Volvo P1800ES...kinda

I'd vote for the Volvo/Yamaha V8 as power plant, possibly with forced induction if more power is required than the three hundred and whatever it produces as Volvo has a decent tradition of turbo charging.

That's really only because I'd like to see a Volvo engine in a Volvo body, the Miata chassis I'm putting into the "suspension pickup points may have been adjusted somewhat" bucket.

Other than that I am slack jawed when it comes to considering the current project in terms of planning, commitment, skills displayed etc, so could not really put forward any change to the actual execution observed so far.

From the beginning, the design intent for this project was to build a Monster Miata with a P1800 body. The Volvo DNA was always going to be the first to be sacrificed; all I ever wanted from the Volvo was the unique skin deep styling. To that plan I have stayed pretty focused.

If I ever do another chassis swap, I will find a donor with a proper wheelbase match. That was a bit of work.

If I ever do another chassis swap, I will skip the engine swap to the donor chassis. It adds a lot of $$$ to the budget and departs from the OEM intent of the finished project.

Things I am concerned about:

Brakes. I agree they look spindly.

Plastic fuel lines are not confidence inspiring.

While supposedly made for the job, transmission cooler looks a bit small for the AOD

De-powered the steering rack.

Handling. No idea how this is going to handle out of the box. Might trailer the runner to a slalom event and give it a proper thrashing to see how it wants to kill me before I hand the car off to Mrs NOHOME

Track width. It really stuffs the wheel-wells. With the tumble-home rear quarters, you show a lot of tire out the back.

Chinese aluminum heads. Cant find any measurable faults and not asking for any real performance gain other than light weight, but they sure do stir up controversy on the interwebs.

Is it going to keep its cool? I hate a car that won't sit in traffic and stay cool.

Fitech EFI. No experience with it and not sure about it's reliability long term.

Catalytic converters. Are they going to do anything way back where they are?

AC/ heat intrusion. Will the car cool enough to be enjoyable? I hear the originals are like driving a personal sauna.

Stuff I still need to figure:

Wiring. The Minion figures that I should buy painless or some such. I want to strip out the Miata harness.

Wipers. Neither Volvo nor Miata OEM are going to work. Pretty sure I can do something, but no idea how yet.

I agree with the minion about using a hot rod harness. I believe it will be easier to design and trouble-shoot than trying to modify and re-purpose the Miata harness. Consider the Miata harness was designed for - a Miata - with all of its various parts located in specific spots. Now many of those parts have been shifted. Some in minor ways. Others in drastic ways. A hot rod harness is by design meant for accounting for these location unknowns. You will still use the Miata harness for connectors to switches and whatnot you will be reusing.

I'm not familiar with how powerful a Miata A/C system is, but the ES greenhouse does generate some heat when it's sunny and air flow through the cabin isn't ideal. In the 1800 community it's fairly well known the original dealer installed system can struggle to keep the cabin cool, as it was designed for the smaller coupe cabin.

I still think de-powering the steering rack is a mistake. The car is not going to be light and I would assume you're looking at a 195 width tire, at least.

For wipers, I don't have an answer. That was actually one of the things that concerned me when I first started dreaming of doing what you're doing ages ago. I would love to find a way to make the Miata mechanism work as the Volvo system is barely adequate. Better than the Lucas system you are probably familiar with in your MGB, but still not up to current standards. To be honest, I would damn near design the entire dash and firewall around making one or the other work.

The only thing about this that I would potentially do different is the firewall-to-cowl junction. Something about the flat bulkhead poking out beneath the hood opening irks me.

Having not had my hands on it I don't know that anything different could have been done with the space allowed but that's probably the only thing I'd want to try to do different.

Have you looked into the street rod wipers? I want to say it was atoloc or keep it clean that makes one with a remote mount motor that drives via cable through a 1/2 inch conduit. Ive put a few in. They are an absolute pain in the ass to install, but once done work flawlessly and simply. I think they offer intermittent and 3 speed versions.

This is the best one ive used

NOHOME wrote: Had a feeling you would come along with this!

