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Hello everyone, welcome to my build of the Volvette (sorry Anti-Team for stealing the name). The car of choice is a 1990 Volvo 740 GLE. The engine, suspension, brakes, wheels, transmission, differential, wiring, steering, and partial frame is from a wrecked 2004 C5 Corvette.
Back story: I have always had a thing for very unique cars and have way to much time on my hands. Also happen to be a bit of a gear head.
Why a Volvo? One of my buddies had a 740 wagon in high school and it was hilarious how slow it was. We always joked about putting a larger engine in and making a sleeper. Some years later, now acquiring a little bit of knowledge and money I have finally put this project in motion. Some may ask, why not just drop a Twin Turbo LS1 and call it a day. Well for one, that has been done before; and another, it wouldn't handle and brake very well (for some reason the aftermarket parts world isn't to large).
Why a corvette chassis platform? Well it's actually a very unique car for its price range. Its almost all aluminum, has double a-arm suspension (maybe not so race optimized camber curves but better than a Mcpherson), has a "trans-axle" (i know its not a legitimate trans-axle since its actually two separate units bolted together), and makes decent stock power.
The Build: Some assembly required. See my partial build video, should get the idea across.
Design:
Engine: N/A, Heads/Cam package after its running
Suspension: Corvette, change to coil-overs
Fuel: 1 LP Pump feeding a surge tank to a Bosch HP pump regulated at the engine
Brakes: Unassisted Wilwood double master petals running stock corvette calipers (to start). No ABS
Cooling: Griffin universal 3'' radiator with surge tank and heater core to keep me warm.
AC: Delete
Steering: Adding a cooler, other than that stock, no air bag
Oil: 3/4 stage dry sump system (in spot of AC), with oil cooler
Transmission: Adding a cooler, adding temp gauge
Differential: Adding temp gauge
Interior: Custom with a cage, must retain rear most backwards seats.
Project Goals:
1. Car will be street machine with a secret dark side
2. Car will be reliable at track days
3. Car will be reliable and semi comfortable on the street
4. Body will remain stock
Don't like the build, please move along then. My time, my dime. The people who truly understand how to build a car should at least appreciate the craftsmanship, time, and ingenuity that goes into a build of the caliber. Will it be as fast as a corvette, of course not. The engineers have optimized the design of the corvette and I am taking away and modifying it. Will it be faster than a stock Volvo, well that's the goal and I think it will be achieved. And I messing up suspension geometry, sure. I have a little more knoledge than most about suspension geometry and am fully aware that lengthening the wheelbase and narrowing the chassis will affect load transfer rates, ackerman, optimized suspension camber curves, weight distribution, etc, etc. All I'm looking for is a better handling car than a stock Volvo and the corvette platform gave a cheap and upgradable way of achieving this.
I'm digging it too. How did you make sure the section of Vette frame was where it should be? width wise square etc....?
Lots and lots of measurements. First, I leveled the Volvo body on the lift and strapped it down to it. Next, I set my master plumb lines for each corner and checked my cross measurements to insure square. To my complete surprise, laying the plumb lines off the body panels yielded square and accurate so those became my master. The vertical placement of the corvette frame was achieved my compressing the suspension and putting the frame as far up into the wheel well without interference. The rear vertical was done off the front vertical and the offset which I found out. The rotation was handled with a level since the frame rail is horizontal. Measurements were taken off the rims which were set parallel before setting in place.
Extra checks were then taken on frame rail to frame rail distance and everything seemed to add up so I welded it in. Hopefully its close enough to keep me out a ditch.
I have learned that we take for granted the systems in your car which work flawlessly every time you start up. Most of us don't realize the amount of engineering that goes into these things. Just designing the cooling and fuel system I realize how much goes into them (and the small packaging of them). But anyway here is my fuel system design.
