1983 Volvo 244 transformation from D24 to D24TIC

[anders]

I thought I should start a build thread on my 1983 Volvo 240. Little history on the car: My brother bought it from the original owner in the early 90's. I got it from him when I was 15 . I sold the car when I was 18 to my brothers friend for $2000. I got the car back for free because it would not start in 2006, I did all the work needed for the car to get it back on the road. Drove it for a year and sold it again (2007) for $1600 (sold it because I did not have the time or money to fix the car up, it had 175,000 miles on it and had some blow by). Several years went by missing the car. I searched craigslist for a year or so and found it up for sale for $2000 in 2010. I made the deal for $1200. Engine is now toast because of WVO, It has just under 200,000 miles on it. I pulled engine and looked for a d24t to install.
I found my engine, a low mile rebuild D24t. Got it home and started it up and blew it up (look up kibbles and bits thread) on to plan B. I bought a totaled 1983 760. I pulled engine from it, and did the valve adjustment as several intakes had negative clearance, installed head studs, water pump, timing belt, modified 240 D24 pan for turbo drain. Installed engine with new mounts, transmission mount and carrier bearing.
I'm using the NA intake and the original D24t exhaust manifold mated to a Turbonetics turbocharger. Turbo drain is via a turbowerx scavenge pump controlled by a wolsten tech TDR. I bought a intercooler for a RX7 and mounted it in front of the radiator using custom brackets. Piping is 2.5". That's where I'm at right now.

[anders]

Pictures of the intercooler and some of the piping so far.

[michaelovitch]

Nice job.
Need to shoot the whole car !
May i suggest you to relocate the IC.
like it is the airflow is a bit fucked up for the engine cooling

i'm interested by the scavenge pump
have you got pics ?

[anders]

Well I will just have to see about cooling the core on the intercooler is fairly wide and is spaced 2" in front of the radiator. I think it will be just fine as the temps here barley get to 80 most of the time during summer. The scavenge pump is on its way, hopefully I will have it by thursday. Yeah I need to get pics of the car up, I just haven't yet as it is covered in dust. There will be pictures soon.

[v8volvo]

Looks great so far!

Looking forward to seeing it at the XXX Swedish show if you can get it on the road by then.

Was the car originally an automatic, or just ended up with an automatic rad in it?

Did you see the '83 760 TD w/ manual trans for sale for $900 over on your side of the water? Looks like a good deal...

[anders]

Well here is a picture of my dusty car, the finished intercooler piping and the turbowerx scavenge pump. I'm on track to having the car running/driving by the end of the month.. Hopefully so I can put some miles on it before the XXX meet. I need to finish the exhaust, wiring, mount the scavenge pump, put power steering pump back on, re-boot the steering rack, and hopefully fire it up! I'm hoping I will have most of it done this weekend. I'm still waiting on some parts to finish the gauges I'm installing (tach, boost, and EGT).
V8volvo- The car was originally a manual, I think the last owner put in a new radiator, and its copper! The 1983 760 I bought, I missed my 86 740. I think this 760 can be fairly nice with some work, In most aspects it's in better shape then the 740 I had.

[michaelovitch]

Nice that's smell good !

Is that a ball bearing turbo ?

[anders]

I wish it was a ball bearing turbo. I could not find the setup I wanted from Turbonetics in a full ball bearing.

[anders]

Well my 244 now has 500 miles on it, runs great turbo seems to be a great match- it spools up better then the stocker. The only problem I'm having is that it burns oil, a quart every 100 miles or so. Time to start building a new engine (fully balanced, ported head, ARP head studs)

[michaelovitch]

Have you got blow by ?

Are you sure it's not a leak ?

that's sucks

i would like to hear it running !

[anders]

Yep there is some blow-by, but it is very minimal.. No leaks under the car, but can smell oil in the exhaust. That makes me believe that the valve guide seals are bad, and also I guess the car the engine came out of sat for 13 years of reasons I don't know. (engine is from a 1983 760 that was totaled that had 140,000 miles on it) Interesting thing is the engine is an 1985 and looks as to been rebuilt at one time as the con rods were marked, cylinder bores looked great. But I did notice some oil on the valve stems, it did not concern me at the time because I thought it was oil from the the seal on the turbo was seeping on the compressor side. Now with the new turbo and still there is oil consumption, car sitting for 13 years and seeing oil on the valve stems makes me think the stem seals are bad.. I will find out. I'm building a tool to compress the valve springs with the head on the car.

[michaelovitch]

If it's just the valva guides seals it's "ok".
i hope for you it's just that.

Could it be a piston ring wich is stuck ?

the tool you are working on is interesting.
It would be very cool if you gave few pics of it when finished.

i did one to remove the valves but once the head off the car.


http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv215/michaelovitch/Volvo%20240%20diesel/P020511_17270001.jpg


it's ugly but works good.

