B204FT -> B234ET need help

[Fuse]

250hp and above with turbo engine, and you can shred the small gears in diff in 3rd by flooring it. With open diff that is, by welding it it'll hold much better. Some have run more, some have run less but it depends about lot's of things, at which rpm the power comes, how worn your diff/gearbox are etc.. Makkiver had 311hp in his previous engine and he didn't break anything, though power came at kinda high revs so it's easier for the drivetrain. Now he's going for more with new engine and has got Getrag box and BMW locker diff in..

But generally if parts are fine you should be able to run up to 250hp "safely" if you won't abuse it insanely. If you weld the diff and parts are in good shape it'll hold better. Of course it depends about tires and surface too, with huge slicks at the dragstrip things start to break easily.

[foggyjames]

1984 760 Turbos with a B23ET engine had forged internals....but a standard late-model B230 will support way more power than the drivetrain anyway. They're pretty damn burly engines.

I get you with the flange. It's a standard 'slip over' type design.

Yes, get the pumps and pan from a 360. Watch out for B19s - some seemingly got a normal 'long' waterpump (although I have no idea how it fits). Finding a B19 car nowadays is a challenge, so I'd not worry about that too much.

I would presume they're available new, but I have no idea of the cost. I've had a couple of sets of PZ cams...both came from Coastal Rides..but they were slightly odd folk to deal with.

I think the tensioner is up to £100....which is a lot of money to some of the tight-wads on this scene The standard B234 uses a totally different belt layout, hence a different tensioner. You couldn't retro-fit it easily to a normal B230.

There aren't that many 16vT motors out there, so there aren't that many maps. I'm sure they can be found, but it might not be worth the hassle. We used the 'Wizard' in MSnS, with some expert help from Andy, and the car drove almost as well as stock from the moment we turned the key. Which EMS would you be using, anyway?

People have broken drivetrains with stock power, but driving it in a way which won't attract the attentions of the law....250 seems like a good number in terms of being very confident that it'll hold up. Assuming a few factors, it'll probably hold a fair bit more. Fuse pretty much has that covered. I'm planning to make 250-300, and don't anticipate any problems. This is the reason most people don't bother with 16v in 300s - 8v will make more than enough power to break the drivetrain if you do it right.

cheers

James

[Fuse]

B19ET has had forged pistons also. This is a kinda late discovery I think, not many people have known that. Though I guess it's a rare engine elsewhere. We got those because the taxing in the 80's didn't favour engines over 2l.

It's kinda weird because B21ET doesn't have forged pistons.

[alistairolsen]

Im really just on a learning curve trying to find out what works and what doesnt. It looks like im going to go b204T initially and perhaps biuld a 2.3 later if the cars stays out the trees. If the transmissions not up to much more than 250, then there isnt any real point. Sadly I dont "love" the 360, its a cheap rwd car with a number of desireable attributes (weight dist, volvo engines, Q car status etc)

Interesting to find out what other poeple have made work, I just read about the b234T and couldnt find it fitted to any caras standard, turns out it wasnt!

[foggyjames]

I was restricting my info to the UK market....assuming our OP is from here. Curious that the 19 was forged and the 21 wasn't.

If you're not going to 'build' a drivetrain, why bother with 16v? It's a lot of work for something you can achieve really easily with 8v. Fuel (chips or EMS), boost, exhaust, cam.....there's 250bhp.

Having said that, I think a 360 drivetrain will take 300+ as long as you drive it with care. Kev Strong's car was allegedly dynod at 315bhp, and that was used on track days. Makkiver was making similar power, as Fuse mentioned. It all depends on the hardware setup...and how you drive it. Most drivetrain failures are due to shock loads - so dumping the clutch at 6k with slicks on is going to cause trouble a lot earlier than normal road use.

Be aware that the B204 head is different to the B234 head. I haven't measured it, but looking at it there's a good chance that the 234 valves will hit the B200 bores.

cheers

James

[alistairolsen]

I was purely interested in what can and is commonly done on the volvo scene, the 2.3 sounded like an interesting engine even if I never build one!

