240 General: New 240 suspension/engine advice

[loki_the_glt]

One thing you can do free-of-charge is check and maintain/adjust the tyre pressures. With a manual steering rack and 175/80/14s you'll find that the tyre pressures make a massive difference to the steering. Set them to the handbook recommendations as a starting-point and play around with them (+ or - 1psi at a time) until you find your personal "sweet spot".

These cars don't really need PAS until you go to 15" low-profile rubber.

[Ollly244dl]

Originally Posted by Othen

DW42's advice is really good, if you want a faster car then there are any number that will be much better than you could make a 244 DL, however much you spend on it.

This bit is not criticising your plan Olly: you live in London and I think you said you are a student (and you inferred you are on a very limited budget). In that case I cannot imagine why you would want to spend as much as the value of the motor car lowering and warming it up to then drive it in the ULEZ at 6 MPH.

I'm not judging your project, it is entirely up to you what you do with your 1980 244 DL.

Hi I do agree with this.

However I bought the 244 because I love the car and its styling.
I do live in London but Im based at uni in Nottingham and do a-lot of UK driving and Europe when possible .

The 244 is a long term project which I intend on keeping for a long time.
The low budget mods are just to make it look a little better and a bit more fun to drive in the meantime, whilst I save.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Ollly244dl

Hi I do agree with this.

However I bought the 244 because I love the car and its styling.
I do live in London but Im based at uni in Nottingham and do a-lot of UK driving and Europe when possible .

The 244 is a long term project which I intend on keeping for a long time.
The low budget mods are just to make it look a little better and a bit more fun to drive in the meantime, whilst I save.

Hi Olly,

You are very much amongst link minded folk here, we all like 244/245/240s.

I'm guessing you are a young chap (apologies if you are a mature student - I just jumped to a likely conclusion) and so the cost of ownership will be paramount to you. In this respect you have probably done well with your 244 (except for fuel consumption, they aren't very good by modern standards). Your motor car is tax and MoT exempt, and will qualify for classic car insurance. The cost of maintaining a 40 year old Volvo is perhaps rather less than many historic cars: they are really simple, so working on 244s yourself saves money, and lots of parts are still available or may be substituted. 240s are big lumps, which means they would be hard work to make go fast (F=ma is against you when m is large) and hard to make handle well (F=mV^2/r when going round bends is also working against you when m is large); mass being large works for you when it comes to longevity and safety of course.

It is up to you of course, but I'd think carefully about trying to modify your nice 244DL to go fast, either in a straight line or around corners. You could spend a lot of money and detract from what seems to be a lovely motor car. Lowering the suspension could easily cost you £500 once you have replaced the dampers and a few bushes, and changing the motor would be something like a grand even if you do the work yourself. Even if you did both of those you would still have a heavy car with a high centre of mass and a live rear axle - one cannot fight the physics.

Taking a long term view of 244 ownership is a very good thing (in my opinion). Depreciation will be next to nothing, if you look after the motor car well it might even appreciate a bit after running costs. I'm with Bugjam in suggesting the first thing to do is make sure your 41 year old motor car is running at least as well as Mr Volvo intended it, after that there are some pretty low lost modifications that take advantage of 4 decades of technological improvements that you might consider. Electronic ignition is very good for reliability, headlamp bulbs are much better than they were, an electric fan is a really good idea (particularly for city driving) also alloy wheels with modern tyres can improve driving a great deal. It might be worth you skimming through the RB's project thread (my apologies, it does go in a bit) for some ideas on cheap fixes and improvements. I'll post you a link later on.

Be assured that everyone here welcomes you to the 244/245/240 family, and is delighted you have chosen to run one of our quirky old cars. There are lots of very knowledgeable folk here that are happy to help.

Good fortune,

Alan

PS. Here is a link to the RB's project thread, it does go on a bit but there is an index thread with almost the same title that helps finding things:

https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=303259

PPS. Here is the link to the index thread:

https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=314435

[360beast]

A symphony of brown!

Looks very tidy from that photo, good luck with it and keep us updated on your progress

[DW42]

Two very good places to read about your options are:
https://turbobricks.com/
and
https://ozvolvo.org/categories

On Oz Volvo scroll down to the Member Rides section, RWD. There are threads about turbo and V8 conversions. Australians (of which I am one now) particularly like to shoehorn LS1 V8s into the 240 engine bay. Not my dream, but my dream build is in an Oz Volvo thread -- Greg Seivert's electric 240 conversion. His was a few years ago now, and the achievable range has gone up since then.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by DW42

Greg Seivert's electric 240 conversion. His was a few years ago now, and the achievable range has gone up since then.

We may all end up converting our old Volvos to EV one day:

https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showp...postcount=1490

[Clifford Pope]

That article features a report on the conversion rules in Denmark, which effectively curtail all conversions there because of bureaucratic rules.

I presume there are no such rules in the UK - the converted car simply has to pass the appropriate MOT?

By then all 240s will be MOT-exempt. But does conversion to electricity count as a "fundamental change", on the grounds that electric power was not a standard original option when the car was new?

