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Taking stock of our Swede Feb 20, 2001
We have recently acquired something a little different. Call us crazy ("you're crazy!"), but we think old Volvos are cool, in a funky way. They also happen to be exceedingly simple to restore and tune for vintage racing. This car was purchased for the grand sum of $1400 and is surprisingly solid. It has already been updated with new brakes, alternator, waterpump and even a newer B20B 2.0 liter powerplant, in place of the original 1.8 liter B18B that was in it originally
The goal of the project is to make a fun, funky and fast vintage race car that still can be driven on the street. This goal may seem impossible to those used to the typical high-strung British, German or Italian vintage racer, but should be possible with this Swedish brick.
The first step will be to get the car running reliably. While it did make the trip from Baltimore to Daytona without a hitch, the engine and the cooling system both appeared to need some serious attention. Smoke appeared from the exhaust while slowing down, and a temperature gauge that was always near the top of its scale.
The radiator was the original copper core unit and while these are rebuildable, an estimate of $250 was near what a NOS Volvo radiator would cost. So, RPR was called and a brand new Volvo radiator was sent. As this was going in, a thermostatically controlled electric fan was a cheap upgrade (<$80) to the belt driven unit. It was installed "pusher" style in front of the radiator where there was much more room.
A compression test indicated that the #2 cylinder was down from the rest of the gang, so the decision was made to pull the head. With complete gasket sets being available really cheaply from such sources as the Revolv Store or the granddaddy of all Volvo suppliers, IPD, it was an easy gamble. With the head off and the valves removed from the head, it was easy to see what it needed... cars don't run really well without any valve seats to speak of! Years of unleaded gas getting sucked past the non-hardened seats had taken its toll. #2 had no seating surface whatsoever on its exhaust valve, while the others weren't too far behind.
A complete set of exhaust valves, guides, seals and gaskets were ordered and the head was taken to Ron Brothers at Performance Diesel (386-253-0383). Ron agreed to not only rebuild the head to better than new standards, but also machine the head to bump the compression up from the B20B's original 8.7:1 compression ratio and also give the very restrictive exhaust ports a good polishing. In addition, a high quality 3-angle grind will be given to the intake valves and a fully radius grind will take care of the exhaust side.
After the engine is buttoned back up and the twin SU HS6 carbs are given a good tuning, we are going to turn our attention to the small amount of rust that it has on the driver's side floor. Duane Matejka, who races a P1800, sells replacement steel panels for certain pieces of old Swedish iron. His company, Foreign Autotech, mostly concentrates on the P1800, but since the 122 has essentially the same chassis and drivetrain, some parts work on both cars.
After these new panels are stitched in, we are going to send the car over to Stu at BSI Racing for a legal and safe rollcage. We are still debating whether or not we want to go the full cage route, or if we would feel safe enough with a simpler "Solo I" style rollbar with lots of bracing and supports.
Suspension-wise, we are going to enlist the help of another vintage Volvo P1800 racer, John Parker. His shop, V-Performance, has developed a pretty strong repertoire of suspension goodies, including progressive rate springs and custom valved shock to help the 122 handle less like a brick. Stay tuned for more details!
You got to know when to hold them… Mar 20, 2001
Sometimes a gamble will pay off... and sometimes it won't. Our Volvo needed more than just a fresh cyliinder head to run well. After the ported and rebuilt head was bolted on, we noticed right away that, although stronger, the engine was still off-song. A compression check indicated that the #2 hole was still at 90 psi, while the others had all evened out at 130 psi. (A good B20B should be around 150)
So, the decision was made to pull the ailing engine and bring it down to Ron Brothers at Performance Diesel (386-253-0383) for a rebuild. In a few short hours the motor was removed and trailered to Ron's shop. A teardown indicated that the top ring on the #2 piston was broken, while the other rings were due for replacement as well. In addition, the camshaft was very worn, almost to the point of being humorous. After a few hundred thousand miles, the cam wears out its lobes, limiting how far the valves open.
We've decided that the best route for our project is to build what amounts to a hot street motor that has been balanced and bored .040" over, coupled with a combination type cam that doesn't sacrifice the low-end of the powerband. Coupled with our already installed IPD header (it came with the car) and 2.25" exhaust with a Dynomax Race Magnum muffler (this system was bent up locally for only $160 with muffler), this should yield good solid power up to about 6500-7000 RPM without difficulty.
