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BB-Q's 142 16v turbo project

It would probably be easiest just to swap the cams from side to side

Without knowing anything about the heads I would assume the exhaust and intake cams have different durations.. maybe lift?

Yeah cams are different for sure as far as that goes. I meant maybe timing would be off since you'd be running the cams in the "wrong" direction if you swapped them from side to side w/out flipping them front to back like you would be doing if you mounted the head 180 degrees.
 
Yeah cams are different for sure as far as that goes. I meant maybe timing would be off since you'd be running the cams in the "wrong" direction if you swapped them from side to side w/out flipping them front to back like you would be doing if you mounted the head 180 degrees.

Ok, I hear ya. but it's a multipart head right? can you just rotate the bottom part, get the oil in and out, the water jackets should line up but you might need an electric water pump??, swap the cams from one side to the other and then the timing would be the same as it was before, just on the other side of the engine.
 
You guys are over complicating things. If you are making custom manifolds- as I am- the only thing you have to consider is valve size unless the cooling on the head is at it's limits. Since there is no evidence of this it would be very interesting to swap things round. Change valve sizes, swap the cams over, job done.
I'd invite a discussion on this in P & S, but it would just turn into the usual bitch-fest and it's just not worth it. Shame, because it's potentially incredibly interesting.
 
oi , read me post ,swap the head round .

ports are different , which whatever you say , sort of precludes any performance enhancement from doing it .

and ANYWAY , if i can hang an RS500 turbo of an 8 valve and have a steering column about 1/2 inch away , how come you can find no way of doing something better ?
 
In fact, after some very brief thought I can't see anything more serious than having to change the valve sizes.......
You realize the exhaust ports are surrounded by water jackets and the intake ports are not, right? Not sure how long the intake ports would last as exhaust ports. Plus, this seems like a totally assbackwards way of doing anything.
 
You realize the exhaust ports are surrounded by water jackets and the intake ports are not, right? Not sure how long the intake ports would last as exhaust ports. Plus, this seems like a totally assbackwards way of doing anything.

Considering he's going from a-arms to struts, ass-backwards seems to be an emerging theme in this build.
 
Considering he's going from a-arms to struts, ass-backwards seems to be an emerging theme in this build.

Dude, he's making a drag car that he sometimes drives on the street. Whatever is lightest, gives him the most room, and works at the height he want's the car to ride at is fine for the front end suspension.

As for reversing the flow of the head.. he can make the exhaust better.

What's your problem?
 
You realize the exhaust ports are surrounded by water jackets and the intake ports are not, right? Not sure how long the intake ports would last as exhaust ports. Plus, this seems like a totally assbackwards way of doing anything.

I figured there would be something like that.. so rotate the head 180 deg.
 
Considering he's going from Volvo's pretty nasty a-arm setup to Volvo's far more sensible strut setup, it's a pretty good idea.
I done gone fixed that for ya ;-) Now, if the double wishbone arrangement was purdier, it's be a different matter...but it's not, so...

cheers

James
 
reverse the intake and exhaust? sounds like a horrible idea, coupled with a waste of time and money.

coming from somone who really hasnt done much of anything to there car. i hate when people who have less experience try to down some of the smarter people on the board.
 
Dude, he's making a drag car that he sometimes drives on the street. Whatever is lightest, gives him the most room, and works at the height he want's the car to ride at is fine for the front end suspension.

As for reversing the flow of the head.. he can make the exhaust better.

What's your problem?

Look at his tag line. It explains everything if you take out the "kinda" part.
 
Rack and pinion in a 140.

Or more accurately in my case, 240 steering and suspension geometry and components in a 140.

Not for the faint hearted, I can tell you.

I started by making a new crossmember. I need to point out that the change from double wishbones to struts alters the strength requirements of the front end drastically, as the forces are acting in different directions. Before, the corssmember needed to be a pretty massive strutcutral member as it was taking all the suspension forces. This altered the design of the inner wings too, as the reinforcement that goes straight to the top of the crossmember is no longer required ( I was removing them anyway, but was concerned originally that I may have to replace them with something tubular). With a strut front end the majority of the suspension forces act upon the strut tower and not the chassis legs or crossmember. I'm not saying that there aren't forces on the legs, just that they are greatly reduced.

With that In mind I made a new crossmember and rack mounts. It's offset because there are major hassles with the column- more of which later:

IMG_3028.jpg


IMG_3029.jpg


Even with the rack mounted to it it weighs about half what the old crossmember did.

