945 Daily Turbo Fun (My first Project)

[DenK]

Hello fellow Brickers,

My Name is Dennis, i am from Germany and i bought my first Volvo about a year ago.
Please apologyse any misspelling or other strange sentence constructions since my english is far from perfect.

First i want to thank this Forum for all the valuable information. This is a massive help on my yourney with this car. I want to give somthing back and share my build and experiences with you. Since i am no mechanic or experienced car guy, please dont expect a all out crazy build. I want to make good reliable power and keep the car as daily driver.

The title of the thread is not 100% correct. My very first project in terms of gasoline powered toys is this:



I bought this 1984 Suzuki GSX400 bone stock and wanted to see what i can achieve with my limited space and knowledge. This took me 1,5 winters of wrenching in my cold garage. I was very happy with the result and wanted to step things up.

Looking around on car broker sites somehow i found this brick shaped car.
It ticked all the boxes:

-Easy and reliable tech
-Availability of parts and information
-Wagon
-Turbsky engine with reasonable displacement and room for more power
-RWD
-Dirt Cheap
-High Sleeper potential

So i picked up one in decent shape for no money.
Next step was to buy a set of polaris wheels which raised the value of the car significant.
I just had to buy them because they are ultra rare here and the deal was fair.
Threw in springs and dampers from KAW and the visual part of the build is done for me:



I chipped the computers, raised the boost on the stock engine and had good fun with it.


Bought the turboback 3" exhaust (racecat + 2 mufflers) from JT but was not happy with it. Power gain was there but that low rpm droning in the car was horrible. Sound at high rpm/load was like a big boy. Tüv (MOT, technical control board in germany) would not be happy with it. So this had to go and was replaced by a nice stainless exhaust from RakaRör in sweden. RostfrittavgassystemVolvo940turbo

After countless hours of searching and reading i decided to build up a fresh motor and swap it in.
I picked up a B230FT squirter motor with M90 tranny (again for no money). Fortunately the M90s are steadily available here in Germany. All the manual 940s from 1995 came with it.
I rebuilt the motor in my garage with all my internet knowledge. Today i know i made some shortcuts. But for the first time things went well.
I upgraded to a 15G Turbo with conical housing and VX3 Cam.
Clutch is the TDIC clutch with dished single mass flywheel.
After two months of cleaning and rebuilding almost every part, the beauty was ready for the swap:



I have never ever done anything like a engine swap bevor, but somehow the engine fired right up and ran nice. Happy and a bit proud :-)
So time to see what we can achieve with the little 15G and LH2.4.
Turned the boost up and ran into detonation at 1,0bar.
Changed from 98octane to 102octane fuel and could raise the boost to 1,5bar as long as the air temperatures were low enough. Installed the big coolers from a late 940 and built my own meth injection kit that sits in the trunk:



Now the 1,5bar are safe and and man i love the low end torque this car makes now.
The TDIC Clutch started slipping at 1,2 bar. Replaced by strong stuff from KL-Racing.
I drove it all summer 2018 at that stage and had only minor issues with the car.
The reaction from other road users is just priceless when grandpas car accelerates.


So here we are. Summer is over and its garage time again.
Unfortunately this boost thing is addictive and the engine is right at the limit of safe operation. What do we need? More flow!
Plans were made, parts were purchased, plans changed, more parts purchased.

Now here is what we have:

-Again a spare Squirter Block with M90
-H beam rods
-Oversize Mahle Pistons
-531 Head
-38/46mm Valves
-longer springs
-big cam from sweden
-Deatschwerks 650CC injectors
-Deatschwerks DW200 intank pumpe
-A bunch of AN hose stuff for fuel, oil, venting
-Garrett GTX28


More updates in short time, need some sleep now. :-)

[soclosenotnear]

Great looking wagon you've built here. You're doing much better than most of us on their first project, myself included. And your English is better than most folks in this country, so don't worry about that.

[Old Iron]

Great project. That color looks sharp on a late model 945! Want to sell me the wheels!

[DenK]

Great project. That color looks sharp on a late model 945! Want to sell me the wheels!

Its mineral blue and i love it. Only minor paint damages. The wheels won`t go for sure


As the original block from the car was pretty worn, i wanted to build another spare block.
I came across a good deal for a salvage car. Its a 1995 B230FK softturbo, again with M90.
Pulled the goods and sent the rest to the yunkjard.



Next time i keep the salvage car as long as possible. In the meantime i could have used many parts that gone with it.