For now we've also chosen to stay with the dual SU carbs that came standard on the car. Our buddy J.K. Jackson is rebuilding the very-British carbs and putting new bushings on the throttle shafts where they pass through the body. While a stock B20B is rated at 118 horsepower, we feel that a realistic goal is approximately 140-150 ponies with these carburators.
While the engine is out, we have been cleaning up the engine compartment with Simple Green and a pressure washer. This combination quickly removes years of accumulated filth. We are taking the opportunity to also sandblast and paint nearly every thing in the vicinity to give our Swedish lump a good makeover.
Since this car will be entered in track events in the future, we also decided to update the single circuit master cylinder with a dual circuit unit. With the help of Duane Matejka of Foreign Autotech, we found a master cylinder from a 68 P1800 that has the dual reservoirs and also has a matching mounting flange bolt pattern. Later 140-series master cylinders would have worked as well, but have a horizontal bolt pattern instead of a vertical one. We're also going to take the opportunity to replace the brake lines with stainless braided lines to firm up the pedal a bit and replace the aging rubber lines.
Clean, prime, prep Apr 4, 2001
With the engine out and sitting in the "hot tank" at Ron Brother's shop, it's the perfect time to clean, prime and respray the engine compartment. We chose to repaint it the original light blue color. Racy, it's not..but it looks very "period".
Here are some shots of the engine compartment and "new" master cylinder that was rebuilt using a NOS Volvo rebuild kit.
While the master cylinder was out, we took the opportunity to install stainless braided brake lines from IPD. Several hard brake lines were corroded beyond belief and were replaced with new ones.
In the engine, our cam was badly worn, among other problems.
Ron sent the connecting rods out and had them shot-peened. This process strengthens the rod by compressing the outer surface of the material, making it denser and less prone to cracking.
And we got a big shipment of parts from IPD. Included are .040" over Mahle Pistons, a heavy duty oil pump, an ISKY/IPD VV71 cam and a bunch of other cool stuff.
Foreign Autotech makes replacement sheetmetal panels and pieces for the P1800. We got a piece to fix our rusty crossmember.
Pleasant surprises Jun 12, 2001
In the past two months, we've installed the motor and have driven it as a daily driver for a few weeks. After about 500 miles, we decided to take it up to our secret test site and ran some 0-60 times. We were pleasantly surprised: 8.6 seconds. That is a strong performance for a 34-year-old car, and would embarrass most expensive sports cars of the era.
The engine installation went without a hitch. The lack of complicated fuel injection and lots of engine bay room meant for a quick installation. The only snags that we've run into are minor oil leaks that we are tracking down.
The SU carburetors were rebuilt by J.K. Jackson, and needed the throttle shafts to be replaced and the housings rebushed. While not a inexpensive job, it is more affordable than replacing them with dual Webers and more practical for our dual purpose car. We used SM needles, and set the timing at 10BTDC. This has given us a liveable idle and strong power up to about 6000 RPM. Recently, we've experiment with some TW needles, they appear to be halfway between the stock ZH and the slightly rich SM.
TWM Inductions hooked us up with some velocity stacks... very important on SU carbs as they rely on air velocity over the "bridge" to work well.
We recently attended Import Carlisle and scored some Volvo 7 series rims for $140 for a set of 5. Eagle-eyed readers will note that these fit the later style Volvo bolt pattern, while we are still on the old 5 on 4.5 rims at the moment. A P1800ES rear axle has been procured, complete with disk brakes and stronger halfshafts from Howie Silverman in Massapequa, NY. The fronts will also be replaced with hubs and rotors from a later model P1800 at the same time.
The next thing on our to-do list is the body work and finishing up the sheetmetal repair of the floors. We might be doing this project on a strict budget, but we want it to look good as well.
Solid Swede Jun 29, 2001
It's still in primer, but the 122 now has a solid floor and even some sound proofing! In a 5-hour thrash session on Friday night (6/22), the bad sections of the driver's side floor were cut out with a plasma cutter and replaced with new steel.
After a coat of OSPO, then primer, then seam sealer...and primer again, the floor qA ready for some sound deadening material. In this case, we used some Dynamat sourced from our local car stereo shop.