[anders]

I will give pics of the tool when I'm done, It should be able to do the whole family of VW engines (1.5,1.6,1.9,2.0 ect..) that have the similar valve train.

[anders]

Well, I pulled the head off the engine. It has been rebuilt! It is .5mm over and pistons/cylinder walls look great. Walls are polished but not worn. I'm not sure where the oil is coming from. Compression test @65 degrees block temp gave 365-400 psi. I think the head is the problem. I have my other engine cleaned,honed,painted, new main bearings installed and crank in. I'm waiting on the Deves rings from CPD and will be rebuilding the head this week. If the rings come in before friday I will have the engine installed this weekend, hopefully get some miles on it before the swedish car show.

[michaelovitch]

I'm sure you could have better compressions with warmer temperatures.
It's always cool to find the engine rebuilt when you open it :)

[anders]

Well I got the head cleaned and gasket matched and a mild port and polish done. Piston rings will be here on Wed. On track to having running again this weekend! Will post up some pictures of the new motor this week...

[michaelovitch]

I'm very curious to see what you did to the head !

[anders]

I'm very curious too, It was my first porting job, I didn't spend too much time on it as this motor is only to get the car back on the road.. My next motor will be a little wilder. I didn't have the time to do this motor how I want, But it will be a nice motor when done.

[michaelovitch]

If you are interested i took pics of what i did on my head :D

http://s685.photobucket.com/albums/vv215/michaelovitch/#!cpZZ2QQtppZZ20
http://s685.photobucket.com/albums/vv215/michaelovitch/#!cpZZ3QQtppZZ20
http://s685.photobucket.com/albums/vv215/michaelovitch/#!cpZZ4QQtppZZ20
http://s685.photobucket.com/albums/vv215/michaelovitch/head%20porting/


I tried to improve smoothness anf flow on the exhaust and swirl on the intake.
i did molds of the ports to see what i had to deal with.:p


show me your's :)

[anders]

I will get some pics up Friday of the head. I got the pistons installed last night and the head studs in. My engine is painted Detroit Diesel Alpine Green.

[anders]

Michaelovitch- That cylinder head looks dang good. I didn't put that much work into mine, I just focused on having the ports lining up and smoothed out.

[michaelovitch]

Thanks for your comment.

Detroit diesel alpin green is damn hot for a d24 imo.
Moreover it's not very far from the original color.

I did a flat black (boring) on mine.

If you are interested i did few vids on the head here http://www.youtube.com/user/michaelovitch?feature=mhee

To line up the ports with intake and exhaust is a very good thing yet.
Jason from this forum did it and he said it helps.

I don't know about you but i had several milimeters off on all the periphery of each port i found that was crazy as hell.

[michaelovitch]

This is inside a d24 head :

http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv215/michaelovitch/coupetranszoom.jpg
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv215/michaelovitch/coupetrans.jpg
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv215/michaelovitch/admission.jpg
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv215/michaelovitch/echappement.jpg

[anders]

Well I got my head assembled last night and torqued it down on the block. Here is a few pictures of my porting and my spring compressor doing it's job.

[anders]

More pictures....

[michaelovitch]

It's very clean !

You did a great job polishing the head :cool:

The tool is very useful.

[anders]

Well the fresh engine is in and running. Oil pump primed up before I could get the injectors bled out amazingly. Only one problem..... The engine clacks like the injection timing is super advanced, but it is not.. I think my dial indicator that I used for measuring piston protrusion is faulty. I measured all pistons. They ranged from .027"-.032", according to the green book that would be a 1 notch fiber, thats what I used. The engine had a 3 notch when I stripped it though.... So time to pull the head,inspect and install a 3 notch. Anybody know of a good supplier of good head gasket at a decent price?

[ian2000t]

Have you tried retarding slightly to see if clacking goes away? Is your cold start operating/releasing fully? I'm sure I read that you were best to use the thinnest gasket you can where there is no chance of piston/valve collision?

[anders]

Well the clacking is not from injection timing I'm pretty sure, I hoped it was and played with the timing. I disabled the cold start advance and adjusted static timing to .75 mm but still clacked and didn't run as good... Bummer..

[anders]

I found out why my previous engine used oil. So the engine was rebuilt, when I don't know. Cylinder walls are in great shape with cross hatching, looks to have a mild "dusting". When I had the engine on the stand I looked closer at it, I could see the top piston rings! It has .5mm over pistons in it. So I measured the clearance for piston to cylinder wall and it had .024" WOW! I believe green book spec is .001 to .003 max correct? I think the engine was bored over 1mm and the assembler just threw in .5mm pistons. Well I'm going to finish hone it and see if my 1mm over KS pistons fit.

[pgringo]

unreal.

