Volvo 240 Rally Build

What wheels are those?  They look like a larger alloy version of the stock hub caps. lol  I'm leaning toward Geminis for our 245 though.

In reply to V6Buicks :

They're 740 diesel (760?) wheels. What's the car being used for?

Spent the day trying to sort out this spring situation. Demontweeks still hasn't gotten back to me so my dad started on making another coupler. The master at work:

Bit of a PITA, had to use a clutch collet bored out to the right ID to clamp onto it:

Turned out very nice:

BUT when I got the front suspension apart I realized that when the helper spring was fully compressed, the coupler's inner ring would contact the upper spring perch before full compression, so it would basically be sitting on those thin inner rings all the time. 

The solution is to put the helper springs on the bottom, the extra deep lower perches keep the two springs aligned:

But unfortunately that means I don't get to use the cool part we made :(

Guess one of my exhaust clamps wasn't tight enough...

Another thing to do before this weekend....

lol......man, you'll learn eventually to just weld the whole thing.....clamps never survive rally (ask me how I know, I think I've dropped my exhaust like 5 times over the years until I just welded full 1-piece header back)

The exhaust fell off the MR2 on I think its second rallycross (in Harrisburg), even though it was welded together the hangers just weren't very solid, and the flex joint was too flexy.  I had to hold it together with a large hose clamp to finish the event.  I took that as a good excuse to chop the exhaust off, simplify it greatly, and hang it pretty solid like.  It's a lot louder now, but hasn't fallen off since.  I probably overcompensated on the hanger though, it's pretty much impossible to get the damn thing out now.  Usually I just unbolt the hanger from the underbody to remove the exhaust, that's easier.  

Nesegleh said:

In reply to V6Buicks :

They're 740 diesel (760?) wheels. What's the car being used for?

I looked them up.  It apprears that they're called Omega.

Mine is just an every day car.  I'm just looking for something a bit lighter with better looks.

In reply to V6Buicks :

Ah okay. I'd say most of the 15" Volvo wheels look pretty nice imo just a matter of preference. The 15" wheels I've got are just cuz they are strong (according to swedish rally videos lol) and were cheapish. 

I was just asking because Volvo's really need taller and wider wheels for track use.

While I had the muffler off I noticed the hanger brackets were bending because they only had a spotweld holding them on. 

Fixed it

Got everything back together tonight and dialed in the ride height 

I give the exhaust about 3 runs.

That rear overhang is so massive in that photo lol...I mean, even bigger than it actually is :) Better keep that thing tidy in the corners if there are outside cones :D

Remind me, what tires do you have for it? Gravels, Maxsports?

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Heh I've never been too worried about cones.

Running federal gravel tires

Event recap: 

Day one was a super tight course. Car felt good as I got more comfortable in it. Kept the aggression down because I kept hitting cones on the passenger side of the car, which is unsurprising as this always happens when I haven't rallycrossed in a while lol. Anyways I was a bit behind the main pack in raw times. Not bad considering the size of the 240 vs all the e30's leading MR plus only putting out a generous 100hp, but the car certainly has more in it (after I make some relatively small changes). I think I finished 7th out of 15ish people (some of whom did not finish)?

Not much to be said about the actual racing on day two. I took out the finish box out on the last run of the morning, so we don't need to go into results lol. The course was very fun though! Much more open than day one with some nice sections to get a feel for the new brake lines and no abs. But still the real fun came in the afternoon.

While working in the afternoon the sky really opened up, creating some serious issues with standing water in course and killing the timing laptop. So after letting the course dry out we moved on to fun runs. Lots of wheel spin and lots of handbrake. 

Utterly trashed the car though:

And the inevitable:

I'll post up my plans for some setup changes for the car later this week. The event shed some light on some things I really need to address and reminded me that I need to get a damn cage for this thing! 

So onto the main thing I need to address with the car: the rear end is a mess. The locker only works below 25 mph, so most turns I was one wheel peeling all the way through corner exit. It was bad. The car has less than 100whp and on the (quite grippy) barn course I was one wheel peeling for the first half of most of the straights in my first run. From there I obviously started pedaling it out of corners to get some sort of power down. Still there was nothing I could do for basically the first third of the course, as it was relatively flowy with lots of time on throttle. 

On slow speed corners where the locker would engage rear grip was just lacking in general. Too easy to lose the ass end.