Well, having had the old 5.0L and an LS3 in the same car -- the difference is front and center every time I go for a ride.

As for harnesses, brakes, wipers, A/C and such -- suspect the answers you come up with will be every bit as elegant as what you have developed thus far.

Dusterbd13 wrote: Have you looked into the street rod wipers? I want to say it was atoloc or keep it clean that makes one with a remote mount motor that drives via cable through a 1/2 inch conduit. Ive put a few in. They are an absolute pain in the ass to install, but once done work flawlessly and simply. I think they offer intermittent and 3 speed versions. This is the best one ive used

That looks awesome. It generally appears to be a modernized and adjustable version of the Lucas wiper set-up in my Spitfire and GT6. I will definitely look into these for my ES. Partly because the original mechanism uses up a lot of under-dash space (for the mechanism and the required room for it to do its thing) that I would like to have for HVAC bits. I think I can bury the motor inside a fender cavity, netting even more room.

Heck... if it works well, I'd consider swapping out the less than wonderful Lucas system in the Triumphs...

"Excellent Smithers..."

Dusterbd13 wrote: Have you looked into the street rod wipers? I want to say it was atoloc or keep it clean that makes one with a remote mount motor that drives via cable through a 1/2 inch conduit. Ive put a few in. They are an absolute pain in the ass to install, but once done work flawlessly and simply. I think they offer intermittent and 3 speed versions. This is the best one ive used

I am aware of these and it is on the possible solutions list. Question I have is "How is it better than the Lucas wipers that use the same idea?"

The back of my mind still wants to use as many Miata parts as possible and hence keeps noodling a solution that uses the Miata motor and linkage spliced into the Volvo spindles. Or something like that...

I have no real experience with well functioning lucas wipers, so i cant really say. I know that the streetrod stuff works a hell of a lot better than the stock wipers in my 73 midget did. But that may be the difference between wore the hell out 40 year old stuff and new.

Just trying to share a potential solution.

Newb, scratching my head here and asking questions! I've been learning a great deal through your work and I want to say a big THANK YOU! I do have a question (kinda answered in one of your earlier post on this page).

Did you fill the tank with water, or fuel to make sure that the tank would fill completely? Was the height of the filler neck taken into consideration?

Finally, I didn't notice in any earlier posts, but are you planning to cover the relocated extension to keep road debris from slicing it? Thanks again.

My hunch is they took the Lucas design and just made it better. Likely with a more powerful motor.

So far, the only LBC I have owned with reasonably decent wipers is my Spitfire. Which is almost ironic since the previous owner never drove the car in the rain while he had it. I do know the Lucas mechanism can benefit from a good cleaning and re-greasing, but even the cars I know the wipers have been rebuilt still don't work great.

The idea of making the Miata mechanism operate the Volvo spindles is possible. However, I fear you should have thought of that before you built the firewall as I seem to recall the two systems mount differently. I suppose it really boils down to how much time do you want to invest into it.

2GRX7 wrote: Newb, scratching my head here and asking questions! I've been learning a great deal through your work and I want to say a big THANK YOU! I do have a question (kinda answered in one of your earlier post on this page). Did you fill the tank with water, or fuel to make sure that the tank would fill completely? Was the height of the filler neck taken into consideration? Finally, I didn't notice in any earlier posts, but are you planning to cover the relocated extension to keep road debris from slicing it? Thanks again.

The tank inlet is steel up to above the top of the tank. I did this on the advice of a member who mentioned that rubber is never really fuel proof, so I bent up a piece of SS exhaust pipe and welded it on. Should be at least as tough as the bottom of the tank. The tank is mounted up quite high, so I don't expect a lot of road debris to be getting near it.

I filled the tank with water to make sure there were no leaks. Of course there were but easy enough to grind back the weld and seal up. After the water-boarding, I stuck a heat gun in the pump hole and made sure the inside was bone dry.

I am scared silly of welding on a tank that has had fuel in it. If I ever change this design, I will start with a new tank.

