holtzboy
Project Procrastinator
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2004
- Location
- Cornelius, OR
My #190 yellow (butter) 86 244DL was my first car, purchased in August 2002, I saw it for sale in someone's driveway near my parent's place up on Bald Peak, southwest of Hillsboro. I broke the rules and bought it for $800, this was before I knew all Volvos are only worth $500 and also before I should have checked if the rims were steam cleaned and had gold painted centers (spoiler, it didn't). It had approximately 175,000 miles on it back then. All memes aside, it felt great finally having a car of my own. I literally knew nothing about cars back then, I was all about playing video games and going to LAN parties (lugging my 19" CRT and full tower case around). There was no chance of broadband internet where I lived, the Verizon guy laughed at me when I asked when DSL would become available. I became known to be the one that would bring the internet to a crawl at LAN parties due to me making use of the blazing 6MB cable internet. Even if it wasn't my fault, if there was a problem with the internet, they would yell at me. I drove the car all throughout senior year of high school without any major problems, even made it up to Woodinville, WA and back for an epic LAN party with some people I had been playing Counter-Strike with online for years.
I found a job in Hillsboro and as soon as I began working, problems started happening with the car. The first failure was the timing belt, I paid about $400 to get the replaced. Shortly after, it was an avalanche of problems, I found this German guy at a place called Hardy's Continental Cars, he really knew his stuff. After I dropped literally thousands there over the course of a few months, it was time for me to learn how to work on this thing myself. I did a search (was it even Google yet in 2004? Could have been Altavista) and found a little site called Turbobricks. Even back then, it had a wealth of information and I found out there were local people on there in the Portland metro area. I met up with Kevin in the Ace Hardware parking lot in Forest Grove, he had and still has a GT that has been through many fenders and engines but is still alive to this day as well. From there, I began shadowing the locals the learning the ways of the redblock and slowly being able to figure things out on my own. This blossomed into the creation of the local group, Oregon Volvo Tuners, which has slowly started to fade but we had some great meets and events back in the mid 2000s.
Some highlights for the car between then and now is Kevin helped me do a major suspension overhaul at his shop in 2006 including iPD sways, TME lowering springs, ball joints, tie-rod ends, poly torque rods, HD shocks and struts. Imagine going from a busted stock setup to all of that in one night, I remember the first corner I took at speed and how the car was just planted, i was absolutely thrilled how much better it was. I also had a b-cam installed, e-fan mod, 2.25" exhaust, lightened flywheel with M47 swap and sound system installed. I unfortunately ripped out all of the AC and power steering components and thought I would I would be getting moar powah, which at the time, convinced myself it was a worthy mod. I also put on a cone filter behind my grill for awhile but realized it was just inhaling rain waterI daily drove this car until 2017, I ended up picking up a 93 945 turbo (for $500!) which I drove for a year. I tried to fix the AC system twice and failed both times, I gave up, sold the card and bought my first new car, a 2017 Honda CRV (boring I know).
Butter has been mostly sitting since then, I moved from Vancouver, WA back to the west side in Cornelius, OR. I wanted a fun car after we moved, tried to find a 242 turbo build that was good to go and came up empty handed. Somehow I ended up with a 2007 Corvette Z06, bought it from a small dealer in Grants Pass, OR and went all the way up to Canada for our anniversary and back, made it with no problems! Back to Butter, I am in the middle of changing the blower motor, everything came out fairly easy, I was worried due to all of the talk how it's an awful job. Installation is "just" the reverse of removal but I have yet to find the time to put in the new fan and resistor. I am also going to convert it to power windows, which I have everything for. I also would love to restore AC and power steering and I have been reading different threads for the best options to do so. I have recently gotten the itch again for some turbo Volvo goodness and bought a 94 B230FT from a local guy, it has some high miles and is need of a makeover to get up to speed. My goal is to have a 300-400hp capable setup which means I will have to ditch the M47. I had a T5 but sold it shortly after I moved so will either need another one or go a different route. I bought a factory Volvo DANA Posi which is hopefully able to handle what I plan to throw at it. I am going to try and document all of the steps I take along the way so stay tuned.
