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by Tim
I owned an 84 360 GLE 4door for 10 years from 1986 to 1996 with 30,000 miles on it, and took that up to well over 110,000. (Sadly) I now have a 93 850 2.0l 20v, and whilst it is leaps ahead of the 360 in terms of handling and ride, and the glorious
5 cylinder engine, it just doesnt have the character or build quality i remmeber the 360 for.
I admit to having the dealer work on the car almost the whole time I had it every 6000 miles, and yes they were expensive, and sometimes didnt offer the standard that you would expect for paying top dollar, but thats another story! I mostly had the
same problems you have in your Q&A's such as:
- the drivers (and passengers) door hinge pins wearing and the door dropping- dealer fixed with new pins at about 70,000 miles.
- Flat spots in the lower to medium rev range that persisted for several years even after 2 carb rebuilds, but finally traced to a combination of the dealer insisting on setting the CO to the absolute minimum (less than 1%) and a faulty thermomstat (AM one and wrong temperature!!!) After putting in the genuine volvo 90degree and mixture to about 2% I never had any more problems, and it cured the slight pinking too.
- Indicator switch unit on the steering column broke and came off in my hand!
- I had the dodgy brake servo episode too, only in my case it decided to start empting the brake fluid from the reservoir and vacuum drawing to the inlet manifold.
- Non Volvo exhausts last NO time at all, and AM downpipes either crack or rub on the crossmember.
- I had the gearbox front support member rust out- as its a double skinned affair, was impossible to safely weld.
- I never changed the front shocks or rebuilt the front suspension, but i recall it was getting abit floaty and vague in the end, but the rear shocks I changed and they made a huge differnce to the ride and handling.
- I always used leaded 97 octane petrol, as the B19A engine was never designed for unleaded having a 10:1 compression ratio and no knock sensor, but dealers had 'adapted' them for unleaded by installing a second headgasket and 'modifying' the crank sensor's mounting plate to retard the timing abit. Sounds dodgy to me...
Anyway, I still have the 360 bug and so scoured the ads, and travelled the country and eventually found a black 88 GLT. Its got 90k miles on it and needs some love and care, but when time permits I shall restore it to showroom condition to keep
and show at events, and probably uprate too. I have done much research on the "drop in a turbo motor" idea, and yes it can be done reasonably easily-ish. I have the motor out of my 360 at the moment for overhaul. A motor from a late 740 or 760 will
fit the easiest- i.e. the B230FT if u want the full 190HP or you could use the LPT units in either 2 litre or 2.3litre forms, but be warned these use a more complex form of management with more wires, sensors and computers, and interact with other
bits of the car (like the dash and heating system / SRS etc.... I am an electrical engineer so the hardest part of marrying the turbo engine's wiring loom to the rest of the car wouldnt be too much of a problem. However here are the important
points, some of which you touched upon in your Q&A:
- The main problem (for RHD cars) is the major lack of room on the RH side of the engine bay; the engine is canted over this way to allow the bonnet to close, and with the RHD cars this space is pretty tight with the exhaust and steering rack,
especially with powersteering, so fitting a turbo in here necessates some altertion of the crossmember, bulkhead, and inner wing, but it will all fit *just*. I plan to apply some heat resistant foil and to the inner wing and steering rack, and to
the hoses and pipework. The exhaust downpipe will have to b a cut and shut version of the factory one fitted onto the existing system.
- Fuel system; if you are starting with a GLT, then you will already have the high pressure flow and return pipes and the correct fuel tank, but for the turbo motor which uses twin pumps (charge and pressure pumps) these will have to be plumbed
in otherwise the standard pump cant cope when you get into the boost zone. However as the turbo pre-pump lives inside the tank and the standard 360 pump doesnt, I will probably use a single Bosch pump from a Ford RS cosworth as these have plenty of
capacity, are the same size, and loads cheaper!
Either use the standard 360inj airfilter box as its on the right side for the turbo or a K&N type thing, but note that you must relocate the air mass meter to this side also.
- Intercooler - no problem- the 360 was sold in hotter climates like NZ and Austrailia and came with Air con. there is plenty of room infront of the radiator for the intercooler, and even some preformed holes that can be punched out for the
pipes. And if you wanted to go to town you could also install air con as well, though it would get abit tight up front then, and i think you would need extra fans to keep it all cool, for which there wouldnt be room. However you could ditch the
air/air intercooler and go for a chargecooler instead. I am toying with this idea as i would like the air con and can source parts for this, although getting the evapourator without going back to Austrailia might be abit tricky. The compressor
mounts on the left side of the engine under the top radiator hose with the help of brackets off early 240 cars, or some home brewed ones.
- Ignition- the turbo motor uses a distributor mounted at the back of the cylinder head driven off the camshaft. You can either continue with this as there is just about enough room between it and the heater / windscreen / bulkhead, or adapt the
system to the distributer driven off the layshaft down below the inlet manifold. this has pros and cons. The pros are its a hell of alot easier to get to, and the cons are that you can do this and mount the air con pump as the two are in the way.
However if you do decide to do this you will need the distributor from the B19A engine. This is the one that has no innards, no advance weights and no pick-up unit, as they are not needed for the new management system which uses a crank sensor and
works out its own adavnce setting. Also you will need to remove the bung from the block in order to fit this on the B230FT motor, and also ensure that it has the correct lay-shaft fitted with a gear on to drive the distributor.
- Clutch etc... the turbo motor will fit the existing bellhousing bolt holes, and will all fit together if you use the 360 flywheel and clutch unit. You may have to have the flywheel machined as i think volvo altered the bolt pattern / number of
dowels that hold it on to the crank. I fear that 190hp through the standard clutch will make it groan, but so far have come up with nothing on an uprated version. Likewaise the gearbox may complain also, but the only weak link tends to be the 1st
gear idler and the 2nd gear synchro unit, so I guess dont give it too much boot in the lower gears. The rest of the drive line is pretty much bullet proof, but I have found the rear engine mounts must be as new, i.e. not soft / slack, else the
engine will drop slightly and try to bend the torque tube / propshaft assembly, and eventually they crack and break.
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