So back to softer springs... Thinking big springs on adjustable perches, something around 125 lb/in (95ish stock, 155 currently on the car). Will be able to get the ride height down a bit to help it squat but still be enough to not bottom out constantly. 

Yes I really should change the diff. But my god is that a pain in the ass... Go to the junkyard to source and open, weld it, take off all rear brakes and axles, new bearings, etc etc. And then at the end of the day it'll be annoying anywhere but rallycross. 

The good news is that is all that needs to be done performance wise. 

The steering felt phenomenal, had so much grip to give. The brakes felt awesome, confirmed by Stephen (who won both events this weekend and always complains about the e30 brakes lol). No abs wasn't much of a learning curve except for finish where I instinctively try to put the pedal through the floor.

you can mod the locker too, by cutting the flyweight/pawl inside so that it requires more speed to unlock.  or just weld up an open carrier.  longer softer springs is a good idea, and should be pretty easy to find (stock car junk).  are you running sway bars at all?  in slippy mucky conditions, you generally want roll to plant the outside wheel.  especially in the rear.  and sway bars will also tend to cause loss of traction on the inside wheel too.  glad it made it through the event, looks like a messy blast.

In reply to stylngle2003 :

Yea I was originally planning on modding the locker but was warned off by another volvo rally guy. The VOC 240's in Sweden make it work with an open diff so I figured I could manage. 

Car has no sways. I'm honestly just gonna switch back to stock springs, the rear end felt much better like that. The E36 M3ty thing is that the rear suspension setup with the stock configuration is such a compromise. To get enough droop travel to feel good over bumps you need to have the rear pretty low, and to do that and not be on the bumpstops all the time you need springs that are way too stiff for coming out of corners. 

Took some time to improve my skidplate bracing. Previously I had the two supports running from the cross member to the frame rails, but there was no support in the center of the skid plate. Everytime I'd jack on the skid plate, under the cross member it'd flex the skidplate.

So, I added a support between the two current pieces that will space the skid plate out from the crossmember.

Got it all tacked up under the car:

I didn't jack up the back and the front wasn't very high so couldn't use the creeper, plus it was mig so not exactly a pleasent experience lol.

There it is with some angle at the back to keep everything aligned.

Everything is painted up nicely now but I forgot to take pics. 

Also added some material to extend the skid plate, as it didn't cover the whole oil pan. Plasma cut the piece off:

Tigged with stainless wire:

Haven't done tig in a while so I'm happy with the welds. 

All together: 

Still have to add an oil drain hole.

I've got the week before the August 22nd rallyx off of work so I should be able to get some stuff done on this car. Hoping to alreast fix the exhaust hangers, swap springs, mudflaps, and maybe strip the interior.

Did up some mudflaps.

First got rid of these stock mudflaps mounts in the rear:

Then cut the mudflaps out of some 1/8" polyethylene sheet (https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Colored-Plastic-Rolls-25-Ft,31414.html). Pretty cheap and more than enough left to do all the underbody protection needed.

Mock up with clecos:

Finished rear:

All the rivets go into the trunk.

Finished front:

The bottom is attached with 2 screws going into the body (the stock mudflaps mounts), and the top two are rivets going to the fender liner, which sits up off the body a bit so you can get back there. Getting the backup washers inbetween the frame and fender liner was tough though lol. Definitely a two person job.

Woohoo for knocking something off the list. Next up a front tow hook.

Lol... I see you got most of the big dent out of the skid plate that we put there at NEFR when it was on my car :)

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Let's hope it doesn't reoccur lol

Nesegleh said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Let's hope it doesn't reoccur lol

There is absolutely zero chance you could put a hit on it that hard at rallycross or at most rallies other than NEFR!

Swapped the rear springs back to stock today. Took advantage of having the springs out to check out the rear travel:

With only one side jacked up:

Measured 6.3" travel from full droop to hitting the bump stops. Not much but I assume it's got a decent amount left in the bump stops. 

Anyways once I got everything back together I took it for a test drive, where I discovered the front mudflaps are too long lol. Tiny street tires and no sways has the front ones dragging around corners and the rears drag when pulling out of the driveway.... oops

It should get better as they flatten out (and get pushed back) but I'll still need to trim the fronts.

Another issue is that the car is losing oil out of the filter. A few days after I changed it I noticed a some drips accumulating so I tightened it up. Maybe too much or there's dirt on the seal (probable)  because it's still leaking. 

On second thought I could probably just let the mudflaps self shorten...