2 4 0 T U R B O . C O M
D A V E ' S V O L V O P A G E
S L I D E S H O W W I L L B E G I N A U T O M A T I C A L L Y I N A M O M E N T
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UPDATED: July 19, 2021 CONTACT |
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| S E A R C H
D A V E ' S V O L V O P A
G E S B E L O W
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 700 EZK Distributor Repair |
Chrome Prancing Moose Emblem MADE BY SWEDEN EMBLEM |
 Chrome Slanted Body Emblems |
 3D Swedish Flag Emblem |
 Prancing Moose Edition Die Cuts |
 CHROME MADE BY SWEDEN EMBLEM |
 240 DRIVERS CLUB |
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Chrome Prancing Moose Edition |
 How do YOU feel about the 240?
If you actually read the TEXT in this ad to the left you'll realize the intercooler description is technically INCORRECT. I guess ad writers and engineers didn't talk to each other much. We still love the 240. I've been a fan of these cars since way before I ever owned one. They were too expensive for me when they were new, so I had to buy one later. If you have an affection for the 240, read Chris Driver's blog linked below. I think you'll share a similar opinion.
And here's a good video: Why the Volvo 240 is Actually a Good Enthusiast Car + Walkthrough and Drive
240 VIN Decoding Page
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| 240 SPECS: The below image (reproduced from the 1983 US and Canada brochure below) shows the specifications for 1983 240 models.  |
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240 Model Sales Brochure 1983
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240 Accessory Brochure |
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I'm a Volvo 240
hobbyist. I've been playing with Volvos (mostly
240s) since 1988. My pages here are an attempt
to share my experiences with other Volvo hobbyists and
to chronicle the knowledge and information I have
gathered over the years so it may be passed on to
others.
I've owned 10 Volvos since 1988. So I thought I'd list some of them below.... My second Volvo (but first 240). A white 1983 244 DL. I bought it in 1990. Non-sunroof car, roll-up windows, auto trans, marginal AC, ok gas mileage. It was exceptionally clean with only 50k miles when I found it in Huntington Beach, CA. Cost me $5,000. Already being an avid iPd customer, it soon got their anti-sway bars, sport springs and Bilstein HD shocks, as well and a few other fun goodies. I bought the back half of a 240 Turbo exhaust and installed it from the cat-back. That was a really nice improvement.  It originally came with 14 inch steels wheels with beauty rings and hubcaps. I installed the 15 inch alloy wheels from my '88 760. I drove this car everywhere for 6 years and put over 100,000 miles on it. In 1996 I gave it to my daughter when she got her drivers license. Unfortunately it was destroyed a few months later when some nit-wit pulled out directly in front of her in a Chevy Caprice. She couldn't avoid the Caprice and hit it broadside at 50 plus mph. More info HERE (continued). |
Here's my CURRENT Volvo as it
looked when I bought it back in 2003.
 I bought this 1984 242 Turbo from the 3rd owner, who had bought it 6 months earlier in 2002. The original paint and leather interior was in rare exceptional condition because the car was always garaged. And it still is. It's very important for an old car like this to live indoors if you want it to stay nice for this many years. This car was a rare find and it' still a nice car to drive. This 242 came with iPd TME sport springs and iPd 25mm anti-sway bars when I bought it. I actually helped the previous owner install those a few months before he sold the car to me. Otherwise nearly everything was original. |
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This car was
all very original and stock when I got it. This is an
under-hood shot taken at the 2003 Annual Westside Volvo Show
at Westside Volvo in Culver City, California.
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I resisted the urge
to modify this car for a few years, but slowly that
urge began to win. So it
has undergone a few modified
changes since then.
This
car
originally came with the AW71 automatic transmission. I have always
preferred manual transmissions in cars like this, but a prime 240 Turbo
with a manual transmission doesn't come along nearly as often. Then a
few years later the auto transmission totally failed more than 100 miles
from home (during a road-trip to the annual
Davis Volvo Show). I called for a flatbed tow (definitely having a premier AAA account was a great decision) and the car was sent back home, while I hitched a ride in friend's Volvo, also on his way to Davis. That transmission failure really soured me on automatic
transmissions, so I swore them off and replaced it with
an M46 4-speed plus
overdrive transmission (photo below). Years later I would upgrade to the Ford T5Z transmission mentioned further below.
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The Eiker E1
wheels (Polaris replicas) seen here and in some of the below photos were
imported from Finland in 2004. Back then the Eiker Wheel Company would not
ship to U.S. customers, so a Finnish friend arranged
for a relative of his to purchase and ship then from
Finland. It wasn't cheap, but I loved these
wheels and at that time this was the only way to get them and almost no one else
in the U.S. had them on their cars.
