canadian 245 story (LS swap)

So before everyone gets upset, I've owned this car for awhile, and have a lot of progress pictures from some time ago, i'll start with that and slowly document the current LS plan.

anyways on to the car. the car in question is a 1991 volvo 245 with a 2.3l 4 banger and a stock 5 speed. The story on the car is after getting into a hit and run accident where the other guy took off, My first volvo wagon was destroyed, So i went on the hunt and found this one. i was skeptical at first, i got a response to a "wanted" ad i posted on my local kijiji (canada's craigslist) I went to go look since the seller didnt have a camera or didnt know how send photos. when i get there its buried up to the rims in dirt in a field with grass mowed around it. they were actually using it as a green house and had little saplings in the small pots growing in the trunk section.

this is the first one i had, only had it for 1 week.


bent the frame rails way out of whack




then i picked up the current 245. this is the only picture i grabbed when i got it home
i told the guy if he got it out of the field and ready for a test drive i'll come back. so he did and a week later i bought her for $500
at this point it had 503,000kms on the odometer


on the way home from buying it the shifter linkage exploded on me, so first thing to do was turn some new brass bushings to replace the worn out nylon ones

he factory "retaining sleeve" rotted off the linkage barrel so i replaced the pins with roll pins and put it all back together


after the initial accident my grandmother (so thankful for her) gave me her 7th gen civic to drive while i get the other volvo on the road. so i spent some time gathering parts and making the 245 road worthy up at the shop.




eventually i got her home, and of course we had a massive snow fall right after


so i dug her out


then went out and got my first taste of RWD fun


eventually spring came, and i dealt with the ride height.



scored a full set of GTA wheels for $200 just needed a mean repolish


got them mounted and an alignment done.


drove it like this for summer and loved every minute of it, its my first RWD car, and its been a blast having one fun with it. at this point it was a bone stock 20 something year old car with a set of wheels and lowered haha. definitely turned some heads though!



I've never been one to baby my vehicles, so i snapped a pic after some "rally" driving on some farm roads haha the front cross member and front exhaust pipe took some nasty hits.


fast forward to fall, and a season of abuse, its maintenance time.
beat the hell out of the sub frame all year, so i found a used but good one to replace


got her back together and freshened up the front end just in time for the fall colours pictures



of course after fall comes winter.. threw some new winters on the old steelies and spent more time sideways than i did straight.
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i only ended up in the ditch once, but thankfully my friends drive subarus... so they pulled me out.


spring came again, and i put the GTAs back on, which was nice and refreshing, Also put some adjustable perches and 2.5ID springs in the back. the old cut ones would rub all the time with any weight in the car, this solved that problem


some summer time photos (yea its not all snow in canada aha)




so as time rolled on, and i learned more, and broke more stock parts i started really modding it.
i kept destroying torque rod bushings (upper links in a 4 link) so i built some adjustable rods with heim joints at each end. All the heim joints i use have a teflon liner in them for maintaince free care, and durable life span. I also used LH threads at one end and RH threads at the other. this way they can be adjusted with out removing them from the car.


next were some adjustable sway bar links with poly upper bushings to lower the bar back down.
these were pretty simple. just needed to make the sleeve/spacers and get some threaded rod for the rod end.


I also picked up this cheap fixed back race seat from a friend, its nothing special, but its probably my favourite thing I've done to the car so far, so much better feel for the road and corners. a lot more feel to the cars input.


fall came again, and it looked pretty.



got a set of these mere wheels for free so i decided to clean them up for a blingy set of winter wheels



whipped up some adapters on a slow dat at work


put some nice fresh conti winter tires on em


the old pan hard rod got rusty, and decided to crack at the spot where it kinks to clear the diff. to get me home i just welded the crack. that didnt last long, but it gave me time to build a new stainless rod with adjustable heirs.




then one day i felt a big clunk in the rear, turns out my rear axle bushings exploded. so for now i just replaced with stock ones

but machined a set of solid ones with spherical bearings in for the future



i also picked up a new wheel, and turned a wooden shift knob (first time machining wood, came out pretty nice)


heres where the fun stuff started happening. picked up this rusty rear axle and everything attached to it. The plan for this was to have something out of the car I could do work on. I also planned to weld the diff. but wanted a back up incase it wasn't gonna work for daily use.


stripped it down and opened it up


welded it up. its ugly, but those spiders will never move again


made some dual calliper brackets





cleaned up and painted



rear axle bearing/bushings pressed in


then started boxing the trailing arms


then milled some tapped bosses for front heim joints




after that i turned to the rear and made some better mounting points for my adjustable sleeves



so as all this was going on in the shop, i bought this running truck for $300 for my new power plant. I went for a 4.8l specifically for the shorter stroke and faster revs.




at this point in the dead of winter, I've done a lot of winter drifting and the clutch said "i quit"



found some early "slim" bumpers at the pick n pull


in preparation for the swap, i went grabbed a bunch of pallets and bought some floor boarding and built a floor in my portipal.


got the engine on the stand and started stripping the long block


threw some paint on it


this is a HUGE part of the build here. up until this point the 245 has obviously been the daily driver. so I had to pick up a dedicated daily. this fell in my lap for a steal at $1600
1.8t 5-speed 4motion fully loaded.


so with a new car to drive me to work, i rolled the 245 in to the tent and started digging in.
at this point the old b230f had 587,000km on her.






first obvious issue was the deep truck pan. so i made some measurements and got a 7qrt pan that was 6" deep.


hung the motor in the bay


everything lines up perfect (note i circled the engine mount bolts that line up perfectly with the cross member.)



picked up a Gm T5 out of a camaro and a bell housing to match.


gonna have to do some trimming around the shifter hole.


started on the mounts. i used the STS mounts for inspiration. i got the engine sitting exactly where i needed it. then measured measured and measured. then started making the parts to build the mounts

turned some sleeves and black poly bushings. then coped some box tubing



welded up


then made some base plates for the cross member. milled the pocket out so the tubing sits 1/2" deep then welded around

Sweet build.
I love the redblock! LOL!

mounts all welded up and painted



bolted in the car




after that i had to deal with the shifter hole. so i cut the factory hole out to reuse it. once i had it cut out, i cut and bent the tunnel until i had it where i needed it. then tacked the stock hole back and started pulling and filling metal back to the hole.




then mounted the hand brake lever and tried to make the carpet fit as good as possible



after that i modified the stock trans cross member to use with the T5 mount. the mount is right above the stock location so i lucked out there.





