Pretty tough to argue with any of that, sounds like you should put as much time and effort in to it as you want to make it a fun second car while you work on the GT, possibly even keep driving it with the frog in it. Although won't you be tempted to keep putting time and money in to it b/c it's kind of a second project car as opposed to a beater Toyota etc.? Guess it depends how fast you want to finish the GT and with how many other distractions...

Maybe you misunderstood, Athal: The point I'm trying to make is why should I worry about what I do to sell it, when I could have a car that's a kick in the pants to drive for the next 4-5 years? Is that $1000 lost worth 5 years of fun? IF I build it up nice & crazy, and IF someone really REALLY wants it, and it gets sold as a whole rather than parted out so I recover the $$$ and lose only the labour, so much the better.

Why waste half the winter and a bunch of money on parts going into a car that I won't enjoy as much, just so I can sell it for a few more dollars?

Does that make sense, or am I justifying?

Jim, I've got a pretty cushy pickup to drive winter & summer. I'm just looking for something fun to bring out on the weekends and participate in the odd Volvo cruise, or drive in the country, or whatever.

ah ok, you want something FUN to drive for the next few years, that makes somewhat of a difference.

Guess we need your definition of fun, that you'll be happy with for a few years! I'm thinking about your old V8 244 for comparison. The 780 will be prettier and more comfortable, so that's covered. I'm guessing you'll want at least a similar amount of power? ~300? Then, how do you get that, reliably, for the least amount of cash?

Guess that doesn't really cut your options down too much does it I still think you can make a redblock fun and reliable, and maybe even worth selling for $1000 at the end of the day if it looks and works stockish. That's just what i'd do because it would be the least amount of work/effort for ME- which is totally different to your capabilities.

man, i've typed alot to say absolutely nothing!

This latest fall cruise has reminded me of what I like and what I dislike about the car, and over the next few years while I'm working on the GT I will need something I can enjoy and then sell, without putting a whole lot of time and effort into in between now and then. My whole problem with the car is that it's got loads of little things I want to fix and a few bigger things, but because I can't "see" the finished product, I have been unable to cajole myself into working on it. Don't know if that makes any sense to you, but here's an example:

On the cruise, one thing that both Roberta and I got tired of fairly quickly was the vibration from the driveline. Why is it there? It's there because the driveshaft is out of phase and out of balance. It is out of phase and out of balance because it is out of alignment, and believe it or not it's better now than it was before I messed with the phase. It is out of alignment because the diff bushings were wrecked when I got the car, and I quickly fabbed up a temporary fix that didn't position the differential just right. I haven't fixed it because the differential can't handle a whole lot of power, and would need to be replaced with something stouter if I stick a big engine in it, and besides that I don't know what transmission will go behind this "big power".

I guess this whole thread has done nothing to focus my vision, because I haven't done a thing. To be fair to myself, I've been extremely dissatisfied with garage time lately, and am only just now getting interested in working on my car again. I've been sick of working on cars for a few years, and my more immediate friends have seen this first hand. A change in jobs has helped my mood alot, and I've motivated myself enough to tackle some of the hurdles that have stood between me and getting anything done, and the lifted veil of depression has revealed the clear solution to this car: send it back to stock-ish. The car is coming in for the winter and will get some renovations:

Regarding the engine: it's got leaky head gaskets (both into the combustion chamber and outside of the engine) so I'll pull the timing chains and heads off the B280 and see how the insides look. If everything looks good from up top, I'll port up the Eagle Premier heads and clamp 'em on, install a new timing chain set, and call the engine "good enough" for now. I will build a freer-flowing exhaust for it, and might try and incorporate the vastly-improved Eagle Premier exhaust manifolds. I've purchased a new fuel pressure regulator and a new fuel pump check valve, which should make the car less embarrassing to start up. New differential bushings are also on the way, to rectify the positioning issue. An M46 may or may not make it's way into the car, as I have almost all the V6-specific stuff for that - just need a clutch and to build a driveshaft.

As far as the rest of the car, the roof will get stripped and repainted, blending into the A and C pillars. The trunk will get sanded down and re-cleared, and the whole car will get polished. I have some seats from a 2nd gen Integra that were purchased as an experiment: they're half an inch narrower than the 780 seats and though they're all black and all cloth, they're much lighter and sportier than the ones in the 780, which need to be pulled apart and have all the 'lectrical stuff gone through if they're to be any good. The 15x7s are going on once they're finished, and I'll try to noodle out something for sway bars. I may lower it a tad more to cut the fender gap brought by the shorter tires. I found a stock stereo at PNP and it seems to work, so I'll be pulling the fancy stuff out (as well as the heavy sub box) and sticking in speakers that I won't be afraid of losing. Half a dozen rattles and squeaks will get dealt with, the carpets will come out and will get cleaned, the back seat will get Leatheriqued and repaired, and the trunk will get put back together for good.