Years later these wheels became more popular and became available in
the U.S. through a few importers. They
started appearing on other 240s at a fast rate. These are 17 x 7.5 inches (offset ET 20 mm)
and mine fitted with 215/45-17 rubber. These are now available in 18 x 7.5 inches also.
CENTER CAPS FOR EIKER WHEELS Back in 2004 I used the generic 62 mm plastic center caps that came with these Eiker wheels and I glued on a round Volvo logo from a random Volvo cap. I get questions all the time now from people with Eikers who have trouble finding an existing and available VOLVO cap that will fit. When you search, keep in mind that some discussions will pertain to original Polaris wheels, which seem to have a 57 mm center bore, and NOT the same size as an Eiker wheel, which reportedly has a 56 mm hole. An original Polaris wheel used center cap Volvo PN 3529610 (no longer available). There's some info on-line that suggests VOLVO center cap PN 30638643 (pictured HERE) from a first generation S40 (2001-2004) will supposedly fit an Eiker wheel. This does NOT appear to be correct according to some people I know who bought and tried them. The 30638643 is made for a 55 mm hole and is rather loose in an Eiker wheel. If anyone knows FOR CERTAIN of an existing AVAILABLE cap that actually fits well in an Eiker, please let me know and I'll add that here. I have some measurements of a few different common VOLVO center caps here: https://www.prancingmoose.com/centercaps.html#commoncaps Here are some discussions thread that will add to your confusion: https://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=244307 https://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?p=6059650 http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=280569 If you're looking for these Eiker wheels, Kaplhenke Racing offers them in 17 or 18 inch in their site: www.kaplhenke.com/collections/240/products/eiker-classic-e1 |
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 Later I decided to install a Ford Motorsport World Class T5Z 5-speed transmission. I bought it brand new from Summit Racing, pretty much the same as this: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/awr-trfo-30001/. This version of the Ford T5 transmission was originally used for 1979 to 1993 Ford Mustangs with the 5.0 liter V8. The input shaft has 10 splines (1.0625" diameter). Output shaft has 28 splines. It had a 7 tooth speedometer drive gear.
It originally came with the 0.63:1 ratio 5th gear. I later had 5th gear changed to 0.72:1, which I found to be a much better ratio for a small Volvo engine. The 0.63 5th combined with my 3.91 rear end
made for highway driving at 2000 rpm at 60, 2500 rpm at 75 mph
and 3000 rpm at 90 mph. With the change to 0.72:1, 60 mph
changed to 2300 rpm, 75 mph changed to 2850 rpm and 90 mph changed to
3450 rpm (tire size:215/45-17).
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 The T5 transmission can be installed with a one-piece or two-piece driveshaft. For this installation I chose a two-piece. It's the bottom one in this photo. The top one is the stock 240 Turbo driveshaft. |
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 A Hurst
performance short-throw shifter was added when I installed the T5. My setup
began with the original cable style clutch, but I later changed that to a hydraulic clutch after
stretching and breaking a couple of clutch cables. More
info about hydraulic clutch setups can be found in my Hydraulic Clutch Page.
<<< This Hurst chromed shifter stick is detailed below. |
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 People have asked what I did for my
shifter. I began with this chrome Hurst 8550 shifter stick.  The knob position was a little tall for my comfort, so I cut off about an inch from the bottom.The holes I'm using are shown in this photo of the modified shifter: I'm using the BOTTOM hole (which was originally the top hole) and the third hole from the bottom in this photo, which I drilled. The other holes were experimental and I not in use now. The final shifter position is now perfect in my opinion. It's comfortable and and easy to reach any gear without any strain. This is a rubber bushing from Hurst. PN 1140015. About $11.  |
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The bushing adapts the flat shifter stick nicely to the round
hole of the original 240 rubber shift boot.
