Yet another post about an 850 NA to Turbo swap

[notavolvoguy]

Hey all,

To preface: everything I've read till now was that one should never do said swap, however, I was given a manual 850 GLT wagon and a crashed automatic T5-R sedan for free. I've proceeded to ignore everything the forums have said and go ahead on the swap. my username is apt as this is the first time I've done anything Volvo. I'm a BMW guy. I've done a few OBDI and OBDII engine swaps on BMWs, been around the block with manual swaps a few times as well. 

The wagon is a 95 OBDII car. The T5 was a 96 OBDII car. I grabbed the motor, all the engine wiring harnesses's, cluster, steering column, motor, radiator and bunch of smaller things off the crashed T5. I've swapped the motor into the wagon with all the wiring harnesses, I pulled the dash out and put the turbo dash harness and cluster in. Basically the front half of the wagon is all turbo parts and the back half of the wagon is all original parts. I pretty much tossed the turbo stuff in and crossed my fingers that it would all just happily work out. Shockingly......it didn't.

The issues I'm running into: I'm getting a no crank condition on the motor and none of the headlights, signals, horn etc are working (but everything on the back half of the car is). I'm getting all the dash lights on the cluster illuminating. If I pull the stalk for high beams, the light on the dash illuminates but the lights don't actually turn on. When I pull the wiper stalk, the wipers do turn on. Something has gone funky somewhere with all the swapping of harnesses. Right now, I'm trying to chase down the no crank issue, I'll deal with the accessories later. 

I haven't managed to find a "successful" swap thread on this swap. Everything is "DONT DO IT, IDIOT" and the thread dies out after that. Is there any repining of DME or modules for this swap. Do any of you have the wiring diagrams from both cars that I could compare to each other. Any other advice or things in general for this swap? Is there any other modifications for this swap needed? 

In conclusion: No, it's not cheaper to sell my wagon and buy an 850 turbo wagon because I got it for free and I can't sell a paperweight for anything close to the cost of an 850 turbo. I am already past the point of no return on this swap. The NA motor and T5-R shell are gone. I have shop space and time to do this swap. In this case, I don't care about my time that I put into it. I have other cars to drive. This is a passion project so all logic is out the window. I hope that quells a majority of the "DON'T DO IT, IDIOT" concerns. 

Fingers crossed for a productive thread on this. 

Thanks in advance! 

 

[Zappo]

You swapped in the ECU from the T5 correct?

Also, I am guessing you went with the manual transmission.  What did you do with the connector for the auto transmission?  I believe you have to jump two pins in order to fool the ECU into believing the auto is still there.

You should be able to find threads on here about manual swapping and what you needs to do with the wiring.

 

 

[notavolvoguy]

26 minutes ago, Zappo said:

You swapped in the ECU from the T5 correct?

Also, I am guessing you went with the manual transmission.  What did you do with the connector for the auto transmission?  I believe you have to jump two pins in order to fool the ECU into believing the auto is still there.

You should be able to find threads on here about manual swapping and what you needs to do with the wiring.

 

 

I did go with the manual. I worked under the assumption that the wiring for the manual was already correct because the car it was going into was already a manual. Didn't even cross my mind that I would still have to jump pins because the doner car was auto. ill do some looking into the "manual" swap on this and report back. Much appreciated!

[gdog]

Here's a thread on the topic that I recall (was thinking about doing this project for awhile, but I eventually found a good turbo wagon):

Unfortunately, not a lot of detail in there from what I saw. 

I'd still like to do this because N/A are the only cars you can get in the states w/o sunroofs.  I'd love to lose mine.. 

[kolbrick]

It sounds like the no crank can be a problem with the neutral safety switch since you used the automatic harness. There was 2 wires I had to connect together if I can find the wiring diagram I used I'll link it 

3 minutes ago, kolbrick said:

It sounds like the no crank can be a problem with the neutral safety switch since you used the automatic harness. There was 2 wires I had to connect together if I can find the wiring diagram I used I'll link it 

And also the 95 car has a completely different abs system then a 96. The 95 uses the transmission for the speedometer, in 96 they stated using wheelspeed. I'm not sure if that'll help ya but figured I'd share what I know 

[notavolvoguy]

On 11/26/2022 at 11:46 PM, kolbrick said:

It sounds like the no crank can be a problem with the neutral safety switch since you used the automatic harness. There was 2 wires I had to connect together if I can find the wiring diagram I used I'll link it 

And also the 95 car has a completely different abs system then a 96. The 95 uses the transmission for the speedometer, in 96 they stated using wheelspeed. I'm not sure if that'll help ya but figured I'd share what I know 

 

On 11/26/2022 at 11:12 PM, gdog said:

Here's a thread on the topic that I recall (was thinking about doing this project for awhile, but I eventually found a good turbo wagon):

Unfortunately, not a lot of detail in there from what I saw. 

I'd still like to do this because N/A are the only cars you can get in the states w/o sunroofs.  I'd love to lose mine.. 

