'93 volvo 940 turboy

So with two coils missing on the front springs, do they really have enough "spring" left?
I'm genuinely asking on behalf of my 1993 "sitting back" 940 : I'd like it flatter, just more level would be nice.

Dirty Rooster said:

So with two coils missing on the front springs, do they really have enough "spring" left?
I'm genuinely asking on behalf of my 1993 "sitting back" 940 : I'd like it flatter, just more level would be nice.

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Yes they do Cut the coils off of the bottom of the spring. That way it will sit nicely in the spring seat. With the car off the ground it may appear iffy, although you do have to compress the spring significantly to put the top nut back on the shock, when you set it down the spring compresses into the holder quite securely. Just don't hit jumps with your lowered car, its not the General Lee. I wouldn't remove any more than 2 coils from the front if you are planning on cutting.

I'll brave the disdain of the gathered mechanics and lop off one coil ... thanks Nater.

You're welcome! I think all the stigma around cutting springs comes from VW and Honda people who try to lay frame by chopping springs when they probably don't have the right type of springs to cut in the first place. Its actually quite common in stock car racing to cut springs in order to fine tune handling.

P.S. I just went on a road trip this weekend and the car actually handles better with the springs cut. It isn't bouncy and I haven't lost control or died in a horrific tragedy yet. Don't sue me if your spring cutting goes wrong but I really don't see any problem with taking a few coils out of a 940

Did you ever manage to get your gauges/dials to light up? I have the same problem.

Boy now I tell ya what this is a good build thread. Now when I say boy. I mean boy.

Pete.M said:

Did you ever manage to get your gauges/dials to light up? I have the same problem.

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Yes I did, this thread has been long overdue for an update. Recently, my alternator died and in the process of troubleshooting it I ended up pulling the cluster out and found more troublesome solder joints that either I didn't see earlier or had just recently broken. I know for sure that the alternator had gone bad, but where the field circuit goes through the cluster wasn't helping either.

My advice to you is to take your instrument cluster out, and inspect every solder joint with a magnifying glass to make sure they are ok. If you find a cracked one, take a pencil tip soldering iron and carefully re-melt the solder thats on there, you may need to add a little more filler but do so sparingly. If that doesn't fix your problem then you probably have an issue somewhere else in the harness. i wasn't able to find a pin-out diagram for the connectors on the cluster but the wiring diagrams on http://volvowiringdiagrams.com/ show the connector and pin numbers you will need to look for.

I'm on vacation this week and will be moving across town as soon as I fix a few problems with the turboy next week, after that, once I get a chance to breathe I will post some more exciting, intriguing, and thought provoking content.

ach5 said:

Boy now I tell ya what this is a good build thread. Now when I say boy. I mean boy.

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Get ready for grudge night because I got my 18psi wastegate actuator on

HUGE update

It's been quite a while since I updated this thread. Some work has gotten done, mostly maintenance. But for the most part the car has been reliable and I have taken it on several road trips this summer and enjoyed driving every mile.

So after my last update, my friends and I went to visit Dogfish Head brewery, near rehoboth beach


The next weekend we went on another Beer vacation, this time to the finger lakes


While we were in the area, we went to 2014 Euro meet in Ithaca, NY


and stopped at another brewery on the way home


sometime in July, DISASTER struck


The alternator died, which necessitated its replacement. This also ended up becoming another adventure behind the dash fixing more solder joints in the cluster. It turns out I had several charging problems at once. Fixed all of them eventually.


The stock alternator bushings were shot, so clearly i NEEDED the Heavy Duty replacements


I also got around to installing my 18psi wastegate actuator, putting the A/C tensioner bracket to good use


Followed by a trip to Hilton Head, SC


But something was still wrong, the stock horns were not up to par. how am I supposed to road rage effectively when my car makes me sound like a pussy??


My solution to the problem was to remove the OEM horns install two 90's cadillac horns behind the grill by extending the wiring and modifying the factory bracket slightly.


Then my lease ran out and it was time to move across town


So long Wham Street, it's been real!


My new place has a garage but its shared between a few duplexes.


This doesn't even cover everything. Will post once I have more pics

I just finished another round of work on the ol' swede. Cleaning the MAF, replacing the fouled O2 sensor, cleaning the air filter, replacing plugs and wires. After all that, my in town gas mileage has gone from 15 up to 22mpg.

While i was at it, I pulled the whole exhaust system and made some improvements:


I fixed the bottom bend of the downpipe and added a flex pipe:


In addition to moving the glasspack into the resonator position and adding a thrush welded muffler:


I like the sound better and the system came out much more sturdy.

nice work! i would recomend to buy some belt covers for the timingbelt, mine got f**ckd up once by a rock that was kicked up by a truck.
keep up the good work

Awsome build!! ))

Engine bay update pic

some things have changed under the hood since I last posted a pic of it all. I made the wiring somewhat more tidy, washed it, added a catch can, and did a few other things.


I also scrubbed and waxed the car by hand, likely the first time this car has seen a real cleaning in over 4 years


8/7/16 eidt:
I had recorded a 1/4 mile time with the GPS on my phone in August of 2015. It was pretty dismal so I didn't post it immediately but now it serves as a reference point for the progress I'm making in ironing out all the kinks in my car.

Yesterday I installed the Nuke cam gear. I then adjusted it to 5 degrees advance. This made the car much nicer to drive since using the ipd cam with an automatic leaves a dead spot in the rpm range where the torque converter isnt helping and you aren't up on the cam yet unless you can advance it. The power falls off some at the high end so ill probably back it off a degree or 2 at some point but for now i'm enjoying the low end torque. Only a few more maintenance tasks and then this car will see a few thousand miles of driving in the mid-west over the next few months.

upgrade and adjustment

This week I installed a set of IPD sway bars that I recently bought from wennstroma.



While I was messing around under the car I checked my wastegate actuator and found out that its been loose for a long time. Went ahead and tightened it up and noticed way less turbo lag.

All the pictures in the last few posts ain't showing up for me?

+Kardboard+ said:

All the pictures in the last few posts ain't showing up for me?

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...same here.

@naterhater hello to a fellow PA resident!

I finally got around to rehosting the images that werent showing up.

@oldschoolvolvo Yo dude!

Super sweet read! I know a few 240 guys ,in PA. all sedans though. Definitely inspiring me with my 745t.

Oh my Gorsh! so much has happened since the last time I posted any sort of update


So a year and a half ago I packed up and moved across the country


Right after I got out here, 1st gear let go and I had to do a transmission swap. I ended up getting one for free from a chill dude up near seattle because he was doing a manual swap in his 740 and needed someone to haul off his AW-71. This worked out great since that "new" transmission had the accumulator mod and clearly has had regular fluid service.

I also swapped my front bumper to the early 740 rally style with the cool looking chin splitter and fog light holes. I mostly did this to mount Hella 550's without having them look out of place. Here we see the turboy up on Mt Hood last winter.


Then, mid winter my timing belt snapped in a snowy parking lot I had gotten stuck in


Boy was that an expensive tow! So apparently the IPD turbo cam is just BARELY interference because when the belt broke 2 valves got dinged just enough that they wouldnt seal so I had no compression on 2 cylinders. This prompted a trip to pick-n-pull where I got a whole nother engine with 1yr warranty for $250. As far as I could tell the JY engine was a genuine 125,000 mile turbo engine from a 740. So I used that bottom end and some valvetrain parts to piece together a working unit.








And then very recently I put a new set of stock springs in it which basically amounted to putting a lift kit on this lowered volvo.


It ought to do much better in the snow this winter


More to come!