Volvo 850 engine rebuild

[V850t5r]

Thought i'd just post up a thread on what I've been tinkering with since November last year. It's an original 850 T5r from 1995 with about 350 000km on it. The engine is not the original, not sure exactly what year it is, but it's a B5234T5  "1DDDDD" block with an boring automatic lump attached to it. Car stood still for two years, fired right up, fixed a couple of things and drove it about 4 or 5 months until the engine bent a rod or two, knock knock! I suspect it being a bad tune or something, because when the engine broke the boost gauge was reading 1,7 bars and going nuts. So i let of the throttle asap but it was to late. Towed it home and started ordering parts to start this project.

Plan is to make it an affordable, reliable Oem+ car with the right mods, keeping things tidy and clean under the hood and make it mechanically perfect. Exterior cosmetics are not getting to much attention, atleast yet. 

• Mod list:
• Forged rods
• Toga main bearings
• Manual swap
• Oem R-clutch
• Kinugawa 20t turbocharger with stock exhaust housing
• TA Technix coilovers (cheap)
• do88 Rip kit 
• Green injectors
• 3"all the way, downpipe w/o cat
• BSR open air intake
• New rear and front axle bushings
• New vacuum and coolant hoses all over
• Gaskets everywhere are new
• Catch can from eBay (not yet mounted)
• New steering rack with hoses
• HID high beam setup
• R-maifold

Pictures to follow

My DD and the T5r

Let the games begin

This nastiness won't stay for long

Minimal wear on the cylinders, the lip on the top did not even catch my nail, its just dirty. Will ofc be honed, had a shop do this

Standard headbolt problem... they break. Had the rest drilled out at a machine shop and helicoiled it.

Tedious cleaning of parts, a lot of thinner and patience

Was said this engine had about 200 000km on it. If it does it's had some sloppy oil intervals

The only damages i could find. Results of a bent rod. Piston kisses crank, knock knock

Booogie boogie

Rod bearings looked pretty new, replaced them anyways ofc, however to my suprise the main bearings were done. Didnt know that was a wear item at 200 000km?

Cylinder head getting some love

Stupid cheap valve compressor tool scratched the walls for the hydraulic lifter cups, re honed the surface. The cup floats nicely now, hope it holds up.

Thinner, toothbrush, gasket remover and time.. really boring but great result

Grinding valve seats diy style with some valve grinding paste. This took so long i was watching netflix on the pc while doing this, hehe

Reinstalling valve stem seals and valves

More gasket remover and probably 3 hours+++ of scraping, not done in this pic

Made the manifold shiny and stuff

Same goes for the power steering pump and tensioner etc.

New parts, used parts and finished parts, a nice mix

The car is ofc waiting outside, kind of cramped in here

Bought a parts car for the manual swap and all the other little things

Rear engine'd 850 on stock suspension, cant even tell its there lol

A bit of work on the gearbox and it's like new

I believe this engine we had laying around was the original engine in this car. This one also suffered from a bent rod. I took it apart hoping to be able to use two pistons out of it so i could replace the damaged ones.

holy stuff, there was 1cm deep crap on the bottom

(Dont mind the height diff) If you look closely the area around the wrist pin and the wrist pin its self is not the same and valve groves (above) also differed slightly. Decided to reuse old pistons.

While waiting on parts i decided to clean up the subframe and change a bad bushing

Looked like this after i attacked it with a wire brush and sanding paper

New steering rack with hoses

Messy, but it's actually clean

Installed HID ballast under the battery tray, stealth mode. The other one i placed inside the ecu tray, hope it doesn't disturb anything?

Had this car for 2 years, it's a 2.2. Wanted something faster so i sold it..

And bought my dream car, the almighty e39 m5, it goes like stink! The depo headlights are gonna go, hella's are coming.

This is why many people and now I myself don't recommend buying toga bearings. Look at this retarded packaging! This is not candy they are selling, its an vital engine component and the decide to pack it like this?!

Has been rubbing all the way from Tokyo or something. I did however use the toga bearings on my crank since they actually made it with insignificant damage, but these rod bearings i returned. Went the safe way and got Oem ones and why not if they last 200 000km?