Thanks for passing those along. Got busy with life leading up to Christmas. I had a few small issues but I got it running. I did need to bypass the PNP being the motor was originally from an auto. I also have a couple bad grounds that had me chasing my tail back and forth. In the end, besides bypassing the PNP, the only other wiring I've had to run was reverse lights, trans speed sensor, and the cruise control.

I have some dummy switches in the dash from the T5 that my wagon doesn't have, ill find something "exciting" to have those switches run to. 

For any that decide to do this swap, overall a really simple swap actually and I have my wiring diagrams and the "swapping" of wires to get everything working still. It's probably a big weekend to get it completed. 

[Chuck W]

5 hours ago, notavolvoguy said:

 

Thanks for passing those along. Got busy with life leading up to Christmas. I had a few small issues but I got it running. I did need to bypass the PNP being the motor was originally from an auto. I also have a couple bad grounds that had me chasing my tail back and forth. In the end, besides bypassing the PNP, the only other wiring I've had to run was reverse lights, trans speed sensor, and the cruise control.

I have some dummy switches in the dash from the T5 that my wagon doesn't have, ill find something "exciting" to have those switches run to. 

For any that decide to do this swap, overall a really simple swap actually and I have my wiring diagrams and the "swapping" of wires to get everything working still. It's probably a big weekend to get it completed. 

Glad you got it sorted.

Personally, I'd have no issue doing the same swap if needed. The wiring on these things is pretty modular, and really not too much different. Especially if you're dealing with same model year harnesses. Even then, it's not THAT complicated.

[Zappo]

6 hours ago, notavolvoguy said:

 

In the end, besides bypassing the PNP, the only other wiring I've had to run was reverse lights, trans speed sensor, and the cruise control.

Did you get the cruise control working?  Mine hasn't worked since my swap.

Loose grounds will kill the motor while driving, so good thing you tracked those down.

[bmdubya1198]

Glad to see you sorted this out! This is the general consensus on NA to T on these cars, and I really don't know why. If you have the parts at your disposal for minimal cost, why not do it? It's been done, just not often. All I can think is that most people urging against it aren't tinkerers at the level some of us are. I'll tear into anything and do the most ridiculous swaps... I also swapped a FWD rear suspension into my already FWD manual swapped V70R. Some may think that was a waste, but it cut a good 3-400 pounds from the car by removing useless components, so I'm satisfied with it. Glad you just decided to jump in and just do it.

I'm also a BMW nut (username might have given that away) and those cars tend to be a little easier to swap things around on, but the P80s are pretty similar in that sense compared to newer Volvos. There should be nothing else different between the donor car and your car at this point with the DME (ECU on these cars) and harness being transferred from the turbo car, so you should be all set once you sort out the minor kinks.

[notavolvoguy]

 

On 12/19/2022 at 3:42 PM, Zappo said:

Did you get the cruise control working?  Mine hasn't worked since my swap.

Loose grounds will kill the motor while driving, so good thing you tracked those down.

I have the wiring diagram drawn for it, however, I haven't run the wires yet. I ran out of time before having to jump on a flight. I'm aiming to have it wired up but the new year. ill report back with what I did if it works/when I figure out the proper configuration to have it working.

21 hours ago, bmdubya1198 said:

Glad to see you sorted this out! This is the general consensus on NA to T on these cars, and I really don't know why. If you have the parts at your disposal for minimal cost, why not do it? It's been done, just not often. All I can think is that most people urging against it aren't tinkerers at the level some of us are. I'll tear into anything and do the most ridiculous swaps... I also swapped a FWD rear suspension into my already FWD manual swapped V70R. Some may think that was a waste, but it cut a good 3-400 pounds from the car by removing useless components, so I'm satisfied with it. Glad you just decided to jump in and just do it.

I'm also a BMW nut (username might have given that away) and those cars tend to be a little easier to swap things around on, but the P80s are pretty similar in that sense compared to newer Volvos. There should be nothing else different between the donor car and your car at this point with the DME (ECU on these cars) and harness being transferred from the turbo car, so you should be all set once you sort out the minor kinks.

That's a large weight decrease. They're already heavy cars so losing that amount surely did wonders. I'm toying with the idea of doing an AWD swap on mine. I'm over lowered RWD BMW's in the winter so I figure a stock hight AWD wagon will fill my daily driver requirements. I have a tendency to build everything I own so i'm trying to keep this 850 as off the shelf parts number built to make it easy for whatever down the line parts that come up. 

 

On 12/19/2022 at 2:21 PM, Chuck W said:

Glad you got it sorted.

Personally, I'd have no issue doing the same swap if needed. The wiring on these things is pretty modular, and really not too much different. Especially if you're dealing with same model year harnesses. Even then, it's not THAT complicated.

Its nice that everything is pretty much wired from switch to component and not having to deal with a bunch of modules and intermediate fuse boxes. 

[bmdubya1198]

Yeah, these are good winter cars. Mine would be better if it wasn't lowered, but it looks decent!