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I'm going off memory and even then it's a bit fuzzy because of my flu condition, but the whiteblock is about an inch and a half longer than an OHC redblock from the back of the head to the front of the timing belt. The bellhousing flange is flush with the back of the head, compared to the redblock which has about an inch and a half protrusion to the bellhousing flange. The overall lengths are similar, but the back of the head is really where the trouble spot is, so you should consider the 5 cylinder to be about an inch and a half longer than the 4 cylinder.
However, the water pump is driven off the timing belt in these engines, so all you really need in front of the timing belt is one 7/16" vee-belt to drive an alternator. There isn't a whole lot of room needed in front of the engine, aside from an electric fan. The whiteblock uses a serpentine belt, so if you wanted to go with a single vee-belt you'd need to make your own crank pulley.
The tricky bit is that the distributor is on the back of the head, driven off the intake cam. The flywheel/flexplate provides crank position information and the exhaust cam provides cam position, so technically there's enough information there to drive 5 separate coils-on-plug, but for some crazy reason Volvo chose to use a distributor in the earlier cars. Alot of the Swedes move the distributor to the front of the engine, and many of them use an aftermarket EMS that lets them use COP (distributorless, Coil On Plug) ignition. That's what's sitting on the pedal box of that 1800 in one of these pictures: one of the coils.
In any event, I've got a '95 B5234FT block sitting in my shed. It's got a spun rod bearing, so the rods & crank are no good. I bought another crank for it, and I planned on getting new rods & pistons to cope with big power (stock rods are good for 300 hp, max). Supposedly this head has been rebuilt and is in good shape, which is really what I bought this thing for. A dude on Tbrix has built a few oil pans for RWD swaps, and I bought one. I have yet to take possesion of it, almost a year later, though it's now supposed to be boxed up and ready to ship. It's a 960 oil pan that's been shortened a cylinder, and a 960 oil pump pickup tube that's been similarly modified.
You could use 960 motor mounts, but it's just as easy to build your own. The intake manifold is the real trick: The pre-'99 whiteblock intakes all point the throttle body towards the bellhousing, which makes mounting them in a RWD application tough. The guy with this 1800 modified the early intake mani and moved the throttle body to the front. Some folks use the '99+ intake manifold, which looks lots like the B23E intake upside down. The throttle body is in the middle of the manifold, and it's downdraft, so it makes it a bunch easier. I was thinking of making my own. For the exhaust manifold, apparently the FWD piece is fine, though it's reccommended that you use the S60R piece as it flows a bunch more. I was also going to build my own header, but the FWD exhaust mani would give a whole lot tighter packaging and supposedly the S60R piece is good for 500+ hp.
For a transmisison you could use a Whiteblock M90 from Europe, as used in 960s out there. They've got a terrible flywheel that I suggest you forget about, and make your own something or other. I was planning on using an automatic trans. flexplate for the crank position information, and then machine an aluminium clutch hub for a multi-disc clutch. Around that I would mount a 960 automatic trans "bellhousing", modified to take a Supra R154 "turbo" transmission. That's another option for you, I guess.
Whether or not any of my stuff is up for sale is in question. At one point I was going to build a 242 with a 5 cylinder, but as soon as I bought the Bertone that threw a wrench into the plans. The possibility that I'll build the 5 cylinder instead of the 6 cylinder grows every day that I learn something else about this french engine: You aren't supposed to machine either the block deck or the head surface on the PRV, and to install the 3 litre cylinders I'm going to need to find someone to supply the appropriate cylinder shims to make sure they're all the proper height above deck. Things like that. It would be a PITA, but the payoff would be that I'd have more displacement for a less insane engine for any given power level I choose. However, the 5 cylinder would be easily rebuilt, is easy to find parts for, is more technologically advanced, and would make for a really good engine swap into the 780. It would also sit further back in the chassis for better balance, though it still wouldn't allow me to use the Supra box because of the shifter position in the 700 chassis. I haven't decided.
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