Aka the
Turbo tastic Viking long boat
I haven't been very active on here lately. I did own this 1972 Hillman hunter which went through a couple of "evolutions", but ultimately ended up with an MX5 engine running on IRTB's and scary handling at high speeds.
The hillman was great, but i fancied a change so i put it up for sale and ended up swapping for the big old barge you now see below:
Perfect, Just what i wanted. Light weight, nimble, good brakes. Everything i wanted for the hillman, but didnt have the room to build for it, Oh, wait. Its a volvo estate.
BUT
It had a V8 in it It didnt run of course, but who cares! 3500cc's of pure rumbling bliss... if it ran...
After my exploits with the Hunter, i've worked out old wiring and established that the best thing to do would be to just start again with the engine wiring. Itwas running had an old flapper type MAF sensor which had been opened up and an ecu that had "REMAPPED" scrawled across the top. Both pretty good indicators that i wasn't going to get it running very well with that kit on if at all. Anyway, With some fresh fuel, a tweak to the MAF sensor, an air filter, rust removal from inside the injector ballast box and some new spark plugs i managed to get it started and driving long enough to prove that the engine was in good shape, get an mot and prove that it was worth throwing my hard earned pennies at.
So i bought a great big turbo and a Megasquirt ecu from the US of A and decided that they were the best things to fit to the big lumbering beast.
Manifolds were fairly simple. Take a pair of 4.6 headers, put the left on the right and the right on the left so that they point forwards and make up some pipework to the turbo and the wastegate.
Had to put the battery elsewhere, but there was the perfect sized hole in the boot as if Volvo knew i would be doing this.
Once it was in mechanically, i just had to wire it all up. This involved an invasion of the living room floor.
And a poke around inside the MS2 v3.57 ecu to fit 4 extra circuits to run the ford coil packs in wasted spark mode
Which was then hidden in the glovebox for safe keeping.
As the car was also not a factory turbo model, There was no boost gauge in the dash, so an alternative had to be fitted. Lucky for me the cheapest, black, kinda retro looking, boost gauge on ebay fitted in perfectly where the factory clock went! shame i cant say the same thing about the AFR Gauge, but hey-ho, you cant win them all.
Enough of the inside. There's more wires to poke into things.
At least that was the last of them.
The inter cooler kit was made up out of 2.5" tubing and a front mount Subaru Impreza kit, which fitted surprisingly well. The only downside was that the charge pipe needed to come across the engine behind the radiator to get to the throttle. I was hoping to turn the top part of the plenum 180 degrees so that the throttle was on the drivers side, but the brake booster gets in the way of this and i like to slow down so i decided not to modify that too much. To shield the charge pipe from the heat i wrapped it all in gold heat reflective tape. I'm not sure how effective this will be, but any little helps i suppose
Here is how she looks now anyway. Running, driving and with a few little issues to sort out!
The first problem shown up as a big cloud of smoke at full boost. Nothing major then I pulled over to investigate and found that there was oil everywhere under the car, covering the heat wrap on the exhaust which was smoking away like crazy. After further inspection, the oil return line from the turbo had split causing it all to run out and get sprayed all over everything. On the bright side, nothing is going to rust under the car and all the bolts will be easy to undo.
The next issue i had was a loss of boost and a horrible blowing from the exhaust. Again, nothing to worry about and a simple fix. It'll just be one of the 4 gaskets between the head and the manifolds that were about £1 each.
wrong, It was the flexi joiner which decided that flexing wasn't what it was meant to do, so decided to crack instead. So out it came, new bit of pipe welded in and i'm back up to full power
The last issue i have shown up today. After a 3rd gear pull embarrassing a fiesta st who thought he was the dogs danglies there was quite a lot of vibration on deceleration (who's embarrassed now ey!)
Gearbox? bent prop? dodgy center prop bearing?
Nope, Its raw power has ripped an engine mount so it can flap around however it wants
That's a job for the weekend i think.
James.
Turbo tastic Viking long boat
I haven't been very active on here lately. I did own this 1972 Hillman hunter which went through a couple of "evolutions", but ultimately ended up with an MX5 engine running on IRTB's and scary handling at high speeds.
The hillman was great, but i fancied a change so i put it up for sale and ended up swapping for the big old barge you now see below:
Perfect, Just what i wanted. Light weight, nimble, good brakes. Everything i wanted for the hillman, but didnt have the room to build for it, Oh, wait. Its a volvo estate.
BUT
It had a V8 in it It didnt run of course, but who cares! 3500cc's of pure rumbling bliss... if it ran...
After my exploits with the Hunter, i've worked out old wiring and established that the best thing to do would be to just start again with the engine wiring. It
So i bought a great big turbo and a Megasquirt ecu from the US of A and decided that they were the best things to fit to the big lumbering beast.
Manifolds were fairly simple. Take a pair of 4.6 headers, put the left on the right and the right on the left so that they point forwards and make up some pipework to the turbo and the wastegate.
Had to put the battery elsewhere, but there was the perfect sized hole in the boot as if Volvo knew i would be doing this.
Once it was in mechanically, i just had to wire it all up. This involved an invasion of the living room floor.
And a poke around inside the MS2 v3.57 ecu to fit 4 extra circuits to run the ford coil packs in wasted spark mode
Which was then hidden in the glovebox for safe keeping.
As the car was also not a factory turbo model, There was no boost gauge in the dash, so an alternative had to be fitted. Lucky for me the cheapest, black, kinda retro looking, boost gauge on ebay fitted in perfectly where the factory clock went! shame i cant say the same thing about the AFR Gauge, but hey-ho, you cant win them all.
Enough of the inside. There's more wires to poke into things.
At least that was the last of them.
The inter cooler kit was made up out of 2.5" tubing and a front mount Subaru Impreza kit, which fitted surprisingly well. The only downside was that the charge pipe needed to come across the engine behind the radiator to get to the throttle. I was hoping to turn the top part of the plenum 180 degrees so that the throttle was on the drivers side, but the brake booster gets in the way of this and i like to slow down so i decided not to modify that too much. To shield the charge pipe from the heat i wrapped it all in gold heat reflective tape. I'm not sure how effective this will be, but any little helps i suppose
Here is how she looks now anyway. Running, driving and with a few little issues to sort out!
The first problem shown up as a big cloud of smoke at full boost. Nothing major then I pulled over to investigate and found that there was oil everywhere under the car, covering the heat wrap on the exhaust which was smoking away like crazy. After further inspection, the oil return line from the turbo had split causing it all to run out and get sprayed all over everything. On the bright side, nothing is going to rust under the car and all the bolts will be easy to undo.
The next issue i had was a loss of boost and a horrible blowing from the exhaust. Again, nothing to worry about and a simple fix. It'll just be one of the 4 gaskets between the head and the manifolds that were about £1 each.
wrong, It was the flexi joiner which decided that flexing wasn't what it was meant to do, so decided to crack instead. So out it came, new bit of pipe welded in and i'm back up to full power
The last issue i have shown up today. After a 3rd gear pull embarrassing a fiesta st who thought he was the dogs danglies there was quite a lot of vibration on deceleration (who's embarrassed now ey!)
Gearbox? bent prop? dodgy center prop bearing?
Nope, Its raw power has ripped an engine mount so it can flap around however it wants
That's a job for the weekend i think.
James.