740ATL's 242 Project/Adventure

I completely revamped my project thread because I suck at the internet.

The pictures should show up now... hopefully.

I first laid eyes on this car at MikeVolvo's place (that's what I call MikeJr.... his dad (also Mike), I call Mikevolvo's dad.) humor. He had just gotten it back from his deadbeat brother in law. I fell in love. People have asked me over the years what my dream car would be and this was it. 2 door 242 with a turbo 5-speed. Granted, the previous owner (the brotherinlaw) completely ****ed up the body by trying to weld in the trim holes, thus warping every single jack ****ing panel in the process. I didn't even notice the panels. All I noticed was how beggingly willingly the b21ft wanted to rev to 7000rpm every time MikeJr. dropped the hammer.

When he offered to sell me the car, I went against all logic, all reason, and gladly plunked down the $$.

The project started as kind of a fixer upper... it needed a new steering rack... then I decided I wanted power steering again, then I decided, hey, I should megasquirt this, then the b21ft started knocking, and all this before I'd even put 100 miles on the car.

Being the cheap, resourceful, SOB that I am, I figured I'd tear out the tired b21ft and drop in a b230F+T I had lying around along with the getrag transmission. It'd be fun right?.

Well... I had the "new" shortblock back in the car, and my eyes glanced over at the newly procured a 16v head which was collecting dust on a shelf, and I said, "what if..." I plopped it on and it looked natural.

A few minutes later, I loosely installed the stock 16v intake manifold and saw a problem.... another what if was about to happen... I had access to a tig welder at work and I asked myself how hard it would be to weld on my own plenum onto the stock manifold to help clear the master cylinder. About a month later, the manifold was welded up and the engine back running in the car, 16valved (no turbo yet), getrag equipped, and megasquirted using the simple wasted spark setup using a DSM coilpack.... keep in mind, I still hadn't driven the car for more than 100 miles yet.

It was an awesome 2 months. I loved revving the **** out of this car. The 16v head had a 4500rpm torque peak and once you passed it, it felt like a turbo car. I was contemplating adding nitrous to it and leaving it as is, a 16v NA car. I can't really tell you how much fun it was to drive.

A couple months later, the what if bug hit again... this happened in the appearance of a thread by stealthfti where he found an old j-pipe adapter from the stock NA exhaust manifold up to a turbo... what if... yeah. I had a couple 2" (nominal) weld ells lying around and within an hour or two had the basic adapter pipe welded up.. Granted, this also meant I had to "also" purchase all new exhaust ****, oil lines, and oh yea, an external wastegate.... I didn't exactly plan this all very well. I figured I'd just use my stock 60-63 turbo and have fun right?

This turned into another 2-3 month thing, getting everthing ready.

Eventually, by February 2006, it was done and ran like a scalded dog. I had just switched over to the coil on plug ignition system, and had installed the freakishly large powerstroke intercooler. MikeJr. and I decided it was a time for a trip to 'Bama thanks to Kenny and Sam's invitation. Dynoing the car was a trip seeing as I absolutely sucked at tuning and my base map was so far off it pinged like a mofo. Kenny took over the tuning and we were off. We stopped at 14psi at the 271 wheelhp. Clutch slipping, coil fuse blowing fun. keep in mind, this was with my weird ass 60ar stock cold side with the massive stage 3 turbine wheel in the .82ar exhaust housing. What a blast to drive though. Torque peak still at 4500rpm, but with boost, it was a hoot.



The car.


Intake manifold


Subaru Impreza 1.8L timing belt tensioner.


Volvo 850 Timing belt. Gates 20252


Volvo 960 throttle body with pot-tps.


Throttle body linkage. SHortened volvo stock cable.


More linkage.


gluing the head together for good.


closeup of the glue.


Battery Relocation... summit kits suck.


1st incarnation intake.


Stock b234 intake problems.


The real b234 intake problem


mocking up an intake... just cardboard


partially fabbed


underside.


deciding on TB location


early shot of the powerstroke with the quad rectangle headlights


Before of the car


after a bit of junkyard glory.




9/11/06 updates
More of ze pictures.

The car is back on the ground, so that's a good thing...

This cost a bit of money... but needed to be done because the brass pilot bearing insert that came with the adapter plate shattered into tiny baby bits... Frankly, it was asking too much... only 1.5mm thick brass wasn't going to cut it... so I got something more robust. Starting with a BMW pilot bearing (instead of a the Volvo unit) I got a "cover" machined from steel... think "lathe time" and "shop rate"... but man is it purdy...



peekaboo!



ze adapterplatten



the boxed in crossmember and mount- and shifter! woohoo!



9/14/06 updates
running... but now, with more COP.



That's all for now... will be edited again in the future as I upload more pics and make more changes.........