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It?s Over 9000! : Delusions of grandeur

DefineGoodGuy

Kavorka
Joined
Apr 15, 2013
Location
Utah
sup guys. Does anyone kno if a s2000 engine bolts strait in 2 a 140?


:rofl: All joking aside, I?ve started this thread to document my attempt at a Honda F20c engine swap into my 1970 Volvo 142. WARNING; Novel ahead.

It all started in March of 2012 when I purchased a Volvo 142 for a summer job that would take me from Utah to the east coast and everywhere inbetween. Out of all the people whose opinions I asked for, absolutely no one thought it was a good idea to buy a 42 year old car of questionable history and at least 320,000 miles on the odometer, for a job that would take me thousands of miles from friends and family. Despite all advice to buy a reliable 90?s beigemobile, the 142 met my requirements of a manual, rwd, with a simple and easy to work on engine. I decided to make the leap.

Long story short, I made it home after 6 months and 30,000 miles, with a little bit of cash, and a newfound love of Sweden?s greatest export. (ABBA aside :-P)

Up to this point, I loved everything about the car. the front/ rear balance was superb, the lack of heating and a/c and door locks and mirrors made it an ?adventure?, and because a previous owner had equipped ipd sway bars, the handling had me taking every corner flat out. My only gripe was with the power delivery. At some point someone had tried to make some extra power out of the B20; it had dual SU?s and a high compression ?E? head, but over time the engine had gotten tired and way out of tune. I spent my months on the east coast dreaming of being able to smoke a WRX, or at the very least the riced out civics that kept passing me on the on ramp. By the time I got back to Utah I was ready for a major horsepower boost and I had some cash left over after paying for school.

I spent a ton of hours poring over turbobricks and poorly translated Swedish websites trying to find the best swap for me. I considered everything from a small block chevy, to a B230, to just supercharging the B20, but none of these swaps were really crazy enough to me or (in the case of a V8) kept the handling that I loved.

One day I was randomly reading about the F1 technology that Honda used to design their f20c in order to have the highest horsepower per liter of any n/a production engine (120 hp/ liter), and I decided to do a quick craigslist search just for fun. The one search result that came up was a crazy cheap f20c in Las Vegas: the same Las Vegas that I was going to for a dragracing championship that very weekend.

Fast forward a week and there is a Honda powerplant and transmission sitting in the middle of our shop. I spent a solid 5 months tracking down parts of the complete wiring harness and an instrument cluster on ebay while trying to find anyone online who would share their knowledge of removing the s2000 immobilizer and bypassing the chipped key. Anyone who thinks TurboBricks has more than its fair share of trolls, whiners, and pricks should head over to an s2000 forum. You would think that god himself had come down to give them the keys to their glorified Miatas and told them to shun all outsiders. :-P

I ended up tracing every single wire in the 40+ lb wiring harness until finally after at least 10 years of lying dormant, the beast awoke with a roar :D With the mind numbing electrical out of the way, I could finally do what I do best; hack some **** up. :boink:

The first thing to go was all of the interior. Rear seats, carpeting, door panels, headliner, tar paper (pain in the butt to remove), etc. This uncovered a fair bit of rust, mainly in the driver footwell and driver side rear footwell, but nothing structural or too hard to remedy. That giant hole where it looks like I rolled over a landmine is actually from when I thought the footwell drain plug was a jacking point... I know, derp. :e-shrug:

It was around this time that I happened to see another 142 on ksl.com without an engine, for 300$. Without thought of why I might possibly need a second 142, I convinced my dad to hook on the trailer and we were off to pick it up. It was in pretty bad condition when we got it to the shop, but having never seen a Volvo 140 in person other than my own, I was glad to have it. Besides, now I had 2 cars and 2 engines, what could go wrong...

Next up was the fun part; removing the engine and disassembling the front end. I made sure I gave her a final drive before tearing in and with all the nonessentials removed and only a driver seat left, It was a blast. A very loud and earplug requiring blast.

The engine, front clip, and quarter panels were off in less than a day and the fitment of the engine began. Despite the fact that I was going from a 2.0 liter to a 2.0 liter, the size of the Honda is insane. Even without the factory header, the engine is nearly as large as a V8 and it has a front sump rather than the B20?s rear sump. I toyed around with just about every possible solution, from a hole in the hood (don?t worry, I didn?t consider this too seriously), to stuffing the rear 2 cylinders into the cabin. (see http://www.speedhunters.com/2012/09/when-is-an-escort-not-an-escort/) Despite the advantages of the latter setup, (better weight distribution, clearing the front crossmember, clearing the steering box, and easier exhaust routing) I wasn?t keen on having to pull the engine to change a spark plug. I decided to put the engine in more or less the same position as the B20 which would require total removal of the crossmember, some machining of the steering box and alternator, and a very creative header.

