Volvo 240 Rally Build

Some volvo rally inspiration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WmoT-hU1sA

the last clip is insane

Well the car seems good to go and I'm signed up for rallycross at summit point on Saturday. Also talked my brother into driving so he'll be codriving the Volvo with me. 

In preparation I gave the interior a nice detailing:

Also pulled the oil filter and checked it out, everything seemed fine so I just cleaned the mating surfaces and put it back together with an extra quarter turn. Seems to have stopped the leak. 

Event recap time

Long story short this ^ is as dirty as the car got :( 

While getting the car prepped Saturday morning we realized the front right wheel bearing was starting to go (likely started at the last event, and I just didn't catch it till Brian pointed it out while doing tech) and the oil filter was definitely not fixed... 

So anyways, in an effort to not have an engine fire and/or have to get a towed back I called it and decided not to run. 

Trying to not completely waste the entry fee we asked around and thankfully Shawn and Katie were super awesome and lent me and Eric their unicorn Miata.

(Pic stolen from Josh's thread)

Aside from the whole not being able to drive otherwise I'm super happy I got to drive this car. Shawn is really quick in it (won PR at nationals recently and repeatedly stomped me when I used to run our e30 in PR with him), and I wanted to see how he does it haha. 

And I have to say, I kinda get it. Where the Volvo turns, the Miata just rotates, if that makes any sense. Completely different driving style and handling characteristics, really makes me want to play with brake bias to try and find the sweet spot in the middle. 

So anyways, between the heat, stressing over the car, and not wanting to beat on a borrowed car we called it a day at lunch. Car made it home alright, although I might have some hearing loss after the drive (straight pipe at 3500 rpm for an hour plus).

Nesegleh said:

 

So anyways, between the heat, stressing over the car, and not wanting to beat on a borrowed car we called it a day at lunch. Car made it home alright, although I might have some hearing loss after the drive (straight pipe at 3500 rpm for an hour plus).

Minor point for future thought: At stage rally, you're going to be spending hours in the car on transit. At some places like NEFR, you may have SINGLE transits (out of many) that are over an hour long. You won't want to have your helmets/comms on, but your codriver will need to be able to communicate directions with you (and also just generally talk). You'll be tired and dehydrated and droning exhaust will make you want to crash into a tree just to end the endless transit. 

So, make sure your car is tolerably quiet to drive for long distances on transit. else you will hate being in it and your codriver will hate you. . I think we did like 250 miles of transits at NEFR. IDK what your exhaust plans are, but don't make them "straight pipe." Also, you need a cat for stage rally if you don't currently have one. 

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Lol yea I just didn't get a chance to do anything about it before the event, and didn't want to put the muffler back on just for it to fall off mid event. 

Think I'm gonna pick up a magnaflow for it. Btw, while we're on the subject, how did you go about welding up your exhaust? Tack everything on the car then pull it off to finish?

In reply to Nesegleh :

Basically yeah. My two front pipes that attach to the header are actually slip in, which made pulling the exhaust over and over fairly easy. so basically I just went piece by piece and tacked things in place as I worked my way back, then welted it all up, and then added a second layer on the bottom of pretty much any place that could make a contact with rocks or whatever to reinforce it. Plus I added two or three additional quick release hangers that bolts into the floor or frame so basically I can drop the entire exhaust by zapping about six bolts with an impact and it comes right out. No stupid donut hangers to deal with. There are pictures of what I did in my build thread probably from about this time last year

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Ah okay that's what I was fearing. I hate under car welding so so much

I'm right there with you on the under car welding thing.  A lift makes it suck less, but it still tends to suck.  I'm pretty bad at getting upside down welds in particular to penetrate nicely, working against gravity and all.  At least with the exhaust you only need to get it tacked in place, then you can pull it out to finish the beads.  

In reply to lxnm :

Yea, throwback to tacking the skidplate while literally sandwiched between the car and the ground, with about 2 inches to spare. One of the few times I've felt claustrophobic.

