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The red 1986 745 build

Hmm. Definitely interested in those adjustable control arms, I wonder what kind of adjustability they offer. Probably just min to max Volvo length but who knows. More than that might screw up the front control arm bushings. I think I'm around 5 and a half degrees now with 390.5 mm arms and new normal rubber bushings. More would be exciting.
 
Well turns out I had the 390mm arms already, so the setting I had for the 7 degrees of caster was at 400mm, so that is what I went with for the new arms.
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I also noticed that the new arms came with the shims intentionally welded on at an angle, to relieve some of the strain in the conical bushes.
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For easy install, I put the length at 385mm, and determined the thread pitch to be 1.5mm, so 1 turn would result in 3mm of additional length.
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This also yielded 55mm of length in between the adjusters, with a total remaining thread length of 28mm.
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I decided 20mm of thread engagement was where I'd like to be, for 400mm length, given that the thread measured at 14mm, giving a bit of safety factor over the one thread diameter rule of thumb. The sticker indicates washer orientation to make sure I got it right
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Putting it all back to torque spec was a bit of a pain, as the lock nuts kept spinning loose when tightening the bolt on the end of the control rod. A bit more muscle on those did the trick, and I retightened for safety afterwards once more. The wheel now looks kind of funky in the wheel well, but it handles nicely:-P
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On other news, I found a td04HL 7cm3 conical housing, for cheap since it has a slight crack, but it will do to determine if I want to invest in the angled flange setup before splurging 250eu on a newly produced one
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Given that my turbo engine has been reliably performing for a few months now, I decided it was time for the old beast to go. I freshened it up with new seals, timing and paint, and sold it to 2 local guys who are rallying their 142 across Europe, so its found a good home.
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My oil cooler kit also arrived from Sweden, so I got that installed. It's a mocal unit with thermostat, which made me struggle a bit, as I lost my 1inch socket. Luckily the adjustable wrench worked well enough to get it tight.
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Decided on getting the biggest unit they offered, a 25-row, such that I can open up a air path behind the license plate if I need to. No plates for trackdays, and then back to covered up for road use, to allow a bit of extra cooling for both the radiator and oil
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With the new space created when I cut out some space for the intercooler, the hoses found this nice route
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The bottom gets a lot of air flow from the air dam underneath, it cools well in this spot from what I could tell from the first km's with the setup, highway temps clearly dropped a bit on the oil temperature gauge.
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I decided to go a bit overboard with the rubber isolation, since mocal only warrantees with plenty of support. I also ordered some nice hose separators, to keep the hoses from rubbing together and on other parts.
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Some heat protective sleeve is also on its way for the hoses next to the downpipe as I am a bit worried about the heat in this area long term.
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Turbo dyno!

With this weeks holiday from my thesis, I finally got around to dyno the new engine!

To get the most out of the 3 runs usually offered by Van Vught, I did a first run on 0.9bar (178whp@324Nm), a second one at 0.6bar (173whp@300Nm) and a third at 0.3bar (147whp@239Nm) to see how the chipset does on different levels.
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The car ended up making a little less than the US run on the chips (although within 5whp), possibly due to the reduced timing 95RON tune I used. The lambda reading down below were taken from the tip of the exhaust, and showed values that I don't quite trust, those will have to wait for confirmation by a downpipe mounted lambda. I might also get into a set of diy knock headphones, just to check if its pulling timing and going rich as a result.

On the LPT 0.3bar wastegate run it made at least 10hp more than the volvo spec, and the same for the HPT 0.6bar run, showing me that the light port and to 8.7->9.3 bumped compression did increase the engines efficiency. We also did a additional run to see what the 13c did at 1.0 bar, but this made less power and torque, showing the drop in turbo efficiency. Given that the turbo kept pulling up top, the limit was not in the exhaust/turbine side from what it appears, as noted by the tuner at VVT.