...

[Volvoist]

I'd never use a fiber gasket... Get the MLS gasket from Volvo. I'd stay with the one notch if possible. It'll give you more power.

[anders]

Well I measured the bores on the rebuilt engine that came out of my car last night. The smallest measurement was 77.44 and largest was 77.50. So The bores are way out of spec for .5mm over and real close to 1mm over. So I'm not sure what the heck happened when they built this motor. I will compare measurements with the 1mm pistons I have this weekend.

[michaelovitch]

what was the temperature of the parts you have measured ?

[anders]

It was about 45 F.

[michaelovitch]

All your measurments MUST be taken with parts an measurment tools at 20 °C (68 F)

If you redo it with this temp you will not have the same results.

It's a norm in machine shops here that allow accurate readings for everybody.

give it a try :)

[anders]

Well I would hope 23 degrees in temp would not make the cylinder wall contract/expand 20 thousands of an inch, there would be major problems with operating temp ranges of 200+ degrees.

[michaelovitch]

You are certainly in the second bore over standard + 1 mm

77.51 mm pistons are for the second bore over standard : cylinders should be 77.48 with a max wear of 4/100

so if you have 77.44 to 77.50 while you took it in a cold weather you can understand few things :

the metal is retracted and your measurments are bad.
the machine shop did a very bad job
your tools are not accurate enough (or you )
you have wear yet and your measurments are not accurate enough because of the cold weather giving 4/100 off

it can't be the first bore over standard : your measures do not approach the specs at all.

green book specs are not given for 45 f outside temps whatever you can tell me about operating temps :p(wich is right btw).

no offense but if you want to speak accuracy do it right
that means at around 20 °C.

A machine shop owner told me he do not measure parts till his shop is heated enough in winter or after a hot tank cleanup.
that's common sense.:p

[anders]

The engine builder who built this engine did a bad job. The engine had 76.98 mm pistons in it( measurement stamped on pistons), second oversize according to my green book ( 1st over size is .25 mm over). I brought the block and 1mm oversize pistons to the engine shop and the cylinder bores can not be finished out to the last oversize. So they confirmed what I thought. Oh BTW you got your numbers backwards ( 77.51 pistons will not fit in a bore of 77.48:)) My wife won't let me measure it accurately, She doesn't like engine blocks in the living room! I don't have heat in my shop...

As for measurements 68 degrees is ideal, But the most important is to have all the parts and tools at the same temp. I would have to say that 95% of all machine shops don't have a controlled environment of 68 degrees, at least in my area.

But enough of the bickering, the measurements were "rough" and confirmed that the engine was improperly built.

[michaelovitch]

Damn that sucks !

They did a pig job.

you right about the psitons wich couldn't fit:D
It was 2:00 AM.....

So what do you plan now ?

you re use the pistons and scrap the block ? or remachine a new block ?

it's about the same price no ?

here it's 100 euros a bore and 100 euros a piston (with a "special" price):mad:

[anders]

Well, I will reuse these pistons in a block that will finish to .5mm over. Not sure what I'm going to do with this block though. The engine shop I use will hot tank, bore, hone, install freeze plugs and paint for $250. Best price I have seen on KS pistons is $450 a set.

[michaelovitch]

:eek:

That's cheap !

Your lucky !

[anders]

Well the engine that I put in now has 800 miles on it. Runs great, have not used drop of oil. I'm just very happy I don't have to add 1 qt of oil every 50 miles! Next step will be to turn up the IP.

[michaelovitch]

Well the engine that I put in now has 800 miles on it. Runs great, have not used drop of oil. I'm just very happy I don't have to add 1 qt of oil every 50 miles! Next step will be to turn up the IP.


Some blowby ?

A vid for the sound of it ?:p

[anders]

I will hopefully get a video soon....

[michaelovitch]

Have you got some blowby ?

on the vid maybe ?

[anders]

2100 miles on rebuilt engine! I'm getting 32-35 mpg with this car commuting 35% city 65% highway. I'm going to shoot for the 35-38 MPG range. (install air dam, 205 tires, fresh injectors set to 160 bar)
I will also be adding a electric lift pump and pulling a shim from the dynamic advance spring.

[anders]

Just an update... Engine running strong. I have put over 6,000 miles on it now. My next engine is at the machine shop right now ( 1mm over with KS pistons) I may have it balanced while it's there.

[v8volvo]

Good to hear! You deserve some good reliable D24T performance after that one blew up on you before....

Still thinking we ought to put together some kind of PNW D24 get-together this summer when the weather is nice. Would be fun to see your fleet and trade some parts and ideas. Maybe some time in August?

[anders]

I'm very happy with the car. It is now my commuter.
A get together is a good idea.
Engine is back from the machine shop. I think it's going to go into the 245.