Hi Tony,
I'm not going for big rims / low profile either - for a start the handling gets too tetchy / jumpy for my liking. The standard 360 alloys look far too.....er...awful for my liking though! The 14s from an early 400 GLT / Turbo look good for seriously little money, but I'm waiting for some of the T5-like 5-spokes from a late 400 - running 185/55 rubber.
Its torque and driving style which kills the transmission, and thats so much harder to put a figure on - There was a guy on here killing transmissions with a more or less standard injection engine - doing rallycross. On the other hand, Kev Strong has 315bhp in his, and has no trouble - but he does rolling starts in his races! I think 250bhp is a good guide for a power limit - but this should allow 6s 0-60, and 12s 0-100! That's certainly scooby eating territory. There's a race prepared car somewhere in Sweden with 740 transmission and rear suspension, running a 2.3 16v turbo, and about 400bhp!! Anyone know what PSI / Bar the standard 740 TIC turbocharger is good for?
A/C certainly was a factory option, albeit probably a late one - its in my 89MY handbook - how strange! There's no mention in the haynes manual though. However, Pettaw's car has A/C, IIRC, and thats an 86 car. How very strange! The button goes next to the air-recirculation button fitted to some cars (where there's clearly space for two....attached is a pic...)
Mine has PAS, and shouldn't affect the turbo conversion too much. Kev S removed his PAS, but this was to avoid the sapping of power. The guy who did the vvspy 360 turbo article reckoned it would be difficult to get the A/C condensor and a sufficiently big intercooler to fit up front.
cheers
James
http://www.volvoclub.org.uk/dc/user_files/183.jpg