Google Drive Photo Album:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1frdon0yrAKlGNlyYmdsVb2Fd3wMaZUcD?usp=sharing
Early Days
Kevin helping with my previous 84 242TI
Wet air intake (didn't last long)
Kyle lending a helpful hand!
Towery gen1 inspired 3rd mount (will be removing this monstrosity)
4/20 head on my new-to-me 94 B230FT
Got carbon?
I found a job in Hillsboro and as soon as I began working, problems started happening with the car. The first failure was the timing belt, I paid about $400 to get the replaced. Shortly after, it was an avalanche of problems, I found this German guy at a place called Hardy's Continental Cars, he really knew his stuff. After I dropped literally thousands there over the course of a few months, it was time for me to learn how to work on this thing myself. I did a search (was it even Google yet in 2004? Could have been Altavista) and found a little site called Turbobricks. Even back then, it had a wealth of information and I found out there were local people on there in the Portland metro area. I met up with Kevin in the Ace Hardware parking lot in Forest Grove, he had and still has a GT that has been through many fenders and engines but is still alive to this day as well. From there, I began shadowing the locals the learning the ways of the redblock and slowly being able to figure things out on my own. This blossomed into the creation of the local group, Oregon Volvo Tuners, which has slowly started to fade but we had some great meets and events back in the mid 2000s.
Some highlights for the car between then and now is Kevin helped me do a major suspension overhaul at his shop in 2006 including iPD sways, TME lowering springs, ball joints, tie-rod ends, poly torque rods, HD shocks and struts. Imagine going from a busted stock setup to all of that in one night, I remember the first corner I took at speed and how the car was just planted, i was absolutely thrilled how much better it was. I also had a b-cam installed, e-fan mod, 2.25" exhaust, lightened flywheel with M47 swap and sound system installed. I unfortunately ripped out all of the AC and power steering components and thought I would I would be getting moar powah, which at the time, convinced myself it was a worthy mod. I also put on a cone filter behind my grill for awhile but realized it was just inhaling rain waterI daily drove this car until 2017, I ended up picking up a 93 945 turbo (for $500!) which I drove for a year. I tried to fix the AC system twice and failed both times, I gave up, sold the card and bought my first new car, a 2017 Honda CRV (boring I know).
Butter has been mostly sitting since then, I moved from Vancouver, WA back to the west side in Cornelius, OR. I wanted a fun car after we moved, tried to find a 242 turbo build that was good to go and came up empty handed. Somehow I ended up with a 2007 Corvette Z06, bought it from a small dealer in Grants Pass, OR and went all the way up to Canada for our anniversary and back, made it with no problems! Back to Butter, I am in the middle of changing the blower motor, everything came out fairly easy, I was worried due to all of the talk how it's an awful job. Installation is "just" the reverse of removal but I have yet to find the time to put in the new fan and resistor. I am also going to convert it to power windows, which I have everything for. I also would love to restore AC and power steering and I have been reading different threads for the best options to do so. I have recently gotten the itch again for some turbo Volvo goodness and bought a 94 B230FT from a local guy, it has some high miles and is need of a makeover to get up to speed. My goal is to have a 300-400hp capable setup which means I will have to ditch the M47. I had a T5 but sold it shortly after I moved so will either need another one or go a different route. I bought a factory Volvo DANA Posi which is hopefully able to handle what I plan to throw at it. I am going to try and document all of the steps I take along the way so stay tuned.
Google Drive Photo Album:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1frdon0yrAKlGNlyYmdsVb2Fd3wMaZUcD?usp=sharing
Early Days
Kevin helping with my previous 84 242TI
Wet air intake (didn't last long)
Kyle lending a helpful hand!
Towery gen1 inspired 3rd mount (will be removing this monstrosity)
4/20 head on my new-to-me 94 B230FT
Got carbon?
Progress is Progress.