That's really the whole short term goal behind this car: don't do anything to it that I have to undo to sell, and don't put anything into it that I'd be afraid of losing. I don't plan on keeping it much longer than it takes for me to get the GT running, and I want to drive it & have fun with it until then. I think that if I can get it to the point where I don't have to apologize for anything when I'm selling it, it'll be just about perfect.

Of course, if I see big gouges in the cylinders when I pull the heads, all bets are off.

Nice to hear you got a little inspiration back, for now

Yeah, better jump on it while I have it, right?

You didn't actually read all that junk above, did you?

That sounds like a plan.

Placeholder for me, referencing Volvo press release:

B280F (US): 147 hp, swirl heads and F cams, catalytic converter, 9.5:1
B280E (Scandanavia): 156 hp, swirl heads and F cams, no catalytic converter, 9.5:1
B280E (global): 170 hp, non-swirl heads and E cams, no catalytic converter, 10:1
E cams = SLIGHTLY more lift and SLIGHTLY less duration (maybe).

http://www.volvoclub.org.uk/press/pdf/1987PressReleaseEnginesandSafety.pdf

what's a swirl head? I picture a kid with his head in the toilet...

It's about all that it's good for. It's got a big lump in the intake port designed to mechanically mix/swirl the intake charge. Mostly it gets in the way, which is fine for an engine choked by the crappy exhaust ports and crappy exhaust manifolds this engine's been given.

The Eagle Premier heads are of the non-swirl variety. I can get an extra half-point of compression easily enough, for all the good it would do (1 point is supposedly 4-6% horsepower gain, so another 3-5 hp nominally), and going by the green books the difference in camshafts is minimal, don't know why they bothered unless there's additional duration that isn't shown by the way Volvo says to measure the installation. If the difference between cams/compression/heads is 14 hp, I'm guessing that the heads is easily 10 of these, and with some porting and better exhaust manifolds, the difference would be greater. The Euro-spec 3.0 litre Renault makes 200 hp and it's basically a B280E with 126 more ccs and better exhaust manifolds.

Started pulling the Premier heads apart last night. Remember, these are the GOOD ones.

Got Hemi, yo!


Okay, not quite - chamber is more like a Yin-Yang thing, swirling away from the valves, with a small pocket around the spark plug, which is properly tucked up near the exhaust valve. At least they got this right, though there's zero quench pad which explains why 2.8 litres and 147 horsepowers of fury have never been so thirsty before (or since).


Intake port is pretty boring:






Not much to do there, besides clean up a few rough edges. The exhaust, on the other hand:








It's tough to get a shot of how BAD the exhaust ports are, conventionally speaking. Who knows - maybe the sharp edges help bend flow in the proper direction, and they act like check valves that prevent flow from backing up into the chamber?

Aside from this, I've stripped the interior and cleaned the carpets, pulled the faded-out tint film from the back and side windows, sent the rear seatback to DeGreeve for upholstery repair, and pulled out the fancy stereo for something a little ... less. No photos.

After some time in the cabinet, you can see some details better. Here's an attempt at showing just how bad these exhaust ports are in stock form:






Ahh, money shots:






A nicer one of the chamber, showing some shape:


And evidence of some core shift:


I may have to concentrate more on the exhaust port roof than on the port floor, 'cause I don't think I can get the short side radius to play nice. It's way too short to get any kind of radius from: although it seems like there's more material to work with than an 8v SOHC head gives you, the entry into the port is extremely poor, and just appears to be a hole in a box. Worse yet, the transition from the throat to the port makes an instant 120 degree turn - it's further into the port than the roof is! There is a pretty good cone into the bowl from the seat surface, though not as bad as an OHV head, but it might be enough to give me some remote shot at making the turn. The exhaust port exit is quite a ways towards the center of the cylinder, so it's even more restrictive than it would otherwise be.

Possibly I may need some circumferential "slits" to help bend the flow... Maybe fins? Something radical will be needed, that's for sure. I sure wish there were some putty I could trust to fill in the floor! I might actually try something to this effect, since there's no turbo or anything else downstream for the putty to get hung up in, should it get ejected.

The intake port is lined up pretty good with the valve, and there appears to be absolutely no bias for swirl. It'll flow like the dickens, but won't ever be that efficient. This is why the "F" heads have such crazy work done to them, I guess. You'll see what I mean when I get this engine apart.

Cool to see some details from something other than a red block 8V head.

Think there's anything you can do to improve squish/quench/efficiency?

Well by virtue of the valve not being parallel with the bore axis, there is some natural rotation as the intake charge is directed around the bore. I'm sure there is probably something I can do to the intakes with adequate development to get added swirl without losing too much flow, but I'm not going to bother 'cause without a flow bench I'm just as likely to screw them up. They're pretty good stock, I think. I'll just clean them up a bit. It's the exhaust that's choking this engine, and choked exhaust = power loss AND poor efficiency. Make the