Next step, disassembled the FK block and gave it to the engine shop.
He checked everything and suggested to bore and hone it. The cylinders were worn about 0,1mm.
Sourced some 96,3mm pistons which was not very easy. In order to get a reasonable price, i had to order them from USA despite the fact they got manufactured only 200km away from me. Strange world.
I told the shop i want the pistons to be 0,4mm above deck. I will run a stock elring headgaset and get a squish of 0,8mm.

Now i wanted to improve headflow. It needed three takes to finally find a 531 head that is not worn as hell. I figured water corrosion is a big thing with this old parts:



But now i have a realy nice one. Its too at the engine shop along with bigger valves.
The shop will modify the seats and face the sealing surface.
I´ll do some minor porting when i get it back.

Time for mocking up the new fun generator aka Garrett GT28R with billet wheel and hiflow housing. Basically a GTX28 now.
The turbinehousing was T25 and got machined to fit a Tial V-Band clamp
I machined a adapter from Volvo T3 to V-Band and ported the manifold:





The car suddenly startet to smell like gasoline on the outside. The problem was a rusty tank sender unit. Couldnt find a cheap spare. (good one was in the salvage car i sent away )
So gone ahead and pimped the old one with AN line stuff, a new connector and a DW200 pump:

[JW240]

Nice project! That vband adapter looks excellent.

The water/methanol injection is something I'm looking at as well.. My +T 240 really needs to pull timing to prevent knock when it is hot outside.

[DenK]

To improve crankcase ventilation i made a "copy" of the yoshifab kit from an aluminium plate and AN stuff:



Becouse the original part has a guide to prevent the oil pump drivegear from lifting, i used an AN10 bulkead adapter that sticks out far enough towards the gear. drilled some holes in it for good airflow. The return is an AN6 M14 adapter

[DenK]

Wanted to see various measurements on the cockpit and found a nice solution:

Reveltronics



Yes, there is a massive crack in my windshield

Now i can see:
AFR
watertemp
oiltemp
oil pressure
ait post IC
ait pre IC
voltage
fuel consumption
speed
revs

This thing has some really nice features. When you connect the speedo signal you can measure acceleration times.



The switches in the glovebox are used to control e-fan, meth injection, exhaust cutout (future plan).
The controller on top is a electronic boost controller and below sits the pressureswitch for meth injection.
I modified the glovebox to accomodate all the wiring. For easy access i can open the whole glovebox assembly real quick with hinges.

[Pete.M]

Those are some neat solutions. Who makes that switch panel?
A few hours ago I bought two traditional gauges & sensors. Maybe I should cancel that order!

[DenK]

This panel is chinabay. You get what you pay for but it does what its supposed to and i am fine with it.

Just some sandblasting and paintwork:



The oilpan was a pita to get it that clean. I figured that sodablasting works best with old oil residues.


Heres my selfmade sandblasting cabin:

[Brotkasten]

Moin Dennis,

hast du Instagram? Ich wäre am Austausch von Erfahrungen interessiert.

Gruß
Jonas

[PNW760]

Regarding the 531, did you just put in a 531 or did you do any porting work?

I essentially have the same exact 940 turbo except mine is a 93, and I’m lookimg at putting a 531 in it as well.

[IMG][/IMG]

[DenK]

Right now the 531 head i sourced is at the engine shop.
They install bigger Valves with 38/46mm diameter.
I`ll port it a bit to smooth out the machining edges from boring the seats.
Maybe i will port the exhaust outlet a bit to match gasket and header. Maybe. I`ve never done this before and dont want to mess up the fresh machined head.


I could practise on the bad 531 i have laying around. No big damage if i mess this one up.


I believe the 531 alone wont give you much more power when you run a TD04 Turbo.
The turbine flow is just too low for good power in high rev range.
When you already have a bigger turbo you could give it a try.

[MrKrabs]

Damn my 940 is like yours before you started needing more power haha.
Did you hear the detonation when running at 1 bar? My 15g at 1 bar doesn't cause me trouble though I don't have an EZK chip installed so my ignition is less advanced I guess.

[volvo78244]

For not having not much knowledge you've done a very nice job!
Good looking 940 you have there, and very nice upgrades!

Keep it coming..

[DenK]

Originally Posted by MrKrabs

Did you hear the detonation when running at 1 bar?

Yes. The car has a short lean spike at the moment the boost kicks in at full throttle. When this happens, i can hear 2-3 "clicks" of detonation very clearly. After a second the AFR drop and everything is fine. When you are aware of it, you WILL hear it when detonation is happening.



I am in contact with a JDM tuning shop nearby. When everything works as planned, i will have a Link Storm ECU along with proper dynotuning from them this summer.


