DefineGoodGuy
Kavorka
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2013
- Location
- Utah
sup guys. Does anyone kno if a s2000 engine bolts strait in 2 a 140?
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 )
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.
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 With the mind numbing electrical out of the way, I could finally do what I do best; hack some **** up.
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.
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
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
The 142 as she sat originally
The most comfortable seats to ever hold a posterior.
Teardown begins
The worst of the rust
Is this some kind of rudimentary air freshner scent?
Tar paper removed
The dash removed. Ah, the joy of simple electrical
Headliner removed
The little B20 just chilling
Oooh, what could it be?!
Temporary engine stand fabbed.
Modern meets classic. Love at first site
A/C delete because racecar. And because holy crap it's tight in that engine bay.
Bundle of joy arrives in the mail This is about a third of the harness
OMG, I lurve electricity!!1!111
Cluster arrives. Why yes, that does say NINE THOUSAND!
The Volvo in the shop after moving under B20 power for the last time
... Well, as much of the shop as I could clear out.
This may or may not have been from pretending I was a l33t dr1ft3r.
Lookin derpy without a spoiler
Bottom of Spoiler. This is how you know your Volvo is low enough.
Just Wrenchin. Like a bauss.
Just about ready to come out.
Heave ho
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 )
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.
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 With the mind numbing electrical out of the way, I could finally do what I do best; hack some **** up.
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.
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
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
The 142 as she sat originally
The most comfortable seats to ever hold a posterior.
Teardown begins
The worst of the rust
Is this some kind of rudimentary air freshner scent?
Tar paper removed
The dash removed. Ah, the joy of simple electrical
Headliner removed
The little B20 just chilling
Oooh, what could it be?!
Temporary engine stand fabbed.
Modern meets classic. Love at first site
A/C delete because racecar. And because holy crap it's tight in that engine bay.
Bundle of joy arrives in the mail This is about a third of the harness
OMG, I lurve electricity!!1!111
Cluster arrives. Why yes, that does say NINE THOUSAND!
The Volvo in the shop after moving under B20 power for the last time
... Well, as much of the shop as I could clear out.
This may or may not have been from pretending I was a l33t dr1ft3r.
Lookin derpy without a spoiler
Bottom of Spoiler. This is how you know your Volvo is low enough.
Just Wrenchin. Like a bauss.
Just about ready to come out.
Heave ho
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