Is the 2.3 8v turbo a better bet than the 2.0 16v turbo then?

Whats the story with management, I know old school jetronic stuff is easily fooled with MBCs and stuff, and the ignition is mega safe for 91 ron fuel as std, but the motronic stuff is presumerably harder to get round?

[foggyjames]

The 2.0 16v turbo will be more efficient and ultimately make more power unless you get a trick 8v cylinder head...but it's a lot more work to make it fit, and you can make "enough" power (to break the drivetrain) with the easy-fit 8v option.

Management....LE-Jetronic responds very badly (i.e. not at all) to alterations in hardware. Motronic appears to be a bit more tolerant, but it's not good. Both are well worth avoiding. 80s EFI was pretty low-tech.

The two common approaches are to use factory management - usually LH-Jetronic 2.4 as fitted to 940s (and 1990s 740s and 240s), which in a 300 means to hack in a factory loom - 240s are easiest for this. There are chips available for this system....and being an air-mass system (with a hot-wire sensor) with a lambda sensor, rather than an 'airflow' system like LE or Motronic, it responds to alterations in hardware spec. That's what I'm planning to do, at least to start with. The other option is to go aftermarket - and being tight, most Volvo people run Megasquirt.

cheers

James

[alistairolsen]

on the vauxhall scene there are so many good chips available that noone boothers with MS, and when going for a big spec build they spend money on emerald, autronic etc. How is MS to use? (I prolly wont for now, just curious )

SO I need the engine of choice, and then I can retro fit the LH jetronic system to i? SO I need the ecu, loom and conplete set of sensors from a 240?

[foggyjames]

MS is pretty much on a par with most of the other entry-level aftermarket EMS'...it's just not quite as user friendly as it's a DIY/semi open source project. You need to do a fair bit of reading up front, as there are a lot of options, and usually you need to do that work yourself. You can buy pre-built boxes, and they're still quite a bit cheaper than the other systems. It does work in a slightly different way in terms of how you tune fuel in a given bin (you input volumetric efficiency (VE), rather than straight fuel trim), but it's pretty much the same thing - a higher number means more fuel!

In other words...on purely technical grounds, MS is pretty good. Where it's lacking is in the slick documentation and "packaging" you get with a normal commercial product. That's not to say it's inpenetrable...but you need to be "into" it. Unless your budget is really tight, or you particularly want the challenge, I'd buy a pre-assembled kit.

In terms of an LH swap...if you're running a turbo motor, you want the turbo ECUs from a 940 (or late 740). Finding a "chippable" ignition ECU is well worth doing. I can't remember the details of how you do that, but cross that bridge when you come to it...

cheers

James

[alistairolsen]

what about the whole 740/p40 engine complete with the ecu's? Whats the difference between these and the 960 engines?

[foggyjames]

960s have a 2.9 (or 2.5) 24v 6-pot. I doubt it'd fit in a 300 without losing the airbox...although it has been done.

You can fit a complete engine, but there's no ideal spec.

B230ETs are pretty good in terms of hardware spec, but have weak(ish....say good for 300bhp) con rods...and they only came with Motronic management, which you don't really want...

B230FTs have a weaker hardware spec, but most have the bigger rods (400+bhp?), and the 'good' bits can be swapped over pretty easily.

cheers

James

[alistairolsen]

the 2.3 turbo engine in its various guises came in the 760, 940 and 960 didnt it? Whats the story with the 940 LPT unit?

Also, any gen on the post 94 immobilisers in 900 series cars, how hard does this make transplants?

Cheers

[SteveP]

Whats the story with the 940 LPT unit?

Same engine and turbo as the HPT, just with a different wastegate actuator (3psi or similar) I believe. Not a bad idea to find one of these, they'll be late units with 13mm rods and oil squirters and would've had an easy life!

[alistairolsen]

same management and everything?

[SteveP]

Yep as far as I'm aware...