This done I carefully measured where the rack should be- taking into account that the distance between the lower ball joint and the track rod end is half an inch less on the 240 as opposed to the 140. Otherwise I would've ended up with the wheels half an inch too far back in the arches. Measurements made, I welded it into place. Here's a few pics showing the position and proximity to the sump. I have around half an inch of clearance (very stiff poly mounts, remember?):

IMG_3044.jpg


IMG_3039.jpg


Next I had to devise a way of connecting the rack to the original column. Here I've used a mixture of 740 and 940 parts because, well, they seemed the best fit. The fact that I get a collapsible section for safety is just a bonus!

I started by hacking off the end of the original column:

IMG_3030.jpg


I then carefullt ground out the centre of the stump of column to accept the end of a 940 shaft (and killed angle grinder number five in the process.:grrr: ):

IMG_3033.jpg


IMG_3034.jpg


The steel is lot thicker than it looks in those pictures!

With the 940 column a snug fit in the shaft I dummy built everything before tacking it into place. Satisfied that all fitted I welded it fully, and then ground it neatly, as it is a piece that will be clearly seen in the engine bay:

IMG_3035.jpg


IMG_3036.jpg


Et Voila! Rack and pinion steering!

IMG_3043.jpg


One slight problem though. As some of you will know, the chassis legs on the 140 are closer together than the 240. This creates a problem whether you are doing this in right hand drive or wrong hand drive, as everything is mirrored. The problem? The column has to go through the chassis leg!

IMG_3032.jpg


I've got round this by moving the chassis. C-ing is a term sometime used, I believe. I've had to cut all the way through to the outer skin of the leg to make everything fit, so I've made a box section to transfer loads and welded it on:

IMG_3037.jpg


IMG_3045.jpg


I need to puul the engine to do the same to the inside of the leg, but the engine hoist I've been looking after for a friend for the last year has just gone back to it's rightful owner. Arse.

To add to that I was going to pull the engine out myself today, but my back's been playing up of late and I didn't want to risk it. It's strong enough for the moment, although I wouldn't want to drive on it.

Next step is to make the lower arms and the upper rails to mount the struts to. I'll post it up when I've got more to tell. :)
 
That looks like a lot of misalignment in the u-joint, can the steering column come down at all?


edit:// when are you gonna say "screw this" and just build your own tube frame? :lol:
 
That looks like a lot of misalignment in the u-joint, can the steering column come down at all?


edit:// when are you gonna say "screw this" and just build your own tube frame? :lol:

There is a lot of misalignment, but I checked it very carefully and there's no tight spots or sudden acceleration/deceleration of the joint as you sometimes get with such angles on UJ's.

I've thought about the tube thing very seriously, but I've got hundreds of hours invested in this chassis already and- cage and a bit more restoration work aside- I've broken the back of it. To start again now would be frankly ridiculous.
 
interesting solution to the steering problem, but like Adrian said, is there any way to lower the output of the steering column to get a less severe angle on that u-joint?


I figured there would be something like that.. so rotate the head 180 deg.

ok, couple things required to do this:
-relocation of oil feeds and drains in the cylinder head (well really, it simply wouldn't drain oil anymore.) oil feed will be on the opposite side by another bore/
-relocation of the water inlet (somewhat trivial, assuming everything else lines up)
-relocation/redrilling oiling for cams and lifters
So yeah, just do that. its easy enough. the cam box might line back up.

Can you not make the engine run in reverse, so you stick the turbo on the intake side and vice a versa.
You'll then be the quickest volvo going backwards, until you turn the diff over.

just set the ems up wrong and it'll run backwards the way its set up right now..
 
There is a lot of misalignment, but I checked it very carefully and there's no tight spots or sudden acceleration/deceleration of the joint as you sometimes get with such angles on UJ's.

That might change once you load it up, maybe have somebody hang onto the output shaft of the rack to load it up?
 
I wanted to keep the original column, so no (despite the stuff I've done, I'd still like to keep as many original parts as possible).

WRT the head idea. I may look into it in years to come as an interesting exercise, but for now I've gained enough space that I don't have to worry about it any more.

Binding on the column? If you could look at it in person I think you'd be less concerned about it. I really don't think there'll be a problem there, but time will tell.
 
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Can you cut the steering column even shorter? If you can, you can drastically reduce the angles on the UJ.
 
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