Fuel Cell: Summit Racing 16 Gallon (SUM-290108)
First Filter: Russel Performance 100 Micron
Low Pressure Fuel Pump: Carter Universal Rotary Vane Electric Fuel Pump, 370 lph
High Pressure Fuel Pump: Bosch 044 External Fuel Pump, 200 lph
Surge Tank: Custom
Final Fuel Filter: Aeromotive 100 Micro
Regulator: Aeromotive w/ gauge
Hose: Russel Braided nylon AN6
Surge Tank Design:
Calculated max fuel consumption with 32lb injectors @ 80% Duty cycle (little extra for when I go heads/cam) and got 32.5 gal/hour. My Surge tank with a 3.750'' ID and 6.000'' height will hold 1.086L which is good for about 30 seconds of fuel. This seemed more than adequate for my road racing needs. Ideally the tank will do its job and keep the fuel going, but you never know. Already blown up one LS1, don't want to add another to my list.
The inlets are also offset to create clockwise flow to reduce cavitation. I was worried about this with the high flow of the LP pump. Maybe overkill but I'm a design once and forget about it kind of guy.
For some odd reason the wheelbase of a corvette doesn't match that of a Volvo 740. Due to this, the torque tube (and drive shaft within) need to be altered. I figured there were 2 ways to accomplish this. 1) Cut the welds where the casting is welded to the 4'' tube. 2) Cut the center and insert a new tube and weld into place. I decided to go with option 2 due to not having to hassle with cutting the welds and trying to reweld 6061 to casting. Also since I could more accurately measure the new length. While this may not be the strongest method the only forces the torque tube holds is the engine and transmission weight that's not on the motor mounts (if that makes sense). Its basically a bending force down.
The TT comes apart very easily. It's really simple when you think about it.
Cutting in half past the insert round plastic thing on the driveshaft so it doesn't interfere with putting back together. Not sure what that piece is for. No turning back now.
Turned up both end so the new piece fit right in with a slight press fit. Also chamfered all the edges for good penetration.
Grind smooth. Still needs a little more work but I didn't want to undercut the area with the grinder.
Next step is to get a drive shaft shop to make me a new drive shaft 4'' longer than the old.
Been working on the firewall. The original plan (8 months ago) with the engine placement was to move the engine forward on the corvette subframe. I got the chassis in and instantly realized that was not going to be possible with the steering rack only 1'' from the pulleys. What this caused was the motor to be well into the firewall. So I had to basically cut the entire firewall out and make a new one with a big inset (or a mechanics nightmare like my 2000 TA). It's a very time consuming process but that's just part of putting a corvette chassis in a Volvo. Surprising I don't envision working on the engine to be difficult as anything greater than a throttle body change I will drop the entire chassis out the bottom.
This also caused other currently unsolved issues.
1. Tight pedal area with it offset to the left. Hoping this wont make it awkward to drive.
Possible solution: Move the seat further back (already not planning on running rear seats) and mount the pedals at the new rearmost firewall area.
2. Brake master mounting - I plan on running a Wilwood double master pedal assembly. Haven't done any measurements yet but I have a feeling its not going to fit to well. http://www.wilwood.com/Pedals/PedalP...emno=340-11295
Possible alternative: run bottom mounted slave cylinders.
3. Steering Column - To be centered to the driver seat the steering column is going to be very close to the firewall portion that runs front to back. I still haven't figure a good way for the steering shaft to run as narrowing the sub frame made things a little tight.
Possible Solution: Notch out the corvette frame a little for shaft clearance. May need to custom make a column due to tight clearances.
4. Wiring - I don't want to hack up the original wiring on the motor. The wire loom goes to the fuse box and computer. I plan on running them inside the car but its going to have to be a huge grommet b/c to drop the engine the computer and fuse box connectors will have to go through the firewall.
Possible solution: Disconnect the wire harness from the engine which could be a huge PITA
The plan right now is to complete the firewall, figure out steering/seating, then mount brakes/gas.
Got the firewall metalworking complete. Just some welding/finish grinding left on that end (waiting for a cooler day to do that). But it will now fit an LS1 as it sits in a corvette. Now I know why the dash is so long on that car. Good news is I have plenty of room for a radiator.
Got to see how the torque tube looks after lengthening.
Little different looking than when I started.
Next up: Surge tank fabrication and front end metalworking (frame pieces and wheel well)
07-12-2015, 07:49 PM
Volvette Build - 1990 Volvo 740 
Good news is I have plenty of room for a radiator.