Lurking on Facebook and I found this gem of the car with the PO.

Why doesn't it look that cool when I'm driving? Haha

Also found this old pic of me:

Zoom in for two wheel action. 

Credit to Steven Phillips/dcrallyphotos

rando question - did you put a hole in the bottom of the stock tube (below the knuckle) so you can access the lower bolt of the strut insert if you need to get it out (and so you could put the locking nut on the bottom)?

Or am I forgetting about some other method to do that?

i.e. here:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

It's a straight shot through the knuckle up to the lock nut, just have to have the ball joint off.

Nesegleh said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

It's a straight shot through the knuckle up to the lock nut, just have to have the ball joint off.

Ah ok, so its already open. Bmw sealed off the bottom of cousw.

Had a nice chat with a driver in Sweden earlier, and he enlightened me on some of his suspension setup. For some background, the car is a Volvo 940 with over 30k into it. It's got all the good bits, solid links everywhere in the suspension, 280hp na b230, sequential trans, etc.

What was surprising to me is that he is running stock rear springs with Sellholm's revalved bilsteins. Literally nothing special, and the car goes like hell. Obviously that's with a nice ramping lsd but still. Granted he is moving to a 4 link ohlins setup this winter. 

So basically what I'm thinking is that, even though the cars have slightly different rear geometry (as I was enlightened to a bunch of pages back... Lol), I should go in that direction. I.e. suck it up with stock springs until I feel the need to buy sellholm dampers (which really aren't that expensive... I just don't need em right now).

irish44j said:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to irish44j :

I used the same stuff on the Merkur.  Honestly, if I were you I'd be pretty tempted to rip apart those HDs and see what's in them- it might be relatively easy to figure out how to stick the Escort insert in there and save yourself some welding.  Did we have this discussion already?  Something something measure the inverted slidey diameter?

yep, we've had this discussion. I actually asked Thomas for measurements of the insert back when he got it. Then got sidetracked by something else so I don't even remember what I determined at the time....will have to go back and look. My recollection is that the HD tube may have been slightly narrower than the insert, but will have to refresh my memory.

Just to follow up on this, The inserts definitely could have fit inside of the regular HD tube. Would have just needed to shorten the tube And welded on a new bottom cab with a hole. however that would have left me without the extended thread for the spring seat.

Well I'm (very excitingly) getting to the point where I'm going to start to doing some actual rally prep. On the agenda is sill protection, UHMW underbody protection, battery cutoff, spare tire/first aid/triangles/glass breaker etc. mounting, speed jack, light bar, pin stands (maybe), and of course roll cage. Have some plans to do the cage with Adam Brock this winter, and am just about ready to drop the deposit. Woo hoo! About time....

Anyways, will have to spend some time on Josh and Nonack's threads to learn some more about this stuff, as unfortunately I've viewed it as "the boring stuff" hence not going out of my way to learn about it. But anyways, very excited to make some actual progress towards getting on stage this January.

Also because I'm stuck at school dreaming about doing rally stuff I'll do a little write up for anyone considering building a 240 rallycar, as I've learned a ton building this and would do things differently if I were to do it again. 

General Car Info

You want LH2.2 or LH2.7 ecu, which I believe is pre '90 back to early 80's (?). LH3.1 is complete and utter garbage. LH2.2 or LH2.7 opens up many options for cams and turbos. Also early model 240's are a bit less robust in a few suspension areas but I'm not sure on specifics. Airbags also complicate moving to an aftermarket steering wheel.

Suspension

Go with Sellholm dampers (the revalved bilstein flavor) all around. Considering the product they are economical, and handle amazingly according to everything I can find on the internet. My front struts are cool and I enjoyed building them because I enjoy building stuff, but at the end of the day (for the 240 chassis) I didn't gain that much. Some more strength customizability yes, but not enough to warrent the engineering project. I mostly say that because 240's already have 8"+ of travel stock, so I didn't gain anything there. 

