240 General: New (to me) 1980 Volvo 244

[Bugjam1999]

Originally Posted by 360beast

Does that plug in to the original non LH2.4 loom? I was talking of removing the dash as Alan was talking about buying a 940 turbo donor car so my advice was very relevant. I'm interested to know more about these conversion looms though as they may come in handy for me at some point.

Some confusion here - the wiring looms for the 200 and 700/900 series cars are not interchangeable and also there's no reason to remove the dash from either car to convert it to 2.4. In fact, you'd be well advised not to.

Consider this diagram for a 700/900 series car

https://www.240turbo.com/700harnesses.jpg

as you can see the loom comes through the firewall in two different places, compared to the 200 where the loom comes through in one place on the left (nearside) of the car under the glovebox. Removing 900 series loom and trying to transplant it into a 200 will involve a huge amount of effort to reroute the loom to the inside of the car and require a lot of new connectors etc.

I turbo converted my 240 before the conversion looms were available using the engine harness from a late 240 with 2.4 and then ecu connectors etc. from a 940 loom... it took a fair amount of time, cost money in new connectors and then required trouble shooting and wire tracing after it didn't work first time. I do not recommend this approach.

As I said in the turbo conversion guide I linked to a couple of posts back, the wiring options to convert a 200 series car are:
1.) the madness of trying to convert a 900 series loom
2.) a 2.4 loom from a late 240, with just the parts you need retained (a friend and I took this approach with his car, it works fine)
3.) conversion loom

In terms on the connections needed, the 2.4 loom (from options 1-3 above) sits alongside the existing wiring harness and doesn't need to integrate with it. It needs a decent power feed from the battery or the busbar next to the headlight relay, ground and obvious connections to the engine, but it doesn't require splicing into the existing car loom as such, so no need to remove the dash etc.

The looms are here:

https://www.elbertbos.nl/index.php/e...wire-harnesses

Cheers

[Bugjam1999]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Useful but i think Alan (the OP) wants to do it in a way that would be contemprary to the age of the car and more importantly, as simply as possible using parts that could/would likely have been common in 1980 when the car was built.

For that reason the B230E fits the bill quite well, although injection it's K-Jetronic so if the whole engine including the fuel distributor is transplanted, there's only a few electrical connections to add and i'm fairly sure they can be picked up from the OE fusebox and possibly the loom may already contain them. After all, the K-Jet system was used in the 240 models back then so it should make it more "plug'n'play" that way.

Yes, I fully understand Alan's intended approach.


Alan, a couple of things to note-

Swapping to K-jet will require a conversion of the fuel system to an electric pump with flow and return, with associated extra pipework and a new fuel sender unit with space for an in-tank pump on it. Given that this will come at a cost, and added to which remembering that the k-jet components on any donor car are all pretty old by now, I'd suggest that sticking with carbs to power any engine swap would be an easier approach.

I think I've mentioned this before, but your speedo is driven by a cable drive on the gearbox, you'll need to be sure you can swap this over (I think someone linked a thread showing the swap of an autobox tail unit when this was mentioned before?) as not all 240s and no 700/900 cars came with cable-drive speedos.

Cheers

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

The compression ratio in a B23E/B230E is higher than the carb engine Alan so they would be the first choice. If you chose to bin the K-Jet system you could still use the head on the engine by fitting some bungs in place of the injectors. It also usually has the V cam as standard. It would probably make sense to switch to high octane unleaded if running a B23/230E engine but you'd see the benefit in improved power and economy.

Also thanks to you and to Clifford for confirming my thoughts on the chrome plating. It's a long time since i scraped an O level pass in Chemistry and not really used it much since so it's in the brain cell somewhere in a long-forgotten, very murky and dusty corner!

Ah, I see Dave. So a B23e/B230e would run with a twin carburettor set up (on premium fuel, that would be most sensible)? - have higher compression, a higher performance cam and if I had a B21 type distributor would have exactly the same (fuel, water and electrical) plumbing as the RB? If I've understood all that correctly then that would be a sensible way to go. A TC set up would be very 1980.

