Volvo P1800ES...kinda

Going to be fun when this thing hits the scales.

Bit of a new deadline in that I just agreed to host the crashed MGB again for a bit of rust work on the sills that became apparent after sandblasting. Nothing major, but it would be nice to DRIVE the Molvo out instead of pushing it into the front garage. This happens last week-end of this month.

then lets fire the damn thing up,rad is the last thing to get mounted and we has hoses now so lets make er chooch

petey wrote: then lets fire the damn thing up,rad is the last thing to get mounted and we has hoses now so lets make er chooch

I think the rad mounts, the shifter and the failed gas pedal are the only thing preventing this eh? God does hate a coward!

shifters now done.we can run the throttle with a string if necessary...OH AND YOU GOT THE RAD MOUNTS DONE its time to check the tires and light the fires

petey wrote: shifters now done.we can run the throttle with a string if necessary...OH AND YOU GOT THE RAD MOUNTS DONE its time to check the tires and light the fires

Checked them this morning...they are round.

So, oil in engine, water in rad, and a battery should do it. Maybe pull up the exhaust and bolt it to the headers also.

Who woulda thunk the rad was going to be such a pain in the butt?! If I get daring, I might even toss some hose clamps on the rad hoses.

In reply to MichaelYount:

Of course I've read the berking thread. From the beginning if you've been paying attention. Before he started this project, I had dreams of doing the exact same thing. This build has absolutely convinced me it was a bad idea (the end result simply won't justify the massive effort). But NOHOME is too far along to turn back now, so may as well see it through. He's probably got at least another year or three of detail work before this is a car finished enough to be comfortable to drive.

My point was the OE Volvo brakes were ahead of their time. 4-wheel disc brakes when a lot of other cars were still running all drums. With typical 195 section tires, they will stop the car really well. I know this from personal experience (remember - I actually own one of these cars and drove my ex's 1800ES extensively). Will stock Miata brakes stop the car? Yes. Will they stop them better than the original brakes? IMHO - No. At least not unless he brings the ABS along as well.

Actually two years budgeted for details and paint. Stuff like AC, cruise and whatever falls off, rattles or leaks during the first year. I need to drive this thing a bit to see what it wants to become.

Ian has been a great foil from the the very beginning of this project; probably because we are both engineers and both have a desire to do something with a P1800 ES. Quite the opposite of Ian's conclusion, I think swapping a modern chassis under a classic car is a good idea and it has been a fun education. But it has to be thought out. Until you have done one, you really cant conceive of what you are getting into. If it has to be a "Real" car when done, the task is an order of magnitude harder than if you were building a rat-rod or challenge car.

What I would not do again is a simultaneous chassis stretch and engine swap. If I subtract those two sideshows, the tinwork was no worse than what Ian is looking at with is P1800 ES and the car would have been on the road a year ago.

Hopefully this thread will either convince someone that this is a good idea and go ahead with their own vision, or that it is a nut-bar idea and stop them from starting.

In reply to NOHOME:

How much simpler do you feel it would have been if the wheelbases matched and the cowl location was within a few inches? I'd love to do something like this, and trying to wrap my head around what is/isn't important to have lined up between the two cars is a fun exercise.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ wrote: In reply to NOHOME: How much simpler do you feel it would have been if the wheelbases matched and the cowl location was within a few inches? I'd love to do something like this, and trying to wrap my head around what is/isn't important to have lined up between the two cars is a fun exercise.

The three measurements you want to take

1-The distance front- to- rear between the front axle and the middle of the front seats. Give yourself a 3" window

2-The distance side-to-side between the front seats. Once again, 3" variance is about the most you want to see

3-Wheelbase. Anything over 2" going to be hard to blend in and requires a metric E36 M3load of work to resolve.

If those all align, then the rest can be resolved with a cut-off wheel and a welder.

I have noodled doing this with an MGB. The wheelbases are almost identical. MGBs are dirt cheap and running crash-damaged Miatae are also cheap. You can literally drive the Miata under the gutted MGB. Lower the shell and start welding.

Please leave ol' Green alone!!!

If I were to consider a swap like this (and it's not out of the list of possibilities), I would try to do it "Binky-style" rather than trying to swap the floor pan and firewall. Cut & modify the existing chassis to form mounts for the Miata (or whatever) sub-frame components. Granted, with the 1800 that can still present problems with a number of components, mainly the fuel tank and some of the suspension mounts - for example, while connected to the sub-frame the upper shock/strut mounts often attach to the unibody in rather specific points.

For better or worse, I am not the type to dive into a project without at least trying to plan it out to the gnat's ass. So for my ES, the goal is mainly a comfortable GT. It also helps that I know intimately what a stock version of an ES feels like to drive. With that in mind, my plan is to concentrate more on the changes that are important to making the car a more comfortable GT, rather than trying to make it into a sports car: power steering, better HVAC, integrated stereo, and so on. For some of these, there are off-the-shelf solutions (power steering) while for others it will take some work. While moderate power and handling increases are also planned, they will also be well established paths. I see no need to reinvent the wheel where I don't have to.

Of course, excessive planning can also turn into project paralysis. While that may seem so in the case of this car, the reality is I am not in any position to start on it anyway (I don't have the room), so I'll continue to plan and collect parts as they become available.

759NRNG wrote: Please leave ol' Green alone!!!

"Old Green"?

In reply to NOHOME:

I think he's referring to your BGT.

Ian F wrote: In reply to NOHOME: I think he's referring to your BGT.

AHHhh yeah.

The rule in my house is one toy car to drive and one project car to work on long term. When the Molvo hits the road, the deck has to shuffle somehow cause I am NOT into collecting old cars. Feeding the MGB into the "project" category would give it more value than being a useless garage queen.

