I weighed my options and broke down my costs, $800 for a junkyard motor, labor costs (Aaron's buddy hook up and payment plan easing my pocket book pains for sure even though at the time I still owed just over 1k in labor and parts for him doing stage 0 and mods to the T5M motor) would easily put me in around 2k just to have a daily driver again, and not including the 5K~ for a motor build. So round table discussions were had between Aaron, Juan and myself and we looked at motor prices and a light bulb went off while we pondered how to achieve a budget build.
We decided to use a 2000 V70R motor which has .1 more displacement, solid lifter head (huge selling point as I have a knack for breaking valves), better cooling system, larger injectors, bigger turbo, VVT and factory forged internals. Now I will concede on the forged internals part, because currently I don't have evidence to prove this and there has been much debate on whether or not this is true on here and v70r.com. But we are searching archives and threads to find the data and photos of a torn down B5244T2 internals versus a regular B5234T5 and contacting Volvo R&D to get the confirmation on this part, so we'll take the forged internal debate off the table for now.
Regardless of it all, the motor is just proven to be a stouter set up and easily capable of dealing with a factory 19T, unlike it's predecessors. What made it even sweeter was the fact that I was able to source one from Volvo & Saab auto dismantler in California shipped to Houston for $1350. It included full long block, intake manifold, ETM and green injectors. The 19T and exhaust manifold were not included, overall still a very fair price for what I was getting.
Now we get to the fun stuff. Some of you may have caught on by now that I do own a 1998 S70 and I'm talking about stuffing in a 2000 R motor. For anyone who is unaware in 1999 Volvo went from mechanical throttle body, cap and rotor ignition and Motronic 4.4 EMS in the 1998 models to a ETM, coil on plug and ME7 EMS. This brings up the issue on how any of the newer equipment will work on an older setup. Simple, take everything you can use and rip it off and put on what you can. This is by far as straight forward as any motor swap ever done from a 2.3l into a 2.3l. The only real issues that come about is the intake ports on the block of a 2000 R are nearly 20% larger then the ports on a 98 and older 2.3. So Aaron removed the '00 intake manifold and ETM, took the 2.3l intake manifold and gasket matched the manifold and while there port matched for an N/A throttle body. This was then installed with a little bit of creative routing to fit back in the old style power steering pump, T-Stat and fuel lines to the 2.3l fuel rail and white injectors. The greens are being saved until it's time for larger turbo. Speaking of turbo the 16T was retained from the 2.3 motor and installed along with the 3" turbo back exhaust. Coil packs were removed, and a little bit of material had to be removed for the cap & rotor to fit on properly, but the bolt points from the 2.3 were still cast into the 2.4 motor making the mounting just the same. Other than that the only other modification that was made was an aluminum pipe and silicon coupler were needed to make the necessary clearance and fitment of the NA throttle body and factory IC connection. Everything plugged back in just like it should and my ST 17 PSI tune was retained and actually is a perfect tune for the swap. The optimized intake made for better VE and used up all the richness in the tune and became a solid map. It even increased the CFM of the turbo at the same 17psi.
Now as I mentioned this motor also came with VVT which we hoped to tap into and make some top end gains with some nice timing advance. We were worried that since the motor came from a ME7 car that had parameters for running VVT the car would set to full advance or retard and the motor would fall flat on it's face. To our surprise the VVT not being on didn't matter. The motor is completely neutral without the VVT and it in no way effects driveability without it. We however still wanted to see if gains could be had by making use of the VVT. For this we hardwired a old NOS trigger switch and were able to activate the VVT on command at any point. We found that by sending a straight 12v the VVT was on or off...or so we thought.
Today I hoped on the dyno and spun out 266whp and 340wtq on a 16T with a completely flat powerband. (Dyno graph below) Aaron also chime in on anything else I may have missed in his install. Our final run was where we decided to try the VVT and see if we could make any gains. What we found is, the Volvo VVT is not a true VVT in the VTEC sense of things. Without the proper Volvo EMS the VVT actually made us lose power when we activated it. We feel that the Volvo VVT is purely a fuel economy measure, to control the larger turbo set up. I could spend the $800 for a Greddy management tool for VVT they just released, but for what? A 10-15hp gain on top end? With a little bit more money I can have a GT30R turbo and spin so much more power, so why bother? If you're wondering why not use an older head and not worry about the VVT, why go through the trouble? The head is so much more efficient on the 00 R then the previous motors it's amazing. Solid lifters, much more flow, not using the VVT isn't going to hurt the set up at all and overall still a much better unit by far.
Overall I'm going to say if anything is going to be the new pegs this has to be the new pegs
and once I'm able to prove the motor having factory forged internals this motor set up would be the definitive budget built motor for anyone who wants to do a swap. I'll let Aaron post the overall costs for this project versus a built 2.3 which he has also done but the ball park right now is a 1/3 of the costs of a full 2.3 build. Right now I'll break down the mods and power gains made between the stock and 00 R set up.1998 2.3l B5234T3
246whp 291wtq 45* ambient temp w/ no humidity
-16T
-White injectors
-ST 17psi tune
-RaceLabFabrication custom 3" down pipe & straight through exhaust
-Short ram intake
-8.5mm Kingsborne wires
-MSD Blaster SS coil
-MSD 6A
-NGK-R BKR7E spark plugs gapped .028
-Euro spec R clutch
2000 2.4l B5244T2
266whp 340wtq 81* ambient temp w/ high humidity
-16T
-White injectors
-ST 17psi tune
-RaceLabFabrication custom 3" down pipe & straight through exhaust
-Short ram intake
-8.5mm Kingsborne wires
-MSD Blaster SS coil
-MSD 6A
-NGK-R BKR7E spark plugs gapped .033
-Gasket matched intake manifold
-NA throttle body
-Euro spec R clutch
What's most amazing about this install is the fact that the car makes so much power for so long without every falling on it's face. The torque curve is just so fat that no matter how many people I have in the car, the car makes the same solid pull over and over again without ever feeling like I'm lacking in power. The 16T doesn't even feel like it's even close to running out of breath much like the stock tune feeling. I can do a progressive roll on the throttle at 40mph and break the wheels loose every time like I'm on wet pavement. The car just absolutely obliterates 1st and 2nd from a dig or a roll, 3rd and 4th are scary gears because of how much speed it builds in so little time and there's usually not enough road to ride them out before something forces me to slow down.
Some video of street passes, and the dyno day and current pictures of the setup and car will be uploaded later. As for now the future of this project will turn towards cosmetic, brakes and suspension. I'm extremely happy with the motor and the power it's making currently and don't expect to being doing any further power mods for a while but the future will contain
Engine:
-GT30R
-Green injectors
-FMIC (possibly cryo spray)
-RaceLabFabrication Tubular exhaust manifold
-RaceLabFabrication Intake manifold
-RaceLabFabrication True cold air intake (Kit GB coming soon)
-Water/Meth injection
-SpeedTuning reflash
-Sach 707 Clutch and pressure plate
-Quaife LSD
Suspension:
-RaceLabFabrication custom coilovers, control arms and endlinks
-IPD rear sway bar
Brakes;
-S60R Rotors
-Porsche 996 Calipers front & rear
-RaceLabFabrication 996 BBK brackets front & rear (available soon)
There's a ton of custom cosmetic stuff that will be happening in the next few months so stay tuned folks, This should be a fun ride, figuratively and literally.