NOHOME wrote: The back of my mind still wants to use as many Miata parts as possible and hence keeps noodling a solution that uses the Miata motor and linkage spliced into the Volvo spindles. Or something like that...

So my curiosity made me dig up a picture of the MX-5 wiper linkage. I'd say it's definitely possible, although you'll likely have to do a fair amount of fabrication to mount the motor and adapt it to the Volvo spindles/linkage. The two mechanisms share a basic design. It might be easier to keep the Volvo linkage and adapt it to work with the Miata motor, which should allow you to keep the switch controls you understandably want to retain.

How are you coating the inside of the tank from corrosion now that you've welded on it?

tuna55 wrote: How are you coating the inside of the tank from corrosion now that you've welded on it?

Cross fingers and hope it does not become an issue?

I wouldn't be worried about it.

Steering is crossed off the list. And by that I mean that I have a complete connection between the steering wheel and the rack that did not require any welding of the shaft and I have cleared the header (with a bit of hammer work)

Converting the steering column from a round shaft to a Double-D required finding and buying the universal joints that do the conversion from Mazda spline to double D shaft. Nice pieces but I hope to never have to do business with the supplier again.

One side effect of the new u-joints is that the column is raised about an inch. So my carefully located hole in the firewall finisher got hacked up. One more thing to fix.

With the drivetrain in place, I was able to confirm that my clearance goals from cutting up the tunnel were a success. I did trim a couple of tabs on the AOD box that stuck out a bit and seemed to contribute nothing to the cause.

Confirmed that the battery will fit where I want it to. need to find a base for it and some tie-downs. Since the battery is out of a Nissan Versa, I might go looking in the scrapyard for the bits I want.

The yellow that you see in the picture is where the fuel lines are going to surface from inside the frame-rail. Need to make a cool blister of some such like I did a the back where it goes into the frame rail.

Awesome!

Possibly useful info for your junkyard battery tray search: That looks like a 51R battery, also very very popular in Honda's. Only some versa's had that battery, depends on transmission (CVT/4spd auto/manual).

Run_Away wrote: Awesome! Possibly useful info for your junkyard battery tray search: That looks like a 51R battery, also very very popular in Honda's. Only some versa's had that battery, depends on transmission (CVT/4spd auto/manual).

That is very useful to know. This is a dead battery out of the wife's 2012 Versa with CVT.

Are you planning a gear reduction starter with that group 51? That battery may not be quite enough for hot V8 with a conventional starter.

Crackers wrote: Are you planning a gear reduction starter with that group 51? That battery may not be quite enough for hot V8 with a conventional starter.

Should be fine. Engine is not anything special certainly not a high compression or crazy cam.

What I'd do differently:

Motor - LSx, or S2K. Trans - manual. Wheels. Maybe. I don't recall where you landed.

I love the project despite these.

DILYSI Dave wrote: What I'd do differently: Motor - LSx, or S2K. Trans - manual. Wheels. Maybe. I don't recall where you landed. I love the project despite these.

"Motor - LSx, or S2K."

Yeah, better power plants, but just think about it, this engine and this car were both contemporaries and there was even a brief flirtation with having the 302 adopted by the factory. I have this weird thing about classic cars getting classic engine swaps and neither the LS nor the S2000 qualify for that in my mind.

"Trans - manual."

Speak to Mrs NOHOME.

"Wheels. Maybe. I don't recall where you landed. "

Nowhere yet. The wheels and tires I have are there because I have them. I don't hate them, but I think there is a better choice somewhere.

Are we vacationing with the in-laws ?

NOHOME wrote:

tuna55 wrote: How are you coating the inside of the tank from corrosion now that you've welded on it?

Cross fingers and hope it does not become an issue?

I used this red-kote stuff.

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/build-thread-for-the-72-gmc-finally-thanks-john/59103/page58/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009X0JOSM/ref=asc_df_B009X0JOSM4987311/?tag=hyprod-20&creative=395033&creativeASIN=B009X0JOSM&linkCode=df0&hvadid=168489986144&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9296942673474262183&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9010793&hvtargid=pla-307199442621