You may have noticed above that I asked Luke about a B23(xx) bottom end from a fire damaged car he has gathering dust in his garage. I have a spare B21a head (the old one from the RB) that I could clean up, get it tested and skimmed, then fit a cam (try to find a second hand V cam perhaps) so I had in effect a B23b on the shelf (it would need an inlet manifold and some carburettors plus a distributor (maybe also a different auxiliary shaft if it is from a B230). If that is a viable project it would make sense to change the seals and sump gasket on the bench (and maybe the big end bearings and rings at the same time). Again, I'm just thinking aloud, but any comments would be much appreciated.

Re the nickel plating kit: I think you had mentioned above that you were considering a copper layer to combat bubbling. I think that is probably what is required. Copper is quite easy (and cheap) for plating, so a nice thick (and therefore smooth) barrier layer would be possible before you apply the nickel for a durable and shiny finish.

I think I'm right in saying the chromium layer is there because nickel tarnishes over time - but that can be a nice finish in its own right.

Many thanks on the advice re motors Dave, this is really helping my thought process.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Bugjam1999

Yes, I fully understand Alan's intended approach.


Alan, a couple of things to note-

Swapping to K-jet will require a conversion of the fuel system to an electric pump with flow and return, with associated extra pipework and a new fuel sender unit with space for an in-tank pump on it. Given that this will come at a cost, and added to which remembering that the k-jet components on any donor car are all pretty old by now, I'd suggest that sticking with carbs to power any engine swap would be an easier approach.

I think I've mentioned this before, but your speedo is driven by a cable drive on the gearbox, you'll need to be sure you can swap this over (I think someone linked a thread showing the swap of an autobox tail unit when this was mentioned before?) as not all 240s and no 700/900 cars came with cable-drive speedos.

Cheers

Many thanks again,

See my note to Dave above - I'm tending towards a 2.3L carburettor solution, to an extent because of the points you made, but also because a TC set up might have been something someone might have done back in 1985 - and it would have been considered a good and sensible modification to a 5 year old car at the time - so more in keeping with the RB's ethos.

I think we had discussed the speedo drive issue previously. I'll have to look back in the RB thread and find the answer, but I think it was that the BW55 speedo drive tail unit would fit the AW71 box (this would need checking again - I would not want to have to fit a differential from a 740 and certainly would not want to change the instruments to an electronic speedo).

This is all aiding my thought process. I've just (deliberately) taken the RB out for a drive (to Gretton to have a cursory look at a few new houses that are being built on a small site that I may be interested in, but really just to get a feel for the RB again). I have to say the RB is running almost faultlessly for a 40 year old car now, everything works: it is comfortable, steers and brakes well, doesn't leak any fluids, and the performance is pretty well okay. A bit of me is saying 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' - at least not until something needs a repair - then change it for a better part (like a AW71 box or B23(xx) motor).

Alan

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

Ah, I see Dave. So a B23e/B230e would run with a twin carburettor set up (on premium fuel, that would be most sensible)? - have higher compression, a higher performance cam and if I had a B21 type distributor would have exactly the same (fuel, water and electrical) plumbing as the RB? If I've understood all that correctly then that would be a sensible way to go. A TC set up would be very 1980.

You may have noticed above that I asked Luke about a B23(xx) bottom end from a fire damaged car he has gathering dust in his garage. I have a spare B21a head (the old one from the RB) that I could clean up, get it tested and skimmed, then fit a cam (try to find a second hand V cam perhaps) so I had in effect a B23b on the shelf (it would need an inlet manifold and some carburettors plus a distributor (maybe also a different auxiliary shaft if it is from a B230). If that is a viable project it would make sense to change the seals and sump gasket on the bench (and maybe the big end bearings and rings at the same time). Again, I'm just thinking aloud, but any comments would be much appreciated.

Re the nickel plating kit: I think you had mentioned above that you were considering a copper layer to combat bubbling. I think that is probably what is required. Copper is quite easy (and cheap) for plating, so a nice thick (and therefore smooth) barrier layer would be possible before you apply the nickel for a durable and shiny finish.

I think I'm right in saying the chromium layer is there because nickel tarnishes over time - but that can be a nice finish in its own right.

Many thanks on the advice re motors Dave, this is really helping my thought process.

If the B23 bottom end is the one i'm thinking of Alan, i think that came from a B23ET 760 Turbo that Luke Broke many moons ago but i could well be wrong. If it is though, the pistons will be different to lower the compression ratio so wouldn't really achieve what you're looking for.