I subscribe to that same garage "rotation situation". The building is always more fun than the finished product anyways.

Here's the one that's keeping me up at night: Corvette C5 wheelbase - 104.5"; Volvo 242 wheelbase - 104.3".

LOL - it was a rhetorical question Ian. Engineers building cars - we're all pretty sure we know the right way. Such is life.

Is the ABS coming with the Mazda brakes? Probably mentioned along the way and I've forgotten it....

MichaelYount wrote: Here's the one that's keeping me up at night: Corvette C5 wheelbase - 104.5"; Volvo 242 wheelbase - 104.3". LOL - it was a rhetorical question Ian. Engineers building cars - we're all pretty sure we know the right way. Such is life. Is the ABS coming with the Mazda brakes? Probably mentioned along the way and I've forgotten it....

No ABS. might have been possible to leave it, but myself I is not a huge fan of them. What this thing is going to need is some kind of nanny to keep the tail from wagging on a wet road! I am actually counting on the AOD to muffle that a bit.

As to being an engineer and knowing the way? Quite the opposite, I am doing this because I don't know the way.But I want to learn as I go. Pretty much every step has been a learning curve.

275nart wrote: I subscribe to that same garage "rotation situation". The building is always more fun than the finished product anyways.

This is a hobby; I am building the wife a Taj-Mahal and she gets a kick out of that. I don't even think she cares if it ever hits the road. When I am done playing, it does not have to have any more cash value than say your filled out golf score card. If it turns out to be something that we never use, I can sell it for whatever it goes for or part it out to fund the next thing.

In reply to MichaelYount:

I've noticed the same thing. Except with the variation that the whole Volvo 24x series has the same wheelbase, which means you could have a C5 wagon. It's also the same wheelbase as most of the Ford C1 platform, which includes mk3 Focus/Mazda 3/Volvo C30/Volvo S40. You think the Focus RS is fast? Try a C5 underneath an Escape body.

mck1117 wrote: In reply to MichaelYount: I've noticed the same thing. Except with the variation that the whole Volvo 24x series has the same wheelbase, which means you could have a C5 wagon. It's also the same wheelbase as most of the Ford C1 platform, which includes mk3 Focus/Mazda 3/Volvo C30/Volvo S40. You think the Focus RS is fast? Try a C5 underneath an Escape body.

Do the rest of the measurements that I suggest to see where you end up sitting. You don't want to end up in the backseat of the wagon or jammed up against the Volvo windshield or pushed out to the sides behind the A-pillar since the Vette chassis determines the seating position. Track is also a good one to know, but since "Box Flares" make everything better, it can always be fixed.

The firewall has to be cut in the 240 application -- allow the engine to move back 6-8"; but that's part of the benefit in terms of front/rear weight distribution. Of course, with the tranny in the back and IRS, the whole rear subframe/sheet metal has to be reworked, and track is a total mess front and rear.

But other than that, it's bolt in. Which is to say -- like any other swap, it's a ton of work. But we've been inspired by this one.

Suspect the firewall cut on a fwd (transverse mount = short engine compartment) is even bigger, fwiw. I can't even imagine a fast Escape at all.

Oh yeah, both on the C1 and the Volvo you'd be sitting in the back seat, below the belt line on the car. And you'd have to slice out the whole bottom of the car, but the amount of work required isn't important once you have a C5 Corvescape.

Your effort with this is above reproach ....Binkiyish is a good word, because you've almost finished this and the blokes from across the pond are on episode? 15. I admire all of your conviction/execution on Molvo. Soldier on knowing that you're having a Lake Erie perch dinner more regularly than most all of us.

Hmm... a C5-240 wagon. I think the problem there would be the width. Not the track width, but that giant center tunnel the Vette has - the driver and passenger might be partly sitting in the doors. You might be able to work around that some by ditching the structural spine of the chassis, since in theory, you wouldn't need it as the 240 uni-body would provide a lot more structural integrity than the fiberglass Vette body. Due to the rear transmission, it's possible you would lose the back seat.

This is another idea I would do "Binky-style" - drop the "go-cart" out of the Vette, build a "reverse jig" off of the mounting points; transfer those mounting points to the 240, cutting and fabricating as you go. So much fabrication would be required, it'd be tempting to start with a 2-door version and add wagon bits to that (or start with a wagon and convert it to a 2-door).

Another reason to do it "Binky-style" is it gives you a lot more flexibility with the wheelbase and driver position. You don't care so much about the firewall differences. TBH, I can't imagine any way the Vette firewall/dash could be married to a 240 and have it functional.

So many crazy ideas... so little time.

A guy in Europe on Facebook just posted an 1800ES he just bought and plans to stuff a Volvo V8 into. That should be interesting to watch...

Ian:

What is this Volvo FB page you attend? Might want to go have a peek.

As to the Vette thing, I once again go back to saying "Measure between the center of the seats of the two cars. If the donor car is more than 4" wider ( 2" per side), it is going to start putting you behind the windshield post. If you are putting the entire donor chassis under the car, then it is hard to move the seats inboard because you run into the tunnel.

My thoughts are that if you are not going to use the donor firewalland trans tunnel, don't do this. The firewall is the most feature/component/design intensive part in the car. If the front axle to seat measurements are close between the two cars, then the dash WILL work. Just drop the body down until you can see over the dash and start welding, the rest sorts itself out.

If you guys recall, I started this project thinking the way Ian does. I got as far as drawing up the front in solid-works and actually fabbed this up and installed it. It let me put the Miata a-arms and rack on to the Volvo bodyshell. Worked quite nice actually except then I needed a place to park the top of the spring/shock and the dominoes started falling until I ended up with a full Miata chassis.

This might have worked up to the point where I started removing the tin to make room for the V8.