Parts started appearing so reassembly of the engine began

Cleaned up and ready 

A lot of prep. Never done this so i wanted to do it right the first time

Mounted, torqued and spinning perfectly

Grinding the ring end gaps to an even spec

Home made ring gap grinder, looks tacky yes but it really worked. All the rings have straight cuts!

Figured this should work okay for my setup, will be adding a catch can to support (if any) added crank case pressure

Rod small end bore was to tight for the wrist pins. They had to get some machinig done to fit. Sent the block, pistons and rods for assembly at a machine shop

Bought the ARD 19t upgrade kit, but changed my mind and bought a Kinugawa 20t on ebay. Reused my exhaust housing

Sandblasted and painted

Got the engine back and things went really fast, lacking some pics here

R-manifold upgrade, oem

Aiming

You just have to get a engine tilt in order to do this, it is SOO much easier to maneuver. Me and my friend had the engine seated in 5 minutes

It sits

Looks done, but it's not. Still need to bleed the clutch, and route some vaccum lines, wires and other small things

Started the engine yesterday for the first time (Sorry no video) and it started immediantly, however a loud ticking noise from the head was present, was expecting that since the oil channels has to fill up so I fearlessly let it run and hoped for it to go away. The Car ran for a bit while i was listening to another interesting noise coming from the timing belt. While studying it i noticed that the ticking had gone away and all i could hear was that sweet mechanical harmony from the head. No ticking or strange noises what so ever. The timing belt noise was the timing belt tensioner that i reused, seems like it did not survive. A new one is on it's way. The belt was moving sideways on the cogs back and forth, lucky it didn't jump off. After this is fixed i will have the wheels alligned and get the "mot" done so i can have my plates and drive off wherever. 

One last thing, i need a good tune/remap/chip i really have little knowledge on the difference, but i need a custom tune that is specific for my setup.

Any advice? I know ARD has, but i'm located in Norway so i'd like something that's closer. A little worried to run this ecu since i suspect i might have something to do with the bent rods and overboost etc. 

That's all I have for now

[Kevin.]

it seems that Toga has a reputation of sending bearings like that

 

awesome work!

 

check out Beust tuning, he is a member on here and does custom tunes for 850s. His username is tightmopedman

[Tightmopedman9]

Super clean work! 

I don't get it when manufacturers ship their bearings like that. I've personally  seen it from Toga and Glyco. Based on the amount of returns they must get, why do they keep doing it? I've put ~20,000 miles on OEM bearings and the majority of that time then engine has been above 400WHP. No problems as of yet.

Maybe I missed it, but what ring end gap did you end up going with?

By the way, check out my website and feel free to send me an email or PM with any questions regarding tuning.

[EricF]

Great thread!  

[Big Will]

Beautiful job! Made me regret not painting my gearbox housing while I had the chance. I had the same experience with the Toga bearings. The main bearings turned out to be undersized and the rod bearings were scratched up like crazy from the awful packaging...ended up using Volvo ones.

I'm just going to add my recommendation on working with TMM9 for your tune - we're not quite finished with it on my wagon but he's been great to work with through the whole process.

[V850t5r]

Thanks for the feedback! Indeed really disappointed with toga. It's a little strange when they have the competence to create such specialized car parts but still can't package the precious items. The Volvo ones came in a plastic bag for each bearing, really that simple. Hope the mains hold up, would really suck if they said goodnight... I gotta stop thinking about that, not healthy. Engine runs smooth as butter for now at least.

The ring gaps are here. Two measurements for each ring top/bottom. Slight taper, but the clearance is well above spec anyways. Should be okay with this set-up i've been told.

Thanks for the tip about the Beust tune, looked interesting:)

 

[Brad850]

I'm jealous

[privatryan]

So toga bearings are packed this way regardless if they come from ARD? What rods did you go with? Oem are without the extra clearance for high rpm's right? If toga sucks is there an alternative?

[V850t5r]

Yes they are, i ordered via ARD.. but this is how they come from the factory. Ard said they would look into the issue and they did refund me no problems there. The rods were "MaxSpeedingRods" also from Ard, they had to be machined in the small end of the rod, also had the shop assemble pistons/rods while they were at it.