Before the dyno when checking over things, I found this little bugger, which caused my stalling and flutter issues. Apparently I accidentally put the good one in the shelf turbo, so that was an easy fix. I also previously added a 10lb spring from kinugawa, to make sure it kept shut at the raised boost levels.
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I also finally got around to fabbing up a strut brace, starting with a bit of fire and this nice thickwall tube, to get a few bends going
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Made up a few cups to connect to the strut tops
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And decided on some support bracing, such that I could still access my fluids
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A bit of welding, cutting and not taking pictures later:-P
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Installed after a bit of black. It does wonders, much less chassis flex, and a lot faster steering response, well worth it for the time it took
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Dyno numbers look good, probably within dyno to dyno variance. Doubt it would run really at all with the indicated AFRs, or at least you'd be wondering why you have another liter of oil in the pan every time you checked it...

I like how it keeps pulling all the way to redline, basically.
 
I like how it keeps pulling all the way to redline, basically.

Yes it's wonderfully smooth, I've never stacked so many miles on the car in such a short period, for now I'm just going to enjoy it for a bit. It's almost a shame to mess with the setup from this point:-P

Getting back on my list of sorting the tedium, my power steering line was rubbing on the ic pipes, worn and too long, so I got a bunch of speedflow power steering fittings. Awesome quality, and super easy to assemble if you get the proper kit from them.
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The rack received a m14x1.5 and a M16x1.5 to AN6 adapter with a washer seal.
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The return fit in nicely with a 90? 3/8" barb, however the feed had to go the other way, due to clearance issues. Possibly a straight fitting or a 45 would have worked better here, but given I had to wait 2 months for this to clear customs I made due:)
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A clamp and a hard to see rubber grommet were added to keep the rubbing to a minimum.
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The pump side received a m16x1.5 inverted flare to AN6 adapter and fit up nicely in between the various wires and steering runs. At last no more air in my fluid after hard driving!
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I still need to add a oil cooler in the return at some point, but that can wait for now. A cheap AN6 cooler kit
should do
 
Last week I got the opportunity to visit the motherland, where wild fields of tuned 740's appear, and parts are still abundant:) I also visited KGtrimning, to discover they are a pretty small shop and visisted several scrapyards during the weekend.
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I scored a non rusty red hatch, to replace the on on the car currently, which took a bit of a fight since volvo uses these annoying riveted fasteners, which spin almost instantly if you get Swedish winters involved. A bit of a polish and swapping the trim, and it looks great again!
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Since I ordered a revised set of boards for my EZK design, I installed that just in time for some holiday stress testing
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We took a trip up to Liege in Belgium to explore the local routes, plenty of elevation and sketchy descents to go around, succesful trip for sure!
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On the way home the alternator died, luckily we just arrived on campus and only had to push for 500m. It was a pain to pull out, but I managed to swap in the spare. Closer inspection showed that somehow the copper electrode and bottom brush got into a fight, smearing copper/carbon paste across the contacts, possibly sand and oil got mixed in there? I retightened the valve cover bolts since a small leak developed, but it didn't look to be getting near the alternator, maybe leftovers from the previous engine.
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Since the dust shields I made up were still kicking around my room I got those fit in place, they will come off when I get the rears done as well, so I can borrow my dads bead roller for some added stiffness. I also discovered my KL racing brakeline failed around the fitting, they kindly sent a free new one, so that should be fixed soon
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It took a while but I finally got around to fixing my brake lines and installing the rear dust shields, and took up a trip to the 50th anniversary of the Dutch Volvo association. Left to right, my dad, me, my brother.
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The shields turned out pretty nice, although just like the front they'll receive a trim and a bead roll eventually
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When jumpstarting my brother I noticed a weird chatter coming from the back of my cylinder head, turns out the cam plug popped out partly due to the crankcase pressure. A magnet did the trick for getting it out fully:)
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I cleaned it all up, put on some permatex aviation sealant, hopefully it will hold. In any case the wasted spark distributor should keep it in place enough to prevent a BP scale oil spill.
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The PCV system also got revised, removing the temporary oil spraying, smell providing filter setup
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The chinese catch can got a new place in the setup, with the backmost hose going to an additional bung on the oem breather. I'll also add the oem vacuum flame trap thing back in or a pcv valve to the manifold as I'd like to improve off-boost evacuation
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In preparation for the new turbo, I ordered up a few new intercooler tubes, to clear the 012 MAF setup, which didn't clear the current straight shot that is in there.
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I still need to get it trimmed and bead-rolled but that will come after winter storage when I have access to the car again, the fit is already pretty good now also clearing my coolant lines
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Some testfitting for a 200x200 pipercross filter good for 380bhp according to the site shows it will be tight, but I should be able to get an airbox going.
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During the install I confirmed that either my PCV setup needs some more work or that my 13c is leaking a bit, both fairly reasonable assumptions.
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I also scored some 485cc injectors from a megane rs3 injectors, and got a mint billet MAD pcv adapter to sort out the stock plastic PCV setup. The silver thing is a one way valve, which I intend on plumming through the catch can to my intake.
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After parting out my downhill bike, I had some budget left over, to sort everything else I'd need amongst which is a AEM wideband finally. I'm also planning on monitoring boost, intake pressure and temperature, turbo inlet/outlet temperatures and building a datalogger to record it all to fit in the little space next to the cigarette outlet in the dash. Hopefully something to finish during the winter months
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Why did you ditch the B21 intake manifold?