I think i want to build a new wiring harness for the ECU. I have a spare LH2.4 harness i can use the connectors from.

This modern ECUs are some fancy stuff. You can connect everything to these things you could ever want. Very excited about that :-)

[JerryJS8]

Nice build!

Originally Posted by DenK

Yes. The car has a short lean spike at the moment the boost kicks in at full throttle. When this happens, i can hear 2-3 "clicks" of detonation very clearly. After a second the AFR drop and everything is fine. When you are aware of it, you WILL hear it when detonation is happening.

Have you tried installing colder sparkplugs? That was the solution for me after also trying to solve detonation with 102 octane. After the new plugs I went back down to 95 without any problems.

My suggestion:
Bosch WR5DC+ Super Plus

[DenK]

I have installed colder plugs from NGK. Cant remember the model but will have a look.
From 102 to 95 without problems? I cant even run 98.


Minor Updates today. Try to use the time until i can pickup the rebuild block from the engine shop.


Clocked the Turbo and figured out how to route the oil return.
The picture shows the wastegate in max open position. Do you think this is okay or should it open further? Thats the full travel the pressure actuator can do:





Then i took a closer look at the oilfilter situation.

Mounted the oilcooler sandwichplate to an old NA block to check if the oilfilter will fit.
And it works fine with a smaller Mahle filter.
Thanks to "Brotkasten" for the tip.










And finally received a huge load of AN hoses and fittings.
Want to rebuild the entire fuelsystem, oillines and fab a custom crankcase ventilation.

[R-Pow3R3d]

This project seems like someone saying "I think I want to try out carpentry" and then proceeding to building an entire house. Incredible work!

[DenK]

Thanks

Can anyone verify that the wastegate opening angle is okay?


I have ordered some cheap stuff from AliExpress.
If you do so, especially with critical stuff like Fuelpressure Regulator and Oilsystem stuff, please don´t just use it. The chance that the part went through any sort of Quality Control is low.

-Disassemble it
-Clean it
-Check if its technically able to do what it is supposed to
-Check if it actually works!

I have gone through this procedure with my parts and can`t see a reason to pay ten times more for basically the same part.

For example the FPR:
There are sharp machining edges inside the housing. Not nice.
Smoothed it with a small grinder tool. Replaced some washers with proper ones.
Used threadlocker where possible.





Check the thermostat of the oilfilter sandwich:

[DenK]

Originally Posted by JerryJS8

Have you tried installing colder sparkplugs? That was the solution for me after also trying to solve detonation with 102 octane. After the new plugs I went back down to 95 without any problems.

My suggestion:
Bosch WR5DC+ Super Plus

Replaced my NGK BPR7ES with the Bosch plugs today and knocking is gone completely
(at least with 98octane)
Damn thats a good tip.

Measured gaps and discovered that the NGK plugs were at 0,75-0,8mm while the Bosch are all at 0,7mm.
Is that part of the problem?


The old plugs look alright?!

[SquareD]

Really sharp wagon and a great start. Looking forward to more progress.

[MrKrabs]

Originally Posted by DenK

Replaced my NGK BPR7ES with the Bosch plugs today and knocking is gone completely
(at least with 98octane)
Damn thats a good tip.

Measured gaps and discovered that the NGK plugs were at 0,75-0,8mm while the Bosch are all at 0,7mm.
Is that part of the problem?


The old plugs look alright?!

Damn that is very good info! Thanks (again) JerryJS8 !

Looking foward to see the rest of your build and maybe learn more useful tips for mine

[DenK]

Assembled the intake manifold with all the new bits and i like it a lot:










Instead of the 940 throttle switch, i used a potentiometer from a 850.
Unfortunately they changed the bolt pattern so i made an adapter.
Also made a block plate for the coldstart injector opening.
For the intake air temp sensor i drilled and tapped the unused hole on the throttle body. 3/8" thread works nice there.









Had some fun snow drifting until this:



Volvo 0
Curb 1


Really happy i had the steelies on the car.

A new adjustable panhard bar is already on its way

[oldnfast]

Really nice wagon and excellent work so far.love the color

[DenK]

Finally the project gets some drive.
The car is in my new Workshop and already disassembled.
I removed the whole suspension assembly for some rust removal and painting.







I started to assemble the engine. Turbo Oil drain got a 3/4" AN10 fitting. Coated some exhaust parts just for fun.







I found some unused connectors behind the right headlight. they are connected to the relais wich is mounted at the water expansion tank. What are they used for? Foglights maybe?