I do not know about the clearance for high Rpms, but i went with standard spec oem rod bearings. But honestly if you aren't going for over 400bhp i bet the Oems really are the better option, because these cars run 250-300000km's or more on oem's.

[mattwebb502]

Were those under vacuum when received or loose like in the pic?

I personally have never had any issue with the taco shell packing arrangement, but I've never seen them in what looks like a relatively loose bag in your picture... I've always seen either shrink plastic or a vacuum pack (sometimes with a cardboard backer).

As long as they are stacked correctly before proper plastic shrink or vac, I don't think there's a problem at all.
At least not in my experience.

I think the problem must come not from stacking them this way, but from a loose pack where the shells can turn and dig their edges into the babbitt of neighboring shells.

What I'm referring to is evident in many instances in your "unwrapped" picture:


(not at all trying to indicate you were the cause, just trying to clarify with a picture of what I was referring to happening in a loose pack)


A proper pack:



Maybe I'm preaching to the choir here?
I'm just of the opinion that individual bagging, foam boxing, etc is overkill and not at all necessary as long as they are stacked and wrapped correctly from the get go. All the manufacturers do this, and have been for years.


 

[Big Will]

I can at least confirm that the bearings I received from Toga were packaged as loosely as [insert joke of choice here]...definitely not under vacuum.

At some point you'd think they would change the way they're packaging this stuff! But maybe this is a problem further down the supply chain since the ones I received were actually made by King.

[V850t5r]

I doubt toga intended to put that bag under vacuum. If you look at the packaged picture there is a red tape, that was put on the just to hold the opening shut. Surely if packaged tight together and not allowing any movement it should not harm the bearings. But i am of the opinion that parts like these should really be packaged a little "overkill" because you less than likely want to tear everything apart again for a damaged shell that you may have missed. Should be procedure to check all bearings of course, but non the less!

Volvo did it the way it should be done imo, just a simple somewhat robust plastic bag for each shell with one set in each box.

Does anyone know where the upper limit for the Oem bearings are in terms of handling power? I'm guestimating they should be good for about 400bhp much like the pistons.

[854TGA+]

I ran over 400 whp for years / no issues with OEM bearings.

[V850t5r]

Updates incoming!

Got the timingbelt changed for another belt from INA instead of the Gates belt aswell as idler roller and tensioner roller. Didn't find anything specifically wrong anywhere but i'm guessing it was the timing belt, anyways now it finally runs straight and silently.

Took the car out for a little drive and immedeantly noticed the steering wheel was about 70 degrees of center, took a look with the steering wheel sitting straight and the passenger wheel poked out about 4cm! So i did a rough adjustment so that it atleast looks straight and an allignment will be done shortly. 

Also the coilovers were set way to low so i raised it about 2cm. Will be spacing out the rims to fill the arches better, arches will be rolled/cut to fit. Not to worried about it starting to rust, because it's already come a long way. Someone has already been cutting into the arches as you can see.

Yes i know the blue lights are a little ghetto, but they have kind of grown on me and they look to be a lot of work to change back

As you can see the third brake light is dimly lit (only parking lights on). I repaired this earlier but it seems to be getting a low current form somewhere as it does light up much stronger when brakes are applied. You really can ony see this when it's dark outside.

Also put my ebay catch can in, found a neat and stealthy spot to put it

Dremel is such a handy tool!

Not hooked up yet, just looped the hose

Battery clamp was customized a little and moved further inwards on the battery instead of sitting on the corner

Easy access to the drain

And it's barley visible:)

Clutch still not entirely perfect, might be some air left but it changes gears nicely. However reverse requires some extra pedal effort in order to engage smoothly. Reverse lights works like a charm so it looks like the harness wiring was a success. 

I have one lamp in the dash which is the blinking upwards pointing arrow. I believe this is an AT failure lamp? I still have the AT ecu in the socket. Anyone know if i can just unplug it? Maybe its the AT ecu making it blink? If not i think i will just remove the bulb or something as it's not really relevant.

Stay tuned!:)

[Blockpartie]

Your third brake light issue might be because of an incorrect lamp control module. There are several different versions of this module (technically a relay) that each cover a specific configuration e.g. no third brake light, third brake light with conventional bulb, third brake light with LED and so on.