Pair those with springs adjusters in the front so you can run correct (225-275 lb/in) spring rates. Run stock springs in the rear. Front top mounts are tricky, and if you run the sellholm struts then you'll probably just have to go stock. This is uncharted territory for me.... 

Bushings should be poly everywhere in the front, heim essentially everywhere in the rear. The exception being the panhard and the front trailing arm bushings. YES, splurge for spherical for the rear trailing arm bushing... They are a bitch to change and the spherical joint helps the rear articulate. Toque rods should be spherical and big, the thicker the surround on the heim the better.

Plate the front control arms at the very least, the rear trailing arms are also good to reinforce but less important. 

Remove the rear swaybar. Keep the front and play with disconnecting it to see how you like it. I run without and the car turns in like nothing else but it may be even better with a swaybar, I haven't tried it (I switched to a thicker IPD one early on).

Rear End

Don't be a bitch about it... weld the rear end. If you think it understeers use more throttle. I didn't because I wanted it to be streetable and it was a mistake. 

Run the highest gear ratio possible. Best option is to get an early model (iirc pre '83) 1030 rear end and throw a 4.88 in it. they are very hard to find though unfortunately (atleast here in the midatlantic). Sellholm sells drop in r and p for the later 1031 rear that you could splurge for, looks like approx $700 before shipping... Steep but something to consider. 

Another easyish option is to get a 4.10 out of a 940 or 740, which are easy to come by and fit in 1031's. They're cheap, easy, and will work.

Engine

K cam or H cam are both great options if looking to keep the car NA, especially if you shave the head. Of course turbo is also a great (and easy) option. Be aware LH3.1 is incompatible with all these option, and if your in that boat you should switch ECU's. It's not that hard, and definitly worth it in order to open up options. Don't settle for a E36 M3tier than E36 M3 VX or A/B cam, if your going through the trouble just switch the ECU and get a decent cam.

Chassis

Skidplate should mount to the front radiator support and extend back to the framerails on either side of the trans. 

These cars like to fold in half along the firewall. Fix with either a strut brace that attaches to the firewall (like the kaplehenke one), tying in the strut towers to the cage (PITA due to the plating on the strut towers), and/or braces running between the framerails and the front cross member. You can see I worked this into my skidplate supports, and it stiffened the car immensely (it now will regularly sit on 3 jackstands). Even with those I still want to add cage tie ins to the front towers.

The chassis side torque rod mounts like to pull the weld nut out. Not to the degree that you can't sun the stock mounts, but just keep eyes on em.

Brakes

Braided lines make a difference. Definitely worth it. As for pad I'm not really sure yet.... We will see

So that's where I'm at now. I'm sure I'll have tons more to add in a years time but this is just the stuff that would've helped me when I dove into this build.

Oh yea lastly, and this goes for all builds: DO EVERYTHING AT ONCE. Don't Bob Costas foot around it, if your set on building a car (which you shouldn't be... you should really just buy one) then do a complete strip down of the car and do everything at once. I've now spent 3x as much time as I should have because I've had to have everything apart multiple times, due to insufficient funds/not having a plan since the beginning.

Finals are finally over! And so the cage prep begins.

Nesegleh said:

Finals are finally over! And so the cage prep begins.

 

Make sure you plan on where you are going to put amounts for your in-car fire system that is now required by ARA ;)

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Yea :'(

Nesegleh said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Yea :'(

If you're not following along in the FB group, Matt Pullen is currently offering 15% off and free shipping until the end of the year on the Lifeline 2000 system. Probably best deal it will ever be, frankly. A number of us already jumped on the deal. 

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Yea I've been meaning to pick one up from him, thanks for the reminder. Do you know what the deal is for recerts? 

Every 2 years. Closest recert location that is FIA certed is Bimmerworld in southern Va. I think our plan locally will be to just get everyone's tanks together over the winter 2 years from now and someone (probably me) will drive them all down there and get them all done at once so we don't have to all HAZMAT ship them. TBD.

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Sounds like a solid plan