240s use a one piece strut tube/front spindle setup. Which means there's only a few very expensive options for coil overs. And a lot involve cutting/welding the stock spindles. I was on the hunt for a more traditional setup where the spindle attaches to the strut with two bolts. Often used for camber adjustment as well. I couldn't find much and the volvos forward mounted steering rack was posing an issue. But after peeking under the front of a 1989 Mazda RX7 it had everything I was looking for. The two bolt strut mount, the forward tie rod mount, a common ball joint attachment and being rwd there's no splined hub assembly.

Plan is now to run rx7 brakes/ball joints/coilovers and reuse the Volvo tie rods.


also got my harness all trimmed down

So, after much back and forth with friends about different trans/flywheel/bell housing setups i got myself a sachs 1050.



first problem. this flywheel didnt didnt fit inside my SBC bell housing. so after more talking found out a friend use the same setup in his elcamino and used a BBC bell housing. so with a trip down to see Rick at Nova Automotive and of course he had one laying around.
I also scored this strut brace at the junk yard. its not a direct fit, but if i cut the ends off and make my own mounting points it'll be a trick little piece

money and time has been a little tight after my daily snapped the timing belt and wrecked the head.

but anyways I've still been plugging along. i made some cuts to the fire wall, to push it back and allow for some space behind the intake manifold. then boxed it in and finished it off.


with the intake now fitting, i test fit the hood. it JUST closes with the truck manifold. which i have decided to keep for now.


installed a new straight steering shaft to gain some clearance against the headers, this is a huge help compared to the large rubber dampened stock shaft.


poking around the engine bay, i noticed one of the push out grommets fit the heater pipes. since the OEM location was on there drivers side directly behind the head, there was no way i could run hoses from it. so i relocated the hoses over to the passenger side cut out and it works perfect!


last but not least, i needed to gain some scene points! but really, the bay needed paint over some welds and rusty spots. the car is a long way from making it to any sort of paint booth, so she got the krylon treatment. i figured id do something bright to have some fun. it looks like crap-ish. i painted it in -20 weather but eh its not a show car, its a go car. the engine bay is gonna get dirty anyways.


Cleaned and shaved the stock truck manifold


Side by side with the stock one

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Finally got time to test fit my manifolds and they fit great! Plenty of clearance on my steering shaft. Had to order a straight shaft as the stock one has a rubber dampener which makes it about a 2” in diameter.


Also dove into routing the harness. I cleaned the harness up and simplified it before hand but now I gotta route it to the passenger side foot well.

Not sure why the pictures are coming out so big.... it only happens on this site..

What are your plans for fuel delivery and control? Do you plan on using the GM stock computer?

chris gilmour said:

Not sure why the pictures are coming out so big.... it only happens on this site..

Click to expand...

Put a lowercase "L" before the ".jpg" portion of the picture link, and they'll be resized perfectly.

Not really an update but scored a genuine momo wheel for trading a $20 sheet of aluminum plate haha.

Can you get an adapter for that wheel to the Volvo column, nice wheel or will one for a Grant wheel work , just curious

mddawg said:

Can you get an adapter for that wheel to the Volvo column, nice wheel or will one for a Grant wheel work , just curious

Click to expand...

Any aftermarket wheel/hub I?ve come across have all been the same 2.75? bolt circle with 10?32 threads. So anything grant/omp/momo/NRG/sparco etc. Should all interchange. I have the momo adapter ben sells mainly because I liked the accordion style boot on it ba the omp one he sells

Tackled the clutch conversion, from cable to hydro tonight.
Shoulda took some before photos, but I never remember

Anyways I ordered a new wilwood 3/4” bore master from amazon. Which lines right up with the existing holes


Luckily for me, Volvo had a hydraulic clutch option on their 280s. So much like vw they just make them all the same and utilize different parts depending on the setup, so everything from the hole in the firewall to another hole option in the pedal box were already there.
So I took the clutch pedal out of the box and moved it up to second set of holes which is 2” higher then the existing ones.


So now moving the pedal up 2” would obviously misalign the pedals. So I had to add two inches to length of the pedal. I also had to take the original clevis mount and cut it from the top and make a new longer one and clock it almost 180* to the bottom. This turns the pedal from a “pull” to a “push”.


Drilled a hole and attached he clevis


Here’s the box all done. And pedals sitting perfectly level.


Mounted back in the car


This fits like it’s made to be there

Been a while since I updated. Got all the new seals in and engine back in. Should be in for good now. Clutch and fly wheel are all on and everything?s torqued up.




Relocated the battery to the trunk
Picked up this generic weld in battery tray at the local parts store

did some cutting a moving and it fit in there perfect




To supply/divide power I used a distribution block from a vw tdi the battery wore feeds in from the right and powers all my 12v live wires. I opened up the box and cut the bus bar at the last post. This means that last post and fuses aren?t getting power. I then ran I wire from the ignition to the post. This makes those three fuses hot on ?run? so those power my injectors/coils, MAF/O2s and pcm ign power