$500 LeMons Endurance Racer Build-Up

Hi everyone. First post here, I've only been reading threads since the forums came back up a few days ago. But my post activity should pick up, seeing as I'm the new half-owner of a 744ti. Black on tan, 5 speed, 200k+ miles. Its in surprisingly good shape. Almost blemish free body, no rust, even runs and drives nicely.



Came with bilstein coilovers, ipd front & rear sways, and the ipd lower chassis brace. Even clear corners and 760 tails.



A lot of the interior was missing, which helped our sale price a lot, but it still had a sparco steering wheel... score!



It's an '85, but someone swapped in the watercooled mitsu turbo somewhere along the line...



My teammate and I picked out this 740 to be our victim... er I mean entry in the $500 24 Hours of LeMons race this July...

http://24hoursoflemons.com/

We were both crew members on this past October's Black Iron Racing team, winners of the people's choice award.



Google Video Link

It was an absolute blast, and we both knew we'd have to field a car of our own in '07. We brainstormed some suitable platforms, and to be honest, the RWD turbo Volvos never made the list. We were thinking MR2/Fiero, maybe even a small FWD turbo hatch. But last week I decided to browse the craigslist "under $500" offerings and came across this Volvo. It didn't take much imagination to see it being competitive so we checked it out the next day at lunch and signed the paperwork after work. Under 24 hours from the first time we actually looked for any car to the time we were driving it home.

It didn't take us long to get things going with the build. This past weekend, we stripped the entire interior and pulled the engine/trans in two days. Our plan is to drop the car down to minimum race weight. Dry ice & chisels on the undercoating. Cutting off any unneeded brackets or panels. Full roll cage, race seat, 5 point harness. Under the hood, we'll keep it mostly stock. A thrice hand-me-downed original Megasquirt (v1.01 pcb) will handle fuel, spark, and boost control (MSnS-E). If we can find one of the cheap cam upgrades, we'll toss that in, and just up the boost & timing with race gas to get a decent amount of power for minimum (nearly zero) dollars in hardware.

Here are a couple shots from the demolition work...







The under-dash wiring harness weighed 30 lbs if it was an ounce.



We can definitely use this forum's advice, either powertrain or chassis, or whatever. After reading some of the threads on here, we haven't built much confidence in the stock manual transmission. Our Black Iron Racing buddies in the 535i had really good results using an ***automatic*** (gasp!) and we're actually considering the AW71 to be a very decent choice. 13 hours of racing, with at least 1 up/down shift every lap (30 second laps) equals about 3000 shifts at 10/10ths. A T5 swap seems like it would be up for the task, but our budget is nil so we have to be able to make an even trade for the parts. Finding an auto owner looking for a manual seems a lot more likely than finding a T5 swap owner looking to swap back to a stock setup.

I've megasquirted 2 different cars at this point, I have a pretty good grasp of whats going on there. We'll run just a standard MSnS-E setup, with a wheel decoder and external IGBTs firing junkyard coilpacks. I do have one question that my searches haven't answered yet. Is there a stock crank position sensor on the '85(+) B230F's? Also, what are the power limits of the stock air/fuel systems? How many hp can the stock fuel pump support? And does anyone have any base fuel/spark maps I can reference when I'm setting up the initial tune?

We absolutely must replace the stock open diff with a limiter of some kind. While welding the diff is certainly a cost-friendly option, I'd much prefer to have a solution that still allowed for the inner and outer wheels to turn at different speeds around some of the tight turns in the race. We'll also be looking for 2-3 sets of spare wheels to race on. We'll likely run one brand new set of r-compounds, and then the spares will be used r-comp takeoffs. Any suggestions for the best/cheapest wheels? Any 15x8's out there? 16x8's? 13x8's?

Let me know what you think of the project. Definitely feel free to toss up links to any road racing related threads, or any info you think might help. I look forward to joining this community, I'm already really impressed with the knowledge base you have built up here.

looks like fun, it should do you proud! (hopefully)

you punk bastard I wanted to buy that car but didn't have the cash on hand

two days later it was gone....

you can get custom 15x8 steelies made up by just about any steel wheel maker. i'm getting some from marsh racing (www.mrt-wheels.com). i'm gonna go for the Ultra Stars with a D window center. should be less than 100 per wheel, i think

13s won't fit up front

The wheels on there are the lightest stock 15" volvo-made alloy. Sirius (or Nova, depending on who you ask). A little on the narrow side, to be sure, but light.

Other than that, I don't have a whole lot of experience with the 700 series, so I'll leave the others who do to it. Good luck, and keep us in the loop!

cool project!

Read the ems forum lots of ms's stuff there. Honestly you can use the dizzy hall sensor and the bosch ignition module for ms's with good (and cheap) results.

Keep the tuning good and the boost resonable and that motor should do ok.

If your staying manual a k cam (and switching to a block mounted 240 dizzy) would be a good choice. The m46 will hold as much power as that motor will make (unless you swap to a 90+ motor) if you shift kindly.

if not i have a good aw71 i'd be willing to trade...

that is the greatest picture ever taken

Wait came with bilstien coilovers?

o rly?

turboluv, where do you live? Local to socal?

I agree, that picture is pretty sweet. Although the work thus far really hasn't been frustrating at all. Taking stuff apart, especially interior parts that you're going to throw away, is really easy. Hacksawing the dash apart instead of removing every single thing for it to come off "nice" was a relief. As was cutting most of the interior/door wiring instead of trying to feed it all back through the tiny access holes with the connectors still attached.

Thanks for the comments guys. We're pumped to get this thing built and out for some track time early in '07.

Lookin' good so far man. Like I was telling you before, not sure if it made it in the conversations, but many of the 90+ 740 turbos came with a factory locker. Maybe scourge the junkyards around there for one. Look for 'linuxman' on here about MS info and maps. And for the people wondering about the bilstein coilovers, I think its jsut bilstein shocks, Kirk, are they yellow/blue or are they black? yellow/blue are the better bilstein HD's, while the black is just the bilstein Touring class (slightly stiffer than stock, but mostly OEM replacement).

socal, eh? that's not close lol. i live in portland oregon

Look for a K cam. There was one on here for $50 shipped.

Ouch. Seems like it's too good of an example to get beat to heck compared to some of the models out there... Maybe swap out those tails and corner lenses with someone who has crappy original ones? Or something.

Anywho, I was just reading about this competition in some magazine. I do believe you guys'll kick some ass! Go for it! 8)

Agreed on the tail-light thing. You should swap for engine stuff + some worse-off tails.
Looks like that event's a great excuse to strip down a car and have some fun on a track!

Yeah, the tails and corners will be long gone before the smash'em up race. We're also hoping to get the car out to a few track days and maybe even a race school before the "final showdown".

Please point me toward any $50 K cams that you see. Slot or no slot, we'll be running wasted spark or coil-per-plug off a crank trigger.

gielamonster said:

Please point me toward any $50 K cams that you see.

Click to expand...

Contact Dale (245gti is his TB username), he sells them.

thats going to be cool!

If you go auto make sure to install a mega tranny cooler.....

if you can keep fluid temps undercontrol the aw71 might standup to the job.... although I would think a manual would be much more reliable.