• Hello Guest, welcome to the initial stages of our new platform!
    You can find some additional information about where we are in the process of migrating the board and setting up our new software here

    Thank you for being a part of our community!

What to do?

A basic +t is still your best bet, best hp/$ deal you're going to get.

N/A hp is harder to come by, Volvo didn't really gimp these engines in easily fixed ways that other cars sometimes are.

+T involves all junkyard parts, nothing shiny or new, Volvo already did the work of figuring out how to put a turbo on the engine, just go get those parts.

+T with a little boost will take you from 115-ish hp to 170 - 200 maybe 225.
It's Regina not LH 2.2 and I've seen mixed things on +t Regina
 
I am the youngest son in my family with 2 very mechanically inclined older brothers and a whole garage of tools, I think I'll just keep my slow 74O and save up and then keep an eye out for a Bosch hopefully turbo wagon. Buy it and fix it up then sell the current 740

I mean that's a bonus... but finding a proper starting platform will still pay dividends.

You can probably sell your car for whatever other Volvo you try to buy. No need to even get the turbo... it's just as easy (might even be easier) to turbo an NA car as they're easier to find, and the turbo parts are easy to find. Whereas finding a turbo volvo is somewhat challenging.
 
Yeah, I have no clue about that Regina stuff. How hard is it to take all that off and put a junkyard Bosch 2.4 Turbo setup on?

If you're going to all that trouble, maybe MS isn't a bad idea. There's just a learning curve with MS.
 
93+ and you're slightly more golden? By some slightly incremental amount - round tooth timing belt and piston squirters.
 
I mean that's a bonus... but finding a proper starting platform will still pay dividends.

You can probably sell your car for whatever other Volvo you try to buy. No need to even get the turbo... it's just as easy (might even be easier) to turbo an NA car as they're easier to find, and the turbo parts are easy to find. Whereas finding a turbo volvo is somewhat challenging.

Wagons in general but especially Volvo's are not very popular where I'm at, what I have now sat on Craigslist for $1200 for 3 weeks before I scooped it up. It's at 193k no rips leather interior, and working heat and AC. So they seem to sit on Craigslist for a while. Plus I've put over $1300 in it since I've bought it. My dad is pretty open to me selling it, he thinks I should just keep it because he likes it. But my mom thinks I'm crazy that I want to buy something else.
 
700dollarmatt did a regina turbo in an afternoon, iirc. Used the Regina stuff, it apparently worked well.
 
But I did just email some guy about an 850 turbo and if he'd trade for my 740

Don't offer the trade until ur there in person. Most people won't respond to trades on CL because they want cash... but if no one is looking, and you're there you'll get more success.

Also... yes. Volvo's are hard to find in places. They're neat cars, but there may be other/better/more viable options.
 
700dollarmatt did a regina turbo in an afternoon, iirc. Used the Regina stuff, it apparently worked well.

i did it on my last regina car and it works well too. I used a begi rising rate fuel pressure regulator on the stock regina ignition. i put more than 40K on the car in that shape.
 
The answer is an LS swap. Struggle all you want to make 230 to 250 horses out of a Volvo 4cyl. Or put in a bone stock truck engine and start off with 300 before you tinker with it.

It will cost more and be more work. Put on your bigboy pants and LS swap it.
 
I would say +t and aim for the 2-250BHP mark to keep it simple.

You can collect up teh parts you need over time and would be a simple conversion as where an engine swap will have a number of snags along the way
 
How old are you? Because you sound like you're in high school living at home. So you probably don't have much money to do any of these.
 
How old are you? Because you sound like you're in high school living at home. So you probably don't have much money to do any of these.

16, but I'm homeschooled which means I have more time to work and make money than the average high schooler.
 
So a +t depending on if I can find anything in junk yards could happen in about a month, but a full swap would have to wait till probably December.
 
High school + first car + performance mods never ends well, at least not that I've seen. As someone else said, we pretty much all started out that way and most of us had the same experience screwing with cars, doing stupid mods and making them worse. Performance costs money, especially if it's not a turbo to begin with. At least with a turbo you can turn up the wick a little and as long as you stay sensible you can get a reasonable performance increase on the cheap without breaking things. Don't underestimate the cost and effort of doing an engine swap or even a +T, the costs add up very quickly and once you tear the car apart and it can't move under its own power it's *very* easy to lose motivation. I've seen that more times than I can count, people I've known tear apart a perfectly good car with some minor issue and then get sucked into some ambitious upgrade project, lose interest and the car rots in the driveway for a few years until they finally sell it for scrap.

Save up and keep looking for a turbo car like you want is a good idea. Then take care of it because while they're still somewhat common and can be found occasionally for a reasonable price, they are going away fast. I probably see 1% as many 200/700/900 series Volvos as I saw 10 years ago. They used to be everywhere, I'd see multiple on the road every day. Now I go weeks at a time without seeing a single one besides my own.
 
Back
Top