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Well, here goes, this is a very late upload so I hope I haven't forgotten anything or duplicated too many of the photos, either way it should be a fun way for you guys to kill 5-10 minutes in your days tomorrow Enjoy. This is going to be a story/build thread, as my previous thread was deleted or archived with the updates/backups to the website. Three years ago I bought a 1997 850R from Brandon (Volvoskiah) from the NEC. The car was owned by one owner it’s whole life from 14,000 to 198,000 with immaculate records and unbelievable maintenance by a Volvo dealer out in Massachusetts. I flew out on about a weeks’ notice because I knew this wagon would not last, and this had always been the car I had wanted since I got bit by the Volvo bug in 2009! Fast forward three years and two months ago. I had bought a 98 V70 AWD of the Coral variety with a blown motor about a year ago from a couple in Connecticut and had it towed to Brandon and Tom’s shop in Holyoke. They had a 2000R motor that they were going to throw in it when they had some time. This summer everything got put into the Coral and I was going to go pick it up. We started discussing my 855R and how I had been wanting to manual swap it for a while now. We then got the bright idea to RN/M56H swap it since my motor had 235,000 on it. Seeing as I had to go pick up the Coral anyways…. Why not drive the R up and swap it at the same time! :lol: Many parts were bought and plans were set. Time for pictures and shenanigans! We left Friday, my Dad came with to drive the Coral back as I would be driving the R back. He also was the dedicated camera guy all weekend long, so 99% of these photos are credit to him, as my hands were full of grease for three straight days A member and good friend also came with to stretch his S70’s legs before his trip to Vegas, Jay (Modman), and the project really could not have been finished without him. 3am! Meeting Jay at the rest stop. Jay! Creepin’ Last gas station stop being automagic for the rest of its’ life. My pops drove for a while and I took the liberty to take some scenery and rolling pictures. Mostly through New York and slightly into Massachusetts. Enjoy. Okay so, obviously I am not a professional photographer so I feel some turned out decent, but I uploaded all of them just cause of simplicity Rolling shots of Jay’s car, I hope at least one turned out, you need one in your sig my friend Award for most ugly body-kit Does anyone smell Salmon? What a cool Mercury. Lee, this is for you The guy was really cool and we talked while driving and said he liked the wagon Father Klopcic! Arrived in Holyoke! Brandon and Dillon! Brandon’s’ family’s chariots Mike this is for you Friday night we brought all the parts and the wagon to the shop in Holyoke. Everything was loaded into the garage and we went and rested up till our 8am wake-up time! Day 1: Saturday Removal of hood, so as to save my head from hitting it all the time Tearing into it. Goodbye 234,000 2.3L, you have been great to me, stay alive in Brandon’s T5M Jay, Brandon and I discussing RN swaps and how much Jay realizes he needs an RN motor Well help beautiful! Not the car, I’m talking about you Tom Tom towed the XC with his newly swapped R, which is awesome by the way. He had stripped the entire engine except for the engine mounts and the sub frame so it was an easy pull on this one. Started to strip the ’01 motor of its accessory stuff, and replacing it with my 97 stuff. I promise I did stuff while they were pulling off the other stuff. This is the piece that messed up on us 50 miles into the drive home. RMS is a moody oh yeah!. New RMS will be going in on the 18th of October. But we did replace it with a new unit and I think it may have folded in on itself but I will post an update on this come the time the engine comes out just a month after it got put in! So many Volvo’s! So this concluded Saturday, it was incredibly hot all day and it started to rain around 9pm so we headed back and ate a delicious dinner with chili as the main dish, which was absolutely amazing, made by Brandon’s mother. We also got to sit and talk about the day and the plan of action for tomorrow, seeing as we needed to get it done! Off to bed and onto 8am tomorrow morning for the final stretch! Day 2: Sunday Didn’t get any pictures of pulling the old out of my wagon cause my Dad was going to get breakfast for errbody. But Tom and I manhandled it like champs and got it out. Here is how the 2.4L sat when we got the trans mated up and everything ready for the accessories to go on! Here is an issue we ran into. This I'm dumb exhaust stud broke in the head as we were pulling off the old exhaust manifold. My Dad worked on it for about 4 hours on Sunday trying everything we could, but to no avail, so when we put the exhaust gaskets on we slathered the entire backside with an exhaust manifold gasket sealant, so far it has held up great and no leaks. I’ll eventually get a new head in the future I’m sure so that’ll solve that problem when I swap it, but it’s working great right now Jay taking a well-deserved break, he put pretty much all the accessory brackets and associated parts on the new motor… what a guy! Brandon grabbing a seat in the bay Getting ready to go in! Yay kneeling in the bay. Now I know everyone has seen an engine being lifted into a Volvo before, but damn this took precision and lots of patience with having to have the door open, to closing it, to opening it part of the way, to closing it again! But she’s in. This is my favorite picture of the entire weekend. We still had everything to button up but it was in and was such a feeling of accomplishment. This really captures what a great bunch of guys you all are. I cannot thank you enough for everything you did to help all weekend, you are all truly great friends After that Jay had to leave due to work the next day at 3pm so we had to say goodbye and he started the 14 hour journey home!

Updating the feeds at: http://volvosofcarlisle.com/

Active Research & Development Volvo Advanced Real-time Computer upgrader. It's a mouthful so they called it the ARDVARC. They created the ARDVARC to provide a user controlled ECU upgrade process. Read more here: http://volvospeed.co..._ecu_tuner.html

Lexington, Ohio (Aug 5, 2011) – K-PAX Racing, the World Challenge GT Manufacturers’ and Drivers’ champion in 2010, enjoyed a solid day of qualifying at round seven of the Pirelli World Challenge Championship at Mid Ohio, with three out of the four of the teams cars qualifying in the top three in both the GT and Touring Car classes. Read more: http://volvospeed.com/index/kpax_volvo_racing_midohio_2011.html