Boosted Pinto.

Thanks for the explanation.

The Volvo 16V heads are super sought after over here and not particularly common either. They breathe better than the 8v heads so are used for high power builds, but a std turbo 8v is a better drive than a 16v n/a (so I've heard)

They are also found on certain Penta (Volvo marine) engines, so if you live near a marina - have a look for an AQ171

Probably a dumb question, but aside from the fact you have the Pinto already, is there a good reason not to use the whole Volvo engine?

The original plan was to use the SVO with its stock cylinder head.

I already bought a dry sump pan, a scattershield, stainless steel exhaust manifold, aftermarket ignition, starter, flexplate, and the wide/round tooth belt kit for it, plus the intake manifold and twin IDF Webers I already owned.
( I got some really good deals on some of these parts, but I still have quite a bit of money wrapped up in them)


The intake will go back on the shelf, and unless I decide to modify it, the exhaust manifold will too.


All the rest of the parts I can still use after the Volvo head swap, even though they are Lima Pinto specific parts.

Fascinating as always.

Can you perhaps rotate the exhaust manifold by 180 degrees even if it means relocating the starter motor, to give you a straighter exhaust exit and lower bonnet line and c.o.g?

It took a while to figure out how to make the timing belt setup.

I didnt like the options with the Pinto tensioner.

I had the idler pulley that matches the belt (Lexus ES250), so I ordered the matching tensioner as well and the pivot point bolt to mount it.

Now I could put the idler on the tension side, it bolts down with a 12mm bolt so it can take some force.

The idler is on the slack side, and the pivot point for the tensioner is 10mm.

I made a mounting plate out of a piece of 1/2" aluminum.

The idler and tensioner bolt to it, as well as the tensioner adjuster, a cooling fluid inlet, and the dry sump pump.

The plate mounts to the threaded holes that were used to mount the waterpump ( I'll put a electric pump somewhere in the car), plus some more bolts on the outside ends.

We used to live in town, but we moved outside of town some 20 years ago.

Which is great.

More elbow room, great neighbours (although we had that in town too, with friendships that still last)

But whenever I need to get parts or supplies I'm doing highway driving.

So over the years I have really warmed up to online buying.

Mostly very positive experiences, even with the international ones (you sometimes worry about international shipping and customs, but most of the time its not a problem at all).

But every once in a while you run into a bad one.

To do a specific machining job, I treated myself to a tilting table.

This will allow me to chuck up the part at a set angle, in a secure and accurate way.

Usually, you get a Email conformation of the sale, with the tracking info a day or so later.

Not this time...

But they did blow up my computer with spam, several times a day in Emails and Facebook.

After a phonecall and a Email from me the spam stopped, but still no tracking info...

( cant wait for it to get here, whenever that may be).


And then the even worse one...

I need a degree pulley to set the TDC and timing on the Blown Pinto.

A VW specialist (very well known name) seemed to have exactly what I needed, so I ordered one.

Again no tracking info, and almost 2 weeks later, no part.

I gave them a call.

"the part hasn't been shipped yet, but I don't know why because we have it in stock"

I have a lot of machining to do that cant happen until this pulley is done first, so I wasn't really happy with that news.

I suggested they'd send the part by overnight shipping to cover some of their screwup, but in the next 2 days still no part.

So I guess the answer was "NO".

Sensing that the people running this company might be as inept as a Australian breakdancer I drove into town and got what I needed from a local VW specialist.

So I can keep going...

Yeah, you probably have to figure out a lot of stuff yourself now, as far as what fits what, and what could be adapted.

But on the other side of the coin, I can get a Weber intake for a B234f Volvo head out of Sweden within a week ( Thanks KL racing), or 45mm DCOE intake mounting rubbers out of the UK ( Classic Alfa) in the same amount of time.

That has gotten a lot easier than it was a couple of decades ago...

Back in the late '80s getting a set of racing tires sent from the UK to the Netherlands was a really big deal, which took a lot of organizing.

But, and I don't know how they did it, I had a set of tires from Demon Tweeks literally show up the next day here in Arizona from the UK.


Credit where credit is due.

It probably takes several people not dropping the ball to make things like that happen.

Starting with a vendor who has things in stock, and remembers to send them...

I made some adapters so I can use Alfa Romeo intake rubber mounts.

I did not want to run the regular O-ring setup, specially with a blow trough system.




I need to do some more work to them, but the hard part is done.







The VW pulley ( the 20% I did not cut away... )






And a pointer I made out of a Big Block Chevy pointer.











The header I made out of the 2 headers.

With a extra port for the wastegate.