German 360 (16v project)

[Cutler]

Hi Guys,

I just wanted to introduce me and my car, as well as my crazy future plans

I'm 19 years old and a HUGE rally-fan, actively driving as a co-pilot in German national rally's on a gr. G Evo 9.

Few weeks ago I got my hands on this '86 Volvo 360, not 80k Km on the clock, driven by only 1 very old woman, not even a radio inside. Basicly it's in good-as-new condition, the technic's as well as the optic's. Besides the usual old-peoples-parking-skratches.
800€ was the price an due to the RWD and transaxle I thought it would make a good and rare gr. 1 car, obviously not competitive at all but for fun and sideways action only.

But after reading this forum quite a bit, regarding LSD options, enginge options, suspension etc I found it more interisting not to destroy the car in rallying but to keep the original look and spice it up a little bit. I just love understatement

As I have no clue what so ever about Volvo, I'll need massive help from you guys on fitting a B230FT in the 360. In Germany there seems to be no community for this car.

No Details needed right now as I don't have time for the projekt anyway in the next months and the car ins in a dry garage.
But some general questions are on my mind now:

1.

2,3 liters AND turbo resulting in 155 hp is just ridiculous. I've read about 360 turbos with 300 hp and more but 180-200 is what I'm shooting for. That should be possible by just increasing the boost or is there more work on the list?

2.

Is it realy the simple drop-in projekt everybody is talking about or are there some tricky obstacles I've missed?

3.

What about the brakes. I'll need some bigger stuff on that thing.

Thanks,

Felix

[volvosneverdie]

Welcome to the forum Cutler!
I think youve got the right idea with your plans for the 360!
Sounds like a really good project.
And it really would be a shame to destroy it if its a good one.
I cant help you on the technical side, but im sure everyone else on here will be able to give you lots of advice.

And dont forget the golden rule - get some photos up!

[Chris_C]

Rally it!!!!!

Erm, I'll get round to looking at the questions later, but rally it!

[volvosneverdie]

Thats a bit exited and emphatic for three o clock in the afternooon Chris.

[trabitom99]

Welcome to V3M! Good to see some more people from Germany on this site. foggyjames and fuse are the people to speak to about B230FT conversions, maybe others too, a quick search will reveal plenty!

As usual ... pics? I wondered whether you might have bought the red GLT with the factory bodykit which sold for 800€ on Ebay recently, but that was an '87 IIRC ...

Tom

[classicswede]

Biggest problem with turbo 360 is the 360 rhs engine mount gets in the way of the turbo. Normaly to overcome this you can use a 240 engine mount with brackets and weld onto the front crossmember. Most complicated onsticle that puts most of teh conversion is the wiring but if you are used to wiring it is quite easy. The 200 BHP you are looking for is easy to achive by good exhaust and slight increase of boost.

[Cutler]

Ok, I took some quick pictures:












This is me





I won't rally the car, because it's not listed as a DMSB gr. G car...I could do NAVC gr. 1. rally's but the car is not competitive in gr. 1.

And the car is to good to destroy it just for fun...it would need gr. N or gr. 2 specs and thats a bunch of money involved in those cars

And the wiring...no, I'm not good at it at all but I've got contacts

So now the job is to find a nice engine...not to easy to find the low-mileage one's...

[Chris_C]

The stage that Evo is on looks awesome! There's a fair few lower end/grassroots rally types on here, we're all saving the pennies to work our way up!

(The 360 doesn't look half bad either!)

[Duvel78]

I won't rally the car

And the car is to good to destroy it just for fun...

Achhhhh (with german pronunciation ), this is just what I wanted to hear, right decision! European 360s with a good bodywork and less than 100.000 km are so hard to find, I dislike the idea of destroying them! Welcome to V3M!

[jtbo]

Achhhhh (with german pronunciation ), this is just what I wanted to hear, right decision! European 360s with a good bodywork and less than 100.000 km are so hard to find, I dislike the idea of destroying them! Welcome to V3M!

Duvel, I always find that you think exactly same like I do

[Cutler]

Ok guys, as someone offered a turbo to me, I called the local "TÜV" guy (Some dude checking your car before you hit the road...silly German laws) and told him about the planz.

To sum it up: He would punch my head off if I would visit him in a 360 turbo...even with Porschebrakes on it.

So plans have changed. I have to work with what i've got.
In my little research in the forum I found that tuningparts for the 2l are quite rare. What can be done to get some beef in this engine without turbo? webers?

But more questions to come:

I need a new steeringwheel in the car...i'll need one of those:



seems like there are none for the 360...will one made for other cars fit into my 360? maybe for some bigger volvo?

