Volvo 5 Cylinder in an E30

[Steve o 77]

Sway bar mounts moving the bar in front of the subframe are done, stock bar is installed (with modified brackets to work with my two bolt design), and the subframe is finally painted.

[Steve o 77]

Still chugging along.
-I’ve got the fuel map pretty well dialed in on wastegate pressure.
-Catch can is mounted, still working on plumbing.
-TRE 255lph fuel pump is installed. Still need to run the heavier gauge wire back to it but I’ll try it on the stock wiring for now.
-Finally got the 328xi front driveshaft extended so I have proper spline engagement now.

More tuning soon, I’m pretty excited to start messing with the boost control stuff.

[Steve o 77]

Aw no the latency due to dwell time got you when measuring off of the primary wiring, your timing light was firing before the coil actually fired, and since dwell is longer than the spark pulse it would have been inconsistent anyway. Glad to hear you got it sorted. I was glad to see this one pop up in my subscriptions again. What muffler is that visible in post 40?

Yes exactly. Not sure how that never crossed my mind back when I was setting up the base offset but I won't make that mistake again.

I honestly can't remember what muffler I used on this thing, I know its a magnaflow but I bought it probably 10 years ago for another car. It sounds pretty good, I might experiment with a resonator at some point to knock down some drone.

[varg]

Aw no the latency due to dwell time got you when measuring off of the primary wiring, your timing light was firing before the coil actually fired, and since dwell is longer than the spark pulse it would have been inconsistent anyway. Glad to hear you got it sorted. I was glad to see this one pop up in my subscriptions again. What muffler is that visible in post 40?

[e30austin]

wow, not sure how i missed the original post. very cool project. glad you have it heading in the right direction. thanks for sharing.

[Steve o 77]

All, sorry for abandoning this project for quite a while. I just could not for the life of me figure out the overheating.

Well, I finally figured it out today. Turns out I'm a moron and didn't know that clamping your timing light on the low voltage wires to the coil results in very different timing than the actual spark timing. I put an inline spark plug wire on the number 1 cylinder, locked the timing at 10 deg BTDC, and found that the actual timing was 3* AFTER tdc. What a moron lol. Corrected the offset, essentially advancing the timing 13 degrees and it runs perfect rock steady at 200*f.

Soo, I'm hyped to get this thing done for real. I'm getting surgery soon but should be recovered pretty quick and will work on finishing the little things.

Things left to do:
-Fabricate sway bar mounts for the front
-Swap out to the 3.23:1 diff I have (it's a 4.10 now)
-tidy up some wiring
-Tune the engine to a reasonable spot, then find a tuner that will try their hand at a maxxecu, or just rent a dyno.
-Fix a pinhole in the oil pan
-Install a catch can

Hopefully more to come soon!

[Steve o 77]

small update. Still fighting overheating. It will idle all day at 195* or so but as soon as you give it more than about 2k rpm it starts heating up uncontrolably. It passed a leakdown test, but very slightly failed a 'block test' (combustion gasses in cooling system test).

Soooo I pulled the head off to investigate. Head gasket looks ok but it was likely a tiny leak that only occurs at higher rpm so it may not have actually shown damage yet. I did use an MLS gasket and did not have the block decked so that likely bit me. I just ordered an OEM fiber gasket and some new head bolts (thanks FCP lifetime warranty!) and should have it back together shortly after those arrive. I also splurged on a vacuum coolant fill tool to make bleeding they system easier this time.

[e30davie]

Very nicely done. straight away I can hear that distinctive 5clr sound. It's going to be an animal once you've sorted the bugs.

[Steve o 77]

Dude yes. I can't believe how quickly you rip through getting shit put together! I have used a driveshaft guy in East Boulder for years and years, I wouldn't be surprised if he could lengthen either end of your DS to solve the spline engagement issue. I can get you his contact info if you want.

I'm just having so much fun with this one, the motivation is there! And yeah that would be great, I was planning to find a shaft that's too long to have it shortened but I'll have to see what the driveshaft guy prefers.

I did figure out the alternator issue, turns out when you delete the power steering pump the alternator spins backwards due to the new belt routing, and it's a clutched type that hates that. The solution was to just weld up the clutch and it's working perfectly now. Still overheating though, I'm pretty sure I have all the air out so I'm going to pull the thermostat and test it, maybe try running it without the thermostat as well.

[Fraser]

Dude yes. I can't believe how quickly you rip through getting shit put together! I have used a driveshaft guy in East Boulder for years and years, I wouldn't be surprised if he could lengthen either end of your DS to solve the spline engagement issue. I can get you his contact info if you want.

[Steve o 77]

FIRST DRIVE! I finally got that clutch hose in and bled, along with the serpentine belt. Unfortunately the mystery junkyard alternator sounds like it spent the last 30 years on the bottom of the ocean and doesn’t charge, but I was able to take the car around the block.
Its still running hot so likely there’s more air in the cooling system, I might need to add a bleed port. Other than that I can tell it’s gonna rip once I get the tune sorted.

https://youtube.com/shorts/KZyu6Eh7QNA?feature=share

[Steve o 77]

This is so many levels of cool.

Thanks!

Still plugging away. Exhaust is totally done, full 3" stainless system with a straight through muffler for now. I also have an E90 328ix driveshaft installed which will work for now, but it only has like 0.75" of spline engagement on the E36 rear driveshaft section so prior to actually giving it real throttle I'll need to address that. I've also installed a cheap PMC chassis mounted shifter for now. I may go back and fabricate a custom carrier if this one is too loud and annoying.



At this point I'm waiting on a -3AN braided hose that I'm going to use for the clutch and it'll be ready for a first drive!

[DEV0 E30]

This is so many levels of cool.

[Steve o 77]

It’s alive! This is with the exhaust finished back to the diff with no muffler at all. Planning on a straight through style muffler for now but that might change if it gets annoying.

https://youtube.com/shorts/P16bpTiXg84?feature=share

[Steve o 77]

Still going hard on this thing, wiring harness is about 90% done. I started with the Maxxecu flying loom and went from there. Running a flex fuel sensor, VAG coils, converted to speed density obviously, and some other goodies. I even got it to run for a few seconds on ether. Still waiting on one coil connector and need to go get a few feet of fuel hose before I can actually start it up on all 5 cylinders.