Volvo 240 Rally Build

In reply to irish44j :

Thought it was something to do with the length? HD's housing too long or something like that.

Been busy the past week buttoning everything up with the struts. 

Painted them in about the worst color possible, leading to some unintended patriotism:

You can see in that pic the sleeve I cut for the lower spring perch, to space it out from 2.25 to 2.5". 

I drilled a vent hole in the lower portion of the strut (an inch above the knuckle). To keep dust out I stuffed that little bottom compartment with some polyester pillow stuffing type stuff:

Had to clearance the escort top mounts quite a bit, aswell as drill and tap new holes with the help of my dad. Standard vs modified:

Installed IPD braided lines in the front:

Cleaned up the taper for the tie rod end in the knuckle. Dad cleaned up the hubs and pressed in new wheel bearings. Smashed the strut tower back down flat from last rallyx's carnage. On that note also changed the heater core hoses cuz a leak in one of them was making me lose a resoviors worth in one run. Absolute bitch of job if you were wondering.

Got one side in:

On top:

Gained 2/3 of a degree of caster (!!!!!!), and still a decent amount of camber adjustment:

Still have to button up the accessory belts and such as I changed the timing belt, mount the new lightweight battery (old one is berkeleyed), mount and bleed brakes, change the rear brake lines, remount exhaust, etc etc. I leave for school in less then a week. Ugh

In other news I got a braile b2015 battery. Old one wouldn't hold a charge. It's 15lbs and pretty tiny and cheaper then the yellow top optimas everyone loves.

Needed it mounted so I could tested drive the car and maybe take it to work, but I didn't have time to do a legit mount inside the passenger compartment. 

So I did this:

Just dremeled out the stock battery tray some, where the edge of the battery sits:

Now fits nice and tight front to back. Also you can't see it but I had to slip some hose on the edge of the metal frame under the plastic tray, so it wouldn't wear through the tie down.

Finally drove the car! First impressions are that the suspension feels great; soaks up the bumps nicely.

All driving was done with the 225 fronts, no sways, and stock sedan rear springs with bilstein HD's.

Over big bumps (speed bumps) the front just eats the bumps. The rear has a bit more trouble and doesn't stay planted, but keeping the front tires on the ground is higher priority control wise. Did a bit of gravel testing on snow tires and the car stayed together and the suspension felt great, but didn't really push it enough to find just how well it handles at the limit. On tarmac the car still handles like a pool needle. Even with the higher spring rate up front the body roll is still horrendous because it doesn't have sways. 

Something funny is going on with the brakes though. Pedal feel is inconsistent and it will often (inconsistently) pull to one side under braking. I think something is screwy with the ABS. The new struts are not compatible with abs (no hole on the knuckle for the wheel speed sensor) so I just left the front wheel speed sensors hanging in the wheel wells. Need to pull the ABS fuse. Then maybe bleed the brakes some more. 

The main reason we use a Optima Yellow Top is for reserve power. We actually ran the entire final two stages at WMWR a couple years ago with a shot alternator - and they were night stages, so we had to run lighting (and a heater)....the Yellow Top's reserve power got us through (and the car literally died one minute after we finished the rally,

In reply to irish44j :

Yea I've actually read about people running then for that reason. Do alternators die often in rally?

Nesegleh said:

In reply to irish44j :

Yea I've actually read about people running then for that reason. Do alternators die often in rally?

In our case the alternator do not actually die, but the constant cycling from really hot engine bay to almost frozen water splashing on it caused the alternator belt to stretch out enough said it would not turn the alternator, even when we crank it to the absolute tightest setting. Knock on wood we have not had alternator problems but I certainly know people who have

some good stuff in here.

the brake thing sounds like it could be a frozen/sticking caliper. see if one wheel is super hot after driving. 

In reply to theyseemebrolin :

Thanks!

Occasional brake pulsing and the inconsistancy led me towards abs. Ended up disconnecting the connection to the abs hydraulic junction block and it solved the problem. 

Side note: pulling the abs fuse does not disable abs.... Also these cars can't run with the abs computer unplugged.

Got around to swapping the cam today. The stock M cam is gutless above 3k rpm; swapping to a B cam (another stock Volvo cam found in earlier 4 cyclinders) will keep it pulling to 6k. They can be had for cheap too.

Now there are a few stock Volvo cams that are better (ie the K cam), but they don't work with my late model ecu (LH3.1) unfortunately. Been told by someone familiar with LH3.1 that this one should work. 