I've spend some time to find information on LSD options. welding isn't an option.
As far as I understand i'll need to rip a LSD from a jeep's front axle to get the cheep solution? dana 30 LSD will fit with some mod's? someone did this (i've seen the pic's on the net)? new dana truetrack is pretty expensive.

hope someone can help out

thanks

[jtbo]

You could make your engine quite nice without turbo, get hot cam from http://www.samsteffansson.se/samindex.html or http://www.kgtrimning.com/kamaxlar.htm, get head ported and bigger valves, replace exhaust manifold with something better, replace stock Efi with Megasquirt or similar, replace injectors as stock versions will not flow, some balancing of engine would be needed if you will use higher revs.

Also, you could swap 2.3l engine to car and add penta crank to it.

You should be able to get at least 200hp from NA engine and that starts to be where other parts are beginning to fail.

However all this comes with price, penta crank is 1000-1500 euros alone, B230 redblock perhaps 500ish? from good unit. porting is not cheap, but possible to do by yourself, getting bigger valves is going to cost something too like balancing engine too.

Megasquirt conversion is perhaps one of the cheapest things that will release lot of potential for engine building.

Exhaust valve size is one thing that limits engine's power output, putting bigger cam can get you only so far as exhaust valve starts limiting things, so porting job without bigger valves is not giving you all benefits that it could, best would be doing porting, bigger valves and cam, then adding something more refined to replace EFI, Megasquirt for example, maybe exhaust manifold too needs replacing at that point, but if you wan't more it is going to cost much more after those. Oh yes, replacing block with b230 is not very expensive either and will give you bit of low end grunt, if you pick up b230 with 1000531 head that will help with porting bit already as it flows much better from intake side than let's say 1000530. There is not much difference on exhaust side, but it is easy to fix with bigger valves and some porting.

Of course there are many other ways to do things, that is just my current fantasy

[Cutler]

ok, thats some info to work with.

in the meantime i found some more gold in this forum.
double leafs+landy 90 front shocks (think i'll try used ones. might be to stiff with new ones an double leafs?)+escort lowering blocks for the rear.

mr2 springs for the front. but maybe i'll just cut the stock springs...don't want her to low.

the steering wheel hub (yeah. found the word) is made by luisi, so another problem solved.

but no progress with the diff...welding is the cavemans approach

seems like no jeep (CJ; YJ; TJ Comanche, Cherokee, Grand Cherokee) came stock with lsd or locker in the front. plenty aftermarket stuff is available...but always new and more expensive than the car . so very little chance to find some scrapyard gold. an if some used stuff is on offer, it's mostly lockers an no LSD; ATB. but thats what i want.
have to keep in mind that all the dana 30 goodies have to see some mod's to fit them in the 300-housing (bolts and housing as far as i understand from some pics on the net).
its a shame that nobody on here ever did this

btw: what about fitting a comlpete volvo 240 diff in the 300? straight fit?

[jtbo]

Fitting 240 diff to end of 360 box is possible, but far from straight fit, some have made 240 diff fit inside 360 diff casing, also lot of modding needed.

Some adapter plate to end of 360 diff so that one could bolt 240 or any other diff to that would be neat, but could be that space is problem as from rear of box there is not too much space to center of rear wheels.

I have seen full 200 or 700 rear axle swapped to 300, it did look quite ugly, but surely very functional.

If you cut springs, use hacksaw, other methods heat up spring too much and cause spring to loose strength so you end up with something awful. Best is to get proper springs made, it is not too expensive either, I'm sure there are companies making springs in Germany too and if you tell them what you like to have they can make them. But I think in Germany you need to provide TÜV certificate of springs you install that you could pass TÜV guy's checking (MOT in UK)?


Still I would put that car into dark dry storage and drive it only sunny summer days, never revving over 3000rpm

[Cutler]

Heheheheh yeah you got it. TÜV is always a problem. As i said, they also kept me from swapping the turbo in. But minor mod's are possible, even without ABE (Allgemeine Betriebserlaubnis), the certificate you mentioned.

And the dark dry storage thing...I can feel your pain dude.
When I saw the car the first time I had the same thoughts. But it's still 7 years (need 30 years or more) away from the german "H-Zulassung"...H stands for historic. With that the car is extremly low on tax and ensurance.
And regulations on that will chance in the future...just to many cars are getting older than 30 now. So maybe the 300 will never get the mighty "H".
Besides that it will never become a true classic...always only special for true fans. So prices will increase but not as dramatic as on more popular cars.
Lots of talking, what I wanna say is its not worth keeping it...hard truth

I'll use it as one of my winter cars...not beatin the hell out of it but also not mothering it like my favorite summer car, my E21



cant wait to get her out again...and yes "H" is near...early 2010