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With the Mustang gone and my recovery progressing to the point where I can tinker, I thought I would give a little detail on the next project.
It's a '85 Volvo 244 that will get a SBE 6.0L, NextGen billet 78/75, TH400 and a narrowed Explorer 8.8 with 3.08s. Will be an occasional fun driver and of course it will see the track with 9.60-9.70 as the goal. Will probably feel like someone is pushing the car but at least I won't hurt myself.
Got the inspiration for a Volvo after I did a 2JZ-GTE/5-spd swap in a '80 244 for a buddy and bought mine as a roller from a guy who had plans for a LS swap but abondoned the idea to focus on another project. Nice, clean car but unfortunately he planned to build a race car and ripped out and discarded all the HVAC components. At a minimum, I want to put the heater assembly back in and trying to find all the pieces. Been collecting swap parts for a couple of weeks, searching high and low for any bargains I can find. Started tinkering a couple of days ago and made the mods for fitting the radiator and I/C, made more difficult by using a 28x19 radiator and 31x12x4 I/C. With a 4.5" grinder, a welder and some fab skills, you can make anything fit. That's pretty much all I can do for now until I get another project off the lift.
This is not going to be the typical detailed build but I'll post updates as I have them. For now, progress will be slow as I am only good for a couple of hours in the garage and with no lifting and limited bending.
I've made progress but not things I can show in pics yet. Car is still on the ground under another project that is on the lift and hope the lift will be freed up this weekend. In the meantime I am limited in what I can do on the car but I borrowed a mockup engine and with water pump and radiator/fan assembly in place, that allowed me to determine turbo placement on the frame rail and down pipe routing using flexible aluminum vent tubing. Turbo support brackets are off being TIG'd and tubing on order. Mostly I've been collecting parts and the garage is overrun with parts and 2 project cars in pieces. That's it for now.
If it helps you - I set mine up this way....ICT Billet low mount alt; Caddy CVT power steering pump; Alan Groves low mount a/c compressor. Put the remote mount power steering reservoir up on top of the motor.
Quite the challenge, but 4" DP fabbed and tacked together to be TIG'd. Pie cuts are your friend when you have to make funky bends in tight spaces.
This is a mockup of how the exhaust will be run. Right after the v-band, it transitions down to 3.5", will turn down slightly to clear the starter, have a 3.5" electric cutout at the tranny tailhousing, then 3" to the rear for the street.
Test fit 350Z 17" wheels with the big Volvo 13" brakes.
Struggled getting an exhaust manifold to clear the steering shaft and f-body location alternator. I normally use a truck manifold with f-body accessories spacing, but with Corvette spacing and the Volvo steering shaft, it was quite the challenge. Big shout out to Michael Yount for his help with this. Tried LS2, LS3 and CTS-V manifolds and ended up with the good old truck manifold. Need to get the tube by the alternator pointing down for the v-band then properly insulated. Would have been easy to do a pass-side hi-mount alternator, but don't care for that look.
Pass-side uses a CTS-V drivers-side manifold, flipped. Outlet is between 2 & 4 and up high to give the clearance for the 3.5" exhaust tube. Pic makes it look like they are close but they are not.
Volvo rear-end is out and Explorer rear-end is narrowed with all the brackets tacked in place for trial fit when I have all the pieces and some muscle to help with the heavy lifting.
FTI Level IV TH400 and custom built 10" converter.
SBE LQ4 waiting in the wings for teardown, Gen IV rods/pistons and Summit stage2 cam.
08-30-2020, 09:10 PM
The Next Journey - Turbo LS Volvo 244 