Decided to check the new one for straightness, and found the center bearing surface to difflect .003 as I turned it.

Internet wisdom says the fix is an air chisel taken to the concave side (yes... a bit counter intuitive), which relaxes the metal and makes it true. 

Some work with a hammer revealed that wasn't true for my cam. Turned it over, gave it few more smacks on the high side and it was dead nuts.

Got it in tonight and it's almost back together, just need to order a new valve cover gasket and valve shims.

I might have missed it somewhere, but are you keeping the engine naturally aspirated? 

artur1808 said:

I might have missed it somewhere, but are you keeping the engine naturally aspirated? 

Yea.

Replacing rear trailing arm bushings.

Absolute pain in the dick to do. First had to pull all the rear brake stuff (not too painful cuz I had to do it anyway to get the axles out for the new r and p) to be able to get access with a sawzall to split the old bushing. I split it in two places then pushed one of the split edges in to decrease the radius of the bushing. Then lots of hammering to pop it out. 

Tried a million things but in the end you just gotta keep cutting.

Getting the new one in:

Here's the puller setup my dad came up with (after trying and failing to use a big ass clamp). Bushing gets pushed in from right to left as you tighten with the ratchet. Piece of angle holds the tabs apart. New bushings are stock rubber to allow full articulation of the axle.

This setup is after we crushed a bunch of washers, and we kept shredding the all thread. With more washers and repetition we got them both in. 

Tip if you do this yourself: carefully align the tabs before trying to press the new bushing in. They are fairly easy to bend and even a very slight tweak (as both of mine were) keep the bushings from going in.

Lastly, shout out to my dad for helping with these projects. He is always willing to lend a hand when I need it and he's the reason I've been able to finish a lot of the tougher projects.

Nesegleh said:

 

 

always know your dad is around when you see those shoes on the left....never seen him wearing anything else I don't think :)

In reply to irish44j :

Absolute classic dad shoe. He's got the stained green ones for mowing, the shop ones, and his nice pair LMAO

Small update

Pressed in the rear wheel studs.

Chopped a coil of the (stiffer) rear springs I have. (Moog cc217's - wagon overload springs). Last rallycross the rear would sit on the bumpstops while cornering so stiffer springs will do her some good. 

Rear end is partially disassembled and waiting till I have a weekend to swap the ring and pinion. Old is 3.73, going up to a 4.10.

Diff is back together. Pretty standard swap.

Ended up reusing the center section/diff that was in the car already, along with the accompanying bearings and shims. The only bearing and race pair I used from the junkyard rear end was the larger (rear) pinion bearing. This is pressed onto the pinion so it's easier to just swap the race. 

Had to cut the oil slinger plate to get to the ring gear bolts on the new diff:

After swapping we had to get creative to tighten the new bolts (didn't have a chain wrench with a long enough chain):

Shaped a metal block to serve as a stop to hold the diff while tightening the pinion nut (185ft/lbs). Checked preload, which was good.

Backlash was spot on:

Only concerns is that carrier bearing preload was a little low and also the wheel bearing races can spin inside the axle housing(!!!). I should probably fix that.

Hoping to spend more time actually driving this car this summer, to work and maybe track days. Accordingly I put the front sway (25mm) back on and picked up some sticky tires:

Hankook Ventus rs4 in 195/50r15. 

I done berkeleyed up while trying to take out the old valve shims for measuring.

^ apparently the cam interferes with the buckets if the valve shims aren't in. Pretty sure i screwed up the timing tryna force it too, which means I have to take all the v belts and pulleys and crank bolt back off to reset it. 

Update: managed to unberkeley the cam and get all the old shims back in so I can spin everything freely. Little filing on the edge of the cam and it's good to go. Still need to take everything apart to check timing tho.

In reply to Nesegleh :

If you didn't mess something up on your first engine build, you weren't doing it right :) hell I've built several and I still mess things up here and there or forget to put something in and have to disassemble things to get to it lol

Finally got the car on the ground. 

New valve shims have been ordered, should be able to have the car running next weekend. 

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

What's even better is once we got in there it turned out I didn't actually skip the timing. Good times... 

The races can also spin on my 940, which is a 1041 but pretty similar otherwise. It is what it is, I just ran with it. 

In reply to orthoxstice :

Good to hear I'm not the only one. I don't drive this car that much anyway.