A twin carb set up would be nice but you'd be looking at a pair of 40 DCOEs which would give one intake per cylinder unless you could find a suitable manifold for a pair of SU/Stromberg carbs. For the state of tune you're looking at, the twin-choke Weber i linked to ages ago in this thread would be the easiest choice if you are staying with a carb. This would give single carb economy when used "sensibly" but twin carb performance when you give it the beans as the twin throttles are sequential rather than simultaneous. This would be a 32/36 DGV, possibly a DGEV (electric choke) but apparently it's also possible to fit a 38DGES or 38DGAS which is a simultaneous twin-choke.

https://classiccarbs.co.uk/product/v...-45-twin-carbs

That's the inlet manifold for a pair of DCOEs ^^^^^ but a better bet would be one of these :

https://classiccarbs.co.uk/product/v...t-manual-choke

https://classiccarbs.co.uk/product/w...s-manual-choke

Either of those would still provide a manual choke and would be a fairly simple "spanner job" to complete although setting the mixture would ideally need a gas analyser.

The 32/36 would give you a "two-stage" throttle whereas the 38 would give a single stage.

My choice on a B23/230E engine would be the 38DGMS as that would take advantage of the cam and higher compression - you could also advance the ignition timing by 3-6 degrees (trial and error) for the best performance/driveability/economy and the throttle would be more progressive in line with how it currently behaves.

Also the 38DGMS is roughly equivalent in performance terms to a pair of twin SU/Stromberg carbs and you might even get improved economy due to improving the efficiency. On my old Mk1 Cavalier, i firstly fitted a 32/36DGEV and later upgraded to a 38DGES - the economy improved as did the performance and was a lot more progressive throughout the throttle range. I also had a high lift cam and a few other tricks on that engine.

[Bugjam1999]

I know little about carbs or what might be suitable - but a couple of years ago I bought a weber 32/34 dmtl on a 740 inlet manifold (I think it was a 740 one) that had been set up for a b21a on a rolling road. I intended to fit it to the 1978 245 I owned at the time but didn't get around to it before I sold the car, so I didn't drive the car with it fitted. I've subsequently sold the carb to a friend, who also hasn't had a chance to fit it (yet).

Potentially another carb to look for Laird Scooby? Perhaps you can advise.

I managed to find a photo of it, which is attached.

CHeers

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Bugjam1999

I know little about carbs or what might be suitable - but a couple of years ago I bought a weber 32/34 dmtl on a 740 inlet manifold (I think it was a 740 one) that had been set up for a b21a on a rolling road. I intended to fit it to the 1978 245 I owned at the time but didn't get around to it before I sold the car, so I didn't drive the car with it fitted. I've subsequently sold the carb to a friend, who also hasn't had a chance to fit it (yet).

Potentially another carb to look for Laird Scooby? Perhaps you can advise.

I managed to find a photo of it, which is attached.

CHeers

I'd be inclined to go for the 32/36 or preferably the 38DGxS, the 32/34 was mainly fitted on smaller engines such as 1.4 Fiestas and the like. Usually for a 2.0+ it was at least a 32/36 as the 32/34 could have been potentially restrictive at the top end.

Something i did notice while looking earlier for the conversion kits, some listings for the B20/B21 engines include the 400 series Volvo. Highly doubtful they would fit if they're designed for the redblock as the 400 uses Renault engines so although the 2.0 petrol is still called a B20, it's not the same B20 as a red block. Just something to watch for!

[360beast]

The bottom end I have is a B230ET (different to a B23ET) bottom end, I do have some B230FB pistons 10:1 compression and 13mm conrods too.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by 360beast

The bottom end I have is a B230ET (different to a B23ET) bottom end, I do have some B230FB pistons 10:1 compression and 13mm conrods too.

Thank you for that Luke. In that case I will not be pursuing that line.
Alan

[loki_the_glt]

If you can find a B230E from a 240 (essentially you'd be looking at/for the GLT model) it already has the block-mounted distributor fitted, so that's one fewer problem to solve if fuel-injection and normally aspirated is how you want to proceed.

I've got a 163k mile GLT but it's not (currently) for sale; I've been made aware of a 240 that might be available for breaking in the near future but don't know what spec engine it has.