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 Then some new taillights in 2007. That kept me content for a little while. I've been asked where these taillights came from. They started as ALL CLEAR taillights I found on eBay. Then I bought some transparent red spray paint from the model section in a hobby store. More info on painting tail lamps can be for HERE. That rear spoiler is a very rare Volvo 240 accessory made by Zender in the 1980's. |
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This may upset the 240 purists . . . . but I don't prefer the traditional humped "coffin" hood that originally cam on the U.S. 240 models. Some people do. I just don't.  |
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| So in 2010 this car received a flat hood and matching flat grill.  |
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For those that don't know, that flat hood I used above is the same hood used for the 1983 242 Turbo "Flathood" model outlined in the following pages. http://flathood.saliv8.com/ https://silodrome.com/volvo-242-group-a-homologation-flathood/ https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2020/08/07/homologation-rarity-1983-volvo-240-turbo-flat-hood-to-be-auctioned-at-bonhams-quail-motorcar-auction  It's also the same hood used on 1975-1977 U.S. 240 models and 1978-1980 242 DL and GT. NOTE: Some of these early cars had some thin metal trim attached to the front leading edge of the hood to match trim around the turn signals. One year (1976) had a single washer squirter hole instead of two on other years. The latch on the flat hood is unique, as is the latch pin and spring (both are shorter). Also the hinge springs have less tension for a flat hood, because the hood is lighter. ALSO it's the same hood used on early European 240 Turbos, including those that were used in racing, like this one below. The Euro 1981-85 version fronts came with different headlights, fenders and turn signals as pictured below. These fenders are the same fenders that later appeared on U.S. versions for 1986-93). A different grill was used, along with slightly different sheet-metal directly below the grill and headlights (part #13 in below diagram) to accommodate those Euro style parts.   |
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The engine in my car is still the original
B21FT, but a few added features have crept in slowly over the years, such as
SDS EFI programmable fuel injection and programmable
ignition. I installed a Mitsubishi TD04HL 15G turbo (originally
from an 850R Turbo), which is mounted on a later
(1990+) exhaust manifold.
A turbo like this is more responsive on a small engine with low
compression like the B21FT (which has a compression ratio of only 7.5:1). The original Garrett T3 turbo was much slower to respond.
Adapting a Mitsubishi turbo is not difficult and there's a good basic tutorial here: https://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=83929 |
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 Later I decided to go old-school on the front grill and lights just for fun. In November 2010 I took the 242 on a road trip to the annual Arizona Volvo Day in Tucson, Arizona. It was awarded first place in the rear wheel drive class. I have photo albums from a large number of Volvo meets going back many years in my Volvo Meet Photo Album page. |
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I added these "GT style" driving lights in 2011. No, those are NOT standard 242 GT lights. Those are 100
watt Dick Cepek driving lights. They're larger than 242 GT fog lights, so I carefully enlarged
the fog light buckets from a GT grill and fitted
the larger off-road lamps. They light up the night like the sun!
That's useful on long, dark roads.   |
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In
2012 I decided it was time for some different wheels.
The Eikers were used on this car for 8 years. They're very nice wheels and I still like them, but when I first installed them, there were almost no other Volvos with them in the U.S. After a few years, a lot of 240s had them, so I wanted a change to something I wouldn't see on so many other 240s at every Volvo meet I attended. I have always loved the look of BBS mesh style wheels.   These wheels are NOT genuine BBS, but they look nice. I found them on eBay. The size is 17 x 7.5, same size as the Eikers, but these have a BMW bolt pattern (5 x 120 mm, with 72.56 mm hub center) and 35 mm offset. So I had some hub-centric billet adapters custom made by http://www.motorsport-tech.com. More on adapters below. The tires shown here are 235/40-17 Goodyear Eagle F1. If you fit a tire this wide on the rear of a lowered 240, you WILL absolutely be trimming or pounding some of the inner rear fender metal to make more room. The back half of the rear arch will rub on a wide tire on bumps. If the car is lowered, it'll rub even more on bumps. I have created an article in my 240 Mods Page on how I made clearance for these tires on my 240: https://www.240turbo.com/volvo240mods.html#rearwheelclearance. |
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| WHY CHOOSE A BMW BOLT PATTERN? The reason I decided on wheels with a BMW bolt pattern with adapters is because there are MANY more wheel styles to choose from for a BMW than for a Volvo 240. So shopping for something I liked was easier. Nowadays adapting non-Volvo wheels can be done with custom drilled hubs offered by https://www.bneshop.com/. These wheels are 17 x 7.5 inch wide with 35 mm offset. I chose 20mm thick adapters in front and 40mm thick in back. Adding the extra 20 mm in the back helps push the wheels out more toward the outer fender. These specs worked nicely for me with the rear inner fender sheet metal work I did. Most custom adapter makers will tell you their minimum recommended adapter thickness is somewhere between 20 and 30 mm. Motorsport-tech.com told me their minimum thickness is usually 19-20 mm. The wheels you choose will need the right offset to compensate for your adapter thickness. Also keep in mind that a wider front wheel/tire may also get closer to the front strut tube on the inside, so your offset calculations should be compensated for that clearance too. I put some more info together on calculating wheel offset for a Volvo 240 here: https://www.240turbo.com/volvo240mods.html#wheeloffset  |
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Here's a pic of the front 20 mm adapter/spacer bolted in place.
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 <<< In 2019 I changed tires to 225/45-17, since I could no longer find the previous size in a tire I liked. The new tires are Dunlop SP Sport 01,
a more aggressive tire with a stickier rubber compound. They had great
reviews and I have always been very happy with Dunlop performance tires
in past years. |
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WHAT DID I DO FOR A SPARE TIRE?