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Ollly244dl

Great thanks for this.

Yeah the engine in it only has 51k on it and no drivetrain noise, haven't got the car with me at uni so haven't had the chance to go over properly yet.

Turbo was the route I was looking to go down (building the motor separately on the side) . Ideally looking for 200-250bhp range with still a decent sense of reliability.

What is the best way to achieve this with still a bit of simplicity and not completely break the bank?

Hmmmmmmm, 250bhp and reliable? Lexus 1UZ 4.0 V8 from an early Lexus LS400 complete with auto box as it's near identical to the AW71 found in later Volvos.

Alternatively a B230FT from a 940 and and MBC.

In either case you'd need the loom from the donor car unless you went down the Emerald/Megasquit route.

Originally Posted by Ollly244dl

Thanks my plan for the time being would be just to lower and get to know car a bit. Seen some chat about cut springs and saving the money for coilovers in future. But heard mixed reviews.

I got the car at a decent price so not overly concerned about depreciation. However I do still want to keep a fairly original look and keep parts. I want to wait till I have the money to do it right so swap will be future project.

Whatever you do, DO NOT CUT THE SPRINGS!

It's extremely dangerous, despite what the chumps who have done it "successfully" will tell you. Cutting them alters the way the metal is tempered because of localised heat, this can induce stress fractures and all kinds of other nasties - i'm not a metallurgist but the whole scenario was explained to me by one, complete with scientific facts, figures and other things. At the very best you will have two springs on an axle with different spring rates as a result and consequently unbalanced handling to start with.

Quickest, cheapest and easiest way is to either fit a new set of standard GLT springs (they're firmer than the rest of the range) or buy a set of lowering uprated springs - don't forget uprated dampers too. Fitting thicker anti-roll bars (called "sway bars" in some parts of the planet) will vastly improve the handling without compromising ride comfort or ground clearance - could be important with the amount of speed humps in that London!

Also if you make the suspension stiffer, don't forget to firm up your upholstery, it will become very uncomfortable when you're alternately hitting your head and jarring your back because of soft seats in a firmly sprung car.

Originally Posted by DW42

I think there's good advice on this thread about what happens to the value of a 240 if you modify it...

One option might be to fix it up as it is and try to get as much as you can for it as a factory spec car. You would then be a some way towards the purchase price of something actually designed to go fast and handle well in the first place. If you like boxy saloons, perhaps a skyline or similar. The early '80s ones are the coolest of them.

Sadly we never got the R30 Skyline over here, only the C110 saloon and C210 Coupe and they're rarer than unicorn dung now.

My advice is pretty much along the lines of what you're suggesting and what most others have suggested, get it running right as standard with the worn parts and then do things piecemeal until it's at the point he wants it. Running it as standard will also pay dividends in replacement parts cost, no need to buy things that are near-enough custom made.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Clifford Pope

That article features a report on the conversion rules in Denmark, which effectively curtail all conversions there because of bureaucratic rules.

I presume there are no such rules in the UK - the converted car simply has to pass the appropriate MOT?

By then all 240s will be MOT-exempt. But does conversion to electricity count as a "fundamental change", on the grounds that electric power was not a standard original option when the car was new?

I think you must be correct about the UK not having the same level of bureaucratic red tape as Denmark. The Vintage Voltage TV programme has converted a number of historic cars to EV, but always glosses over this point.

It does seem that DVLA would be entitled to revoke the EV's historic registration. This would not affect the cost of road tax (EVs being zero rated) but the taxation class would be different, so the EV might need a MoT test every year. I'm not sure DVLA is sophisticated enough to realise any of this though, its workers' only interest seems to be processing as few cases as possible in an attempt to work from their kitchen tables forever (perhaps a far-sighted administration would outsource the DVLA's business to a contractor in Mumbai).

I suspect that in practice all that happens is that the DVLA changes the historic vehicle's fuel to electricity and everything else continues as normal.

Ho hum :-)

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Hmmmmmmm, 250bhp and reliable? Lexus 1UZ 4.0 V8 from an early Lexus LS400 complete with auto box as it's near identical to the AW71 found in later Volvos....

Whatever you do, DO NOT CUT THE SPRINGS! ...

My advice is pretty much along the lines of what you're suggesting and what most others have suggested, get it running right as standard with the worn parts and then do things piecemeal until it's at the point he wants it. Running it as standard will also pay dividends in replacement parts cost, no need to buy things that are near-enough custom made.

All good advice Dave, but I think this has been a thinking aloud exercise for Olly. He is just acquired an interesting car and is floating ideas about what he should do with it. From what he has told us, it would seem he does not have the cash to do any serious modifications, so the 250HP bit is just a pipe dream.

I think it is marvellous that a young chap (which I assume he is) at university likes the same motor cars as us old fogeys, and has taken the time to join this forum and float a few ideas (even if they sink quickly). I hope we will hear from Olly for years to come and that his 244DL becomes a fixture on our forum.

That was a very good point about not cutting suspension coils!

Alan