has an external cooler, and the accumulators are shimmed out to make shifting as fast as possible. It looks pretty janky now, in hindsight.

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References: paddle shifter main thread, also trans cooler, accumulator shimming

Oh dear! Jelly suspension!

Up front, 850 Koni's modified for coilovers from Coleman. 60mm drop spindles with faster steering ratio. Delrin and spherical bearings in the control arms. Kaplhenke upper strut mounts. Engine bay is seam welded. Upper engine mount does some strut bar duties. Had to make a swaybar endlink adapter up front so I could use a long endlink to connect to the 850 struts. Rear has some QA1 coilovers, combined with the "Nivomat" rear transverse spring. 450lb springs all around (wheel rate: front 450, rear 400).

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Brakes are off a STS-V. Brembo 4 pots, 14" rotors. Wilwood prop valve for the rears.

I'm trying to keep it look relatively sedate. It is a Volvo station wagon and all. 850R front bumper, 740SE side skirts, clear corners, and 35% tint all around. Also I have one of those sweet rear wiper covers. This all went out the window when I decided I need to out giant 19" BBS LMs on the car. I made some flared fenders. It looks pretty ridiculous now, mostly because the front tires need a lot of space to function properly because McPherson struts are really stupid. I'll probably put wider wheels on the front at some point because stance.


HID headlights. They're Audi S4 assemblies. I mounted them all nice and tidy and painstakingly polished the flutes out of my headlight lenses. They're awesome.

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On the inside: charcoal Ozite carpet, black Unisuede door inserts, Sparco R505 driver seat, Momo GTR2 wheel, Schroth Rallye4 belts. All the cabin lighting is now ultra bright white LEDs, and gauges and the like are blue LEDs. I did these a long time ago, before SMD LEDs became commonplace. I'll be replacing everything again in the future. Also on the list, but near the bottom--another R505 and matching material to recover all the seats.

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Old stereo stuff. Speakers in the doors are fine, but need some digital amps and a subwoofer.

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References: HIDeez, unisuede door inserts , widebody

There's like 8 years of pictures here if you're interested!


UPDATE: 12/30/2013

Got the thing buttoned up, back on the road, in 2013 (barely!). Gotta tie up a few loose ends, and I'll start driving it again, until I get around to the V8...




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Sweet Chris! The ammount of quality work you have gotten done on that car in this short ammount of time is really amazing. It definitly looks great, and it's perfcet having this thread to easily follow your progress.
 
That's only 6 months of work. Tell us when you are done how much this was worth the effort. Because I'm pretty sure it will be. And the moderators should buy my turbobrick plate for your car. It was only $27!
 
linuxman51 said:
so, when we gonna see 12's :-D
2-3 years from now :-D i may be able to make the power, but the rear end and the general fat-assness of the 960 may result in a metallic mess on the track. but then... maybe not...
 
the poi said:
2-3 years from now :-D i may be able to make the power, but the rear end and the general fat-assness of the 960 may result in a metallic mess on the track. but then... maybe not...

never know til ya try ;)
 
hmm, do I see solidworks usage on the pbase page?

Just got to "pipeface.jpg". The "Extrude 1" give it away. SW is sweet.
 
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If you are going to a manual tranny. Start sourcing a e36 m3 gear box (5speed is about 500-750 bucks) (6speed is 2000-2500), m3 rear diff (custom mounting) and custom rear axles. This is if you want over 400whp I found out through research. This not because the rear diff housing is weak but getting good Locker/LSD is impossible.
 
If you are going to a manual tranny. Start sourcing a e36 m3 gear box (5speed is about 500-750 bucks) (6speed is 2000-2500), m3 rear diff (custom mounting) and custom rear axles. This is if you want over 400whp I found out through research. This not because the rear diff housing is weak but getting good Locker/LSD is impossible.

or you mean because thats what s90R did for a rear end solution? mk2 irs might be up to it
 
have you wired in a aftermarket head unit by chance? I was lookin for a schematic break down, aka i want to wire out the preamp without having to figure it out myself...
 
If you are going to a manual tranny. Start sourcing a e36 m3 gear box (5speed is about 500-750 bucks) (6speed is 2000-2500), m3 rear diff (custom mounting) and custom rear axles. This is if you want over 400whp I found out through research. This not because the rear diff housing is weak but getting good Locker/LSD is impossible.

Those trannys do not have a removable bell housing...at least the one I dropped into my room mates e30 didn't.

<a href="http://img253.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc00428mj8.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/815/dsc00428mj8.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" /></a>
 
just get a whiteblock-M50 adapter plate made, you'll want to use the BMW diff with the BMW tranny but as an added bonus you get reduced NVH because the BMW (and most mercedes as well) setups have the driveshaft spinning at about half the speed that it does in a volvo with a 3.9 or a 4.10 rear end.
 
but as an added bonus you get reduced NVH because the BMW (and most mercedes as well) setups have the driveshaft spinning at about half the speed that it does in a volvo with a 3.9 or a 4.10 rear end.

So just how the hell does this work? At a given ground speed with the same gear ratio and tire size, the driveshaft will spin at the same speed regardless of whether or not the krauts made the car.
 
oky, updated first post so it no longer sucks. and used other people's photos for the most part because I suck at cameras
 
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