 I used the original Volvo spare for a few years, but then I
began thinking that if I actually had to use my spare, I would have
to remove the adapter first. So I decided to look for a spare
wheel with a BMW bolt pattern. I wanted a wheel larger than 15 inches
in case it became needed for a larger brake upgrade. Also I wanted the spare tire diameter
to be fairly
close to the same diameter as the tires on my car. And the spare tire would need to be narrow enough to fit inside the spare tire well. Plus I wanted a NORMAL tire, not a space-saver temporary spare. And it needed to be inexpensive.It wasn't easy finding a wheel I liked, since so many BMW wheels are much wider than I wanted (usually 8 to 10 inches). I would have preferred a 17 inch wheel with a 6 or 6.5 inch width. These can be found, but then I found that no one seemed to make a 17 inch tire narrow enough to fit such a wheel, unless you want a very tall SUV tire. Try searching yourself. While searching, I kept finding USED space-saver spare wheels on eBay. Those all seemed to have a 3.5 or 4 inch width. Too narrow! Plus have you seen how damned expensive used space-saver tires are on eBay??? I finally found this new wheel on eBay (pictured). It was only $60. It's a steel wheel, 16 x 6.5 inches with an ET of 45. Listed as part number BMW9153. Then I found the below Federal tire in size 175/60-16. It was CHEAP. It all fits nicely. |
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    What else is in the trunk? For those long cross-country trips, I keep a small, lightweight aluminum jack from Harbor Freight in my trunk. It's strapped down using eye-brackets bolted to the floor just behind the rear seat. I've never needed it yet, but if I ever have to get under the car during a trip, it will sure beat having to used a factory scissor jack. 33 lb. Harbor Freight Jack: https://www.harborfreight.com/15-ton...ack-64545.html  |
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In 2017 I completed a HUGE conversion of the AC with a complete new in-dash system from Classic Auto Air.
Sounds pretty
drastic. It was, but it's working so much better than
the old AC ever did before.
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If you're curious about the hood vents, they're from a 1987 Ford Sierra RS 500 Cosworth from the United Kingdom. They function very well getting hot air out of the engine bay and they look nice on the Volvo hood.     |
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In 2018 I completed a build project to make a DASH TOP GAUGE POD similar to the rare pod Volvo offered as an accessory for this car. This project has it's own page and can be found here: https://www.240turbo.com/dashgaugepod.html   |
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Recent
pics.
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Here's an under hood shot (from
2018).
 There's
a
lot going on under my hood, but it's pretty reliable
and keeps my car going as it needs to. That's a big custom Griffin
aluminum radiator with a Lincoln Mark VIII fan.
I have more info on this cooling system installation and past cooling system projects here: 240turbo.com/ElectricCoolingFans.html ENGINE MANAGEMENT: I've been using SDS EFI to control fuel and spark for many years. Before converting this car to EFI, I used SDS EFI in my 245 Turbo for many years beginning back in 1990. I get occasional grief from Megasquirt users who think SDS deserves no respect. Maybe Megasquirt is better. It has more stuff. While Megasquirt does offer more peripheral options than SDS, I've never had an SDS related issue or failure in either 240s I used it in over more than 20 years. I know a LOT of Megasquirt users who say that. I'm not a Megasquirt hater. Not even close. It didn't exist when I began using SDS and so far I just have never used it yet. I may try it out someday in my car if I get sufficiently motivated. |
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| -
P A S T
V O L V
O S -
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Humble 245 beginnings..... This was my first
240 Turbo. I
bought this 1984
245 Turbo back in March of 1997. I
paid $3200 to who I think was the second owner in
Rialto, California. It was completely stock
and original. When I started to do a few
little modifications, I really had no idea the
direction it would eventually take. This was
my first 240 Turbo, so I found myself in a strange
new world when it came to understand things like K-Jetronic fuel
injection. I had no clue what made
it tick, but I was learning.
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Then for my second car a friend talked me into buying this 1967 BMW 1600ti Alpina. It was a former German Group 3 racer that was later imported to the U.S. I bought it in 1978. This Alpina was complete with box fender flares (pig
cheeks), racing
suspension, roll-cage and 2 liter racing motor
with dual Weber 45 DCOE
carbs. 160 BHP in a car that weighed around 2100
lbs. This car was a handful. It had a 4.37:1 rear gear ratio with a 4
speed and handled like it was on rails. More about this car be seen HERE: https://www.240turbo.com/volvo240.html#alpina By 1997 when I bought the 245 Turbo, I had already been a
customer of iPd
for a number of years. They were the best source (often the
only source) for Volvo performance
improvement parts. So mods started
getting done slowly as I could manage.
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