I bought one and know preparing it is difficult (holes for the injectors etc.) but I'm convinced it flows better than the late B230FK ones.
 
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I decided going with a custom manifold with a proper tapered design would be just as difficult, so I opted to go that route eventually if needed. It was just laying around so I decided to sell it
 
Much work & progress this past year!

Couple questions - why not put the oil cooler in the factory location? Unless you build a screen fro it, it would seem in the spoiler opening is less than ideal.

On the PCV front - it looks like you are using line fittings that are all too small ID - any vent lines should be the same or larger than factory if you don't have the factory crankcase evacuation setup - so, at least 14mm ID. Most eBay/Chinese Catch cans are horrible in terms of orifice & fitting sizes.

For overall enjoyment of your posts it would also be nice if you got some better light on your otherwise excellent photo documentation, and include full size images instead of thumbnails :)

Keep up the good work!
 
That wouldn't work in my case, since the car has the big 940 radiator. In terms of airflow there weren't many options, placing it in the grill in front of the radiator would've placed the lines on the bottom reducing the cooling.

The lines for the pcv are all 13mm, so it should be alright especially when I add the second Chinese can in place of the stock system to be in parallel. The current system appears to keep up alright for now, adding a valve to the manifold should provide some additional evacuation hopefully.

The pictures are just the cheap phone I'm afraid:-P
 
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I also use a cheap (not iPhone) phone - you could still light them better :)

Nice work here. Can you also share what diameter & wall thickness tubings did you use for the two parts?

I also finally got around to fabbing up a strut brace, starting with a bit of fire and this nice thickwall tube, to get a few bends going
VzEs6jll.jpg


Made up a few cups to connect to the strut tops
PWP4Yxkl.jpg


And decided on some support bracing, such that I could still access my fluids
K4lVkrfl.jpg


A bit of welding, cutting and not taking pictures later:-P
HhfvNVql.jpg


Installed after a bit of black. It does wonders, much less chassis flex, and a lot faster steering response, well worth it for the time it took
TTpkrtjl.jpg
 
I believe 2mm, given it was a leftover bit from a turbo manifold I welded up with 1.5D 90? cast bends. Diameter of the thick tube was 38mm, with the thin ones being 1.5mm wall, 20mm diameter
 
Missing bits update

To update all that was missing after the outage of the forum, a new post! First off I got these awesome spares to clear the big brakes (with spacers). Demonstrated here by my brothers mint beige 744:
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Also finally managed to put a bead roll on some charge pipes and my rear dust covers for some extra stiffness. Fronts will follow eventually given the work involved to remove them:-P
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I got a 45 degree bend to clear the new 012 intake I'll be fitting eventually, and to also correct some of the angles on the turbo hoses given the new turbo going in
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With that sorted, time to get the old 13c removed
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And get to fitting the new 13c/18T hybrid with 7cm conical housing:cool:
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Finally installed the wideband as well, to keep an eye on things. What a pain to pull the wire through the reverse light boot, but I managed.
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The tune was suprisingly close as it were, so I'll be fitting an ostrich this weekend to dial in the T cam with this setup, before moving on to a V cam I scored to bump the revs a bit
 
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