First, a temporary crossmember was welded to the bottom of the A-arm mounts to keep the alignment correct and then, with the persuasion of a grinder and sawzall, the crossmember was dropped. After dropping the engine in and pulling it out about 6 times, it finally sat where I wanted it. The next step is fabbing up a crossmember that goes back around the sump and possibly under the front as well. After that is engine mounts, lathe a driveshaft adapter, and fab a header (not looking forward to that one :-( ). Long term plans include Volvo 240 brakes, all new poly bushings and a limited slip diff. Even longer term plans may include a borgwarner turbo and all that entails :badboy:

:blah: Whew! That?s about where I am at. Before the mobs converge on this thread, obviously, I realize that putting a Honda anything into our beloved bricks is asking for a lynching, but before you try to find the sound reasoning behind this swap, realize that there really isn?t any. This build is coming from a kid who, rather than buy a car when snow starting sticking to the roads, attached skis to his motorcycle. This combination of car and engine came about because I found an engine that revved to 9,000 rpm and I thought that sounded like fun! In conclusion, all trolling, feedback, hating, and possibly even loving is welcome! Let me know what you think and what you?d do differently! Pics Below

Note: I am not Petter Solberg
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The 142 as she sat originally
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The most comfortable seats to ever hold a posterior. :wiggle:
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Teardown begins
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The worst of the rust
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Is this some kind of rudimentary air freshner scent? :rofl:
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Tar paper removed
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The dash removed. Ah, the joy of simple electrical
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Headliner removed
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The little B20 just chilling
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Oooh, what could it be?!
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Temporary engine stand fabbed.
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Modern meets classic. Love at first site
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A/C delete because racecar. And because holy crap it's tight in that engine bay.
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Bundle of joy arrives in the mail :roll: This is about a third of the harness
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OMG, I lurve electricity!!1!111 :omg:
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Cluster arrives. Why yes, that does say NINE THOUSAND! :cool:
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The Volvo in the shop after moving under B20 power for the last time
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... Well, as much of the shop as I could clear out. :roll:
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This may or may not have been from pretending I was a l33t dr1ft3r. :oops:
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Lookin derpy without a spoiler :omg:
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Bottom of Spoiler. This is how you know your Volvo is low enough. :cool:
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Just Wrenchin. Like a bauss.
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Just about ready to come out.
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Heave ho
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Ok, I've probably violated every thread etiquette law in existence and some out of existence but does anyone care to give the noob a hand? :please: I've tried adding raw links to the pictures as well as embedding them via the insert picture tool but they don't seem to work. Do I need to be given permission by a mod?
 
Thanks!

Continued...

The heart transplant is truly underway.
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Wow, there's still some engine under that grease!
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So empty...
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Autozone muffler. Straight to the trash.
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It almost fits!!! twss. Yep, I think the crossmember needs to go.
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Welding up the temporary crossmember.
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Crossmember is out!
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Volvo Over-engineering :nod:
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Quarter panels off. Wishbones ftw.
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So Close!!
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Hmmm... who put that steering box there?
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I don't think the stock headers are going to cut it... :pow:
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BTW
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fa5.jpg
:rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
damn, this could be awesome

you better figure out something slick for that cross member. They are pretty heavily stressed on a stock 140.... cutting it apart and not bracing properly is recipe for disaster.
 
A custom fabricated subframe with tubular arms, coilovers and r&p steering is in order. The lower arms won't hold up to heavy sway bars (ask me how I know).
 
Thanks for the support and feedback guys. Turbobricks is an awesome resource.

Tomorrow is the last day of finals so I hope to really crack down on this project and hopefully provide somewhat constant updates.

I definitely see the merits of a custom sub-frame, it seems like all the hardcore 140 swaps go that route but I am not so sure of my ability to engineer that kind of a structure with any type of load bearing capacity.

For now the plan is to use some 3/8" steel to cap off the cut ends of the crossmember and then run a fairly thick piece of rectangular tubing lower and farther back than the stock member. Would that be enough or should I maybe angle a second tube to come around the front of the sump or maybe underneath it?

One of the interesting things about the 140's suspension is that everything (springs, upper and lower arms, crossmember) are all only attached with a few bolts to the frame rails. This could make for an interesting custom upgrade in the future.

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Alright, the updates are not as frequent as I would like, turns out working a 40 hour week is way more work than school. However, progress is being made!

Crossmember is in. Wiring harness is almost done. Exhaust components, fuel pump, radiator, and hoses are all on their way from Jegs. Paint and rust repair is in progress.

I will have some pics up when I get half a moment but for now I have a couple of quick questions.

First, I obviously want to upgrade to poly bushings all round but is Vintage Performance the best place to get these? $455 strikes me as a quite a bit, but ordering individually from ipd would likely be similar. Any alternatives out there?

Second question, before starting the engine swap, the 140 had a really loud thud from the rear end when going over bumps at speed. From doing some research I found that the most common causes are improperly cut springs or a panhard bar that is too long. As far as I can tell, the springs are properly seated top and bottom. From looking at my ride height does anyone know if a stock panhard could be causing the thud? If so, how do you know how much to shorten it?

Thanks in advance guys! Hang in there for exciting updates
 
I just called the warehouse back east and they agreed to restart their computers (they were closing) and verify price & availability. Front & rear poly kits $275 not including swaybar bushings. That does include the front upper & lower bushings with shells. Everything is in stock and ready to ship.

Ipd wants over $500 and that doesn't include panhard rod bushings.
 
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the 140 had a really loud thud from the rear end when going over bumps at speed.

Did you empty the trunk first? If the bushings aren't totally hosed, then it's probably the shock bolt in the trailing arm. The updated mount is a stud that bolts to the arm instead of a bolt that goes all the way thru the shock and arm.
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