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Qwkswede's 1992 244 daily driver. Back to my rolling roots.

Finishing up the suspension modifications.

I took care of the Kaplhenke front coil over installation this past weekend. Everything came out great. And after the first couple days driving I am pretty happy.

Here are the build specs:
Front Eibach springs 2.5" diameter 300#, 10" tall
Rear Eibach springs 5" diameter 200#, 9.5" tall
Kaplhenke coilover hardwware front and rear.
Front struts are Moneroe for 2000 Saab 9-3
Rear Shocks are Bilstien for 1992 Suburban front.
Strut tubes shortened 1-3/4"
Stock swaybars.

<a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/h9Es0nP5h8akSSNhlnFQ59MTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-K2Tc4TZqMUI/VM_alb5C5LI/AAAAAAAAJjM/9HexlqE3dRE/s640/IMAGE_1330.jpeg" height="640" width="480" /></a>
Monroe strut inserts for a 2000 Saab 900

<a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/SmXQ8Wh0LOjnbT9tq828NNMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-NKtv8gI1in8/VM_aqlEnIBI/AAAAAAAAJj0/GAWukZSZvRc/s640/IMAGE_1335.jpeg" height="640" width="480" /></a>
Before and after. You can see the drastic shortened length of the package.

<a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/1IhOoDNWMb_2HIiJX9tcZdMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Mntq0x89ww8/VNCATtO73II/AAAAAAAAJkw/0gNwkBzdSrA/s640/IMAGE_1339.jpeg" height="640" width="480" /></a>
Struts bolted into the car.

I may have gone a bit high on the spring rate for the rear of the car. 200s on the rear feel pretty rough for the frost heave and pot holes around Denver. A shock with more rebound damping could help too, but ultimately the rear needs to be a touch softer. 300s on the front feel pretty good, even with the stock valved Monroe shocks. It is in control and composed.

I'll have to get some pictures with the new ride height soon. It goes looooow now.
 
Megamicrosquirt is underway. I got tired of LH2.4 quirks. It is way easier and faster to get control of the fuel and ignition this way. I just cant burn hours on frustrating things like that any more. Life is too short and i have other things to do. Megasquirt is a known quantity for me.<a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XzGYSRVcKloGXtOYggAQedMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-BimK1SU_who/VPQO8lA498I/AAAAAAAAJnA/AgNiYck8hak/s640/IMAGE_1348.jpeg" height="640" width="480" /></a>
 
I really was trying to live and love the Bosch injection. I gave it a good solid effort, chips, dips, voodoo. But nothing made it perform like I know these motors should. The throttle response alone is flat out lame.

But I think the tipping point was when I spent a couple days this month setting up and tuning my Brother in Law's Ford Ranger 4x4 on Megasquirt. Its a 2.3 Lima Turbo motor. It is completely stock 150k mile whipped transplant from a Turbocoupe. He then proceeded to trounce my ass all over town while doing big burnouts with 31" tires. I couldn't let him have all the fun. I also got it to run clean enough to get an emissions certificate this week.

Its a $200-$250 MS1-extra setup. The best value around still.

Its hard to be involved with that kind of success and not see the light.
linuxman51 said:
Bout time
Click to expand...
 

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And a couple days later the car is running on Microsquirt. I had to learn a couple things about installing the new unit. There are some very minor quirks but overall it is is a really easy install. The only hangup I had was figuring out how to get the new board and its new style VR conditioning circuits to work correctly with the 60-2 crankshaft position sensor. You can read more about it here if interested.
http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?p=5119041

It snowed alot last night, so my driving and tuning was limited. I can't comment on performance changes yet, it needs alot of tuning.

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XzGYSRVcKloGXtOYggAQedMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-BimK1SU_who/VPQO8lA498I/AAAAAAAAJnA/AgNiYck8hak/s640/IMAGE_1348.jpeg" height="640" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/117822358412918795905/92Volvo244?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite">92 Volvo 244</a></td></tr></table>
 
I have traveled to tune before. I could use a trip west to escape the snow and do some bicycle riding in Portland area.
 
Then swing down to Sac and get some time on my wagon?

That may be a bit...I may send it back to Kenny for a revamp, swap to his new format and install knockMS as well, before it goes back into the car...
 
gsellstr said:
Then swing down to Sac and get some time on my wagon?

That may be a bit...I may send it back to Kenny for a revamp, swap to his new format and install knockMS as well, before it goes back into the car...
Click to expand...

I would love to come through Sac. I have friends in Northern California that I haven't seen in quite a while. I have been wanting to make a trip. Maybe later this year even.

I have never set up knock sense on a car. That is something I should try someday. My DD car is a good candidate with the high compression motor, and potential for crummy gas fillups.
 
My sole reason for going with one of those as well.

If you do ever get out this way you have my number, and I have the number for many of the locals. Mini-meet's are easy. :)
 
I had a stroke of bravery this week. Only a couple days after getting the new Megasquirt unit installed, and a rough tune installed; I decided I needed to take a road trip. I headed for the dessert 250 miles west of Denver to get away from the snow for a bit of riding. That takes you over 10,600' Vail pass. How is that for a test of a Megasquirt fueled car?

There was wet and snowy conditions on this trip and the car is still serving as a good daily driver. I'm trying not to cross the line with modifications. It has to remain just tame enough in suspension and engine for my taste and Colorado's all weather, rough road driving. Megaquirt wasn't perfect. I think you really need another map/baro sensor to compensate for changing altitude like that. The AFRs drift toward the rich side about 1 whole point as you go up in altitude. I was about 13.9AFR at the higher altitudes cruising where I normally see 14.7. But no harm done. I could have loosened up on the EGO correction params to let it adjust better under higher loads. Maybe next time. The car ran great and averaged about 20mpg over all the mountains and hauling stuff on the roof.

Photo opportunity. Still in winter mode on snow tires and covered in road mud.
<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XCZoz2cnwU4S-xoOgF6TpdMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ZAkUWwvu3oc/VPpuzpRvMNI/AAAAAAAAJpM/d_ED7Fxxd5Q/s640/IMAGE_1355.jpeg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/117822358412918795905/92Volvo244?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite">92 Volvo 244</a></td></tr></table>
 
Struggling still.

I'm still very underwhelmed with the performance of this car. Lots of you guys know me, and this isn't a straight up Volvo bashing statement. There is something really lame with this motor that I can't get my head around.

This is my first B230F+T car. So I have been trying to be open minded, and assumed that the tune was bad or something was failing like an ECT sensor, MAF meter etc.. But now that i have megasquirt running fuel and spark, I am learning alot more. I have explored the range of timing advance from retarded and weak all the way to advanced with detonation. And the same with AFRs and fuel ing. Nothing really wakes this motor up from it's slumber. It runs better now, and throttle response is improved. But overall its lacking low rpm torque and turbo spoolage. And then it lays down at about 4200 rpm. I'm not ready to believe that the high compression motor is limiting my boost and spark advance so much that I end up with a disappointing lump of an engine combo. I have driven some other F+T cars that really move well.

I ran a compression test tonight to start looking at mechanical issues again. I get the following from Cyl 1-4 in order:
168
155
160
165

That seems a little bit low for an NA car with 10:1 CR. But I live at 5500', so I expect SCR to be down as much as 18 percent, barometric pressure here is 82kPa. Additionally, the spark plugs are perfect and the car doesn't use any oil.

I checked the cam timing again, and it looks spot on, straight up. I suppose the balancer could be slipped, but I'm doubting that mostly becasue ignition timing was about the expected idle level of 10-12BTDC with LH2.4. And there is no way to adjust the timing there.

And on top of the lack of power, the turbo spools really slow. This is a Garret .42 cold side, .48AR hot side. It is a atock early 740 turbo unit.

I'm just getting the facts down here. If anybody has an idea where I might have lost my Mojo, please respond.
 
compression looks good, I had a 'fresh' unabused na motor back in the day that belted out 200ish across the board, so allowing for 18% you're still right around there at sea level.

what cam are you using? M? T? T oughta do better than that. maybe double check the mechanical timing by taking the pulley off the front.

you done a pressure test on it yet to make sure you're not blowing the charge out somewhere? wouldn't have an effect on the afrs so much (esp if it was pre-existing) but it would contribute to general laze
 
What's done for exhaust? Any chance of a plugged cat? Any chance the nub snapped off the crank gear so the belt is off? Doubt it, but throwing spitballs out there.

Fuel pressure okay? All the other stage 0 stuff I expect is handled. Had low power on Scotty's car, everything looked good, til we found fuel pressure under load was dropping. Fix that and he split the end tank open. lol

Wastegate arm have enough preload? Oddly enough mine was slower off-boost when it was too light, let alone on boost.
 
I have an RSI Stage 1 clone cam in there now. I had the M cam for a while and it wasn't running hot with that either. Swapping to the turbo friendly Stage 1 seemed like a possible fix at the time. I do have a T cam on my shelf, I could try that. But it feels like I should be looking elsewhere at the moment.

The exhaust is all brand new custom 2.5" that I built for the turbo swap. I suspected a clogged cat, even when it was NA still. It was slow as molasses then too. But I attributed that to normal NA slowness and my warped view of "normal". There is a fresh 2.5" magnaflow cat in the exhaust now though. It has always felt like the timing is off. Valve or Ignition, I couldn't really tell. But it just had no guts, even before turbo.

linuxman51 said:
compression looks good, I had a 'fresh' unabused na motor back in the day that belted out 200ish across the board, so allowing for 18% you're still right around there at sea level.

what cam are you using? M? T? T oughta do better than that. maybe double check the mechanical timing by taking the pulley off the front.

you done a pressure test on it yet to make sure you're not blowing the charge out somewhere? wouldn't have an effect on the afrs so much (esp if it was pre-existing) but it would contribute to general laze
Click to expand...
 
I would definitely do a pressure / leakdown test of the charge plumbing between the compressor and the throttle body. Make some caps, install a Schrader valve in one end, pump it up and watch leakdown on a gauge.

Symptoms sound like a boost leak but could also be due to very light (or zero) preload on the wastegate actuator. Once the wastegate valve starts to crack open even a degree or so you are dumping exhaust energy right out the tailpipe that should be used to spin up the turbo. Off boost as well as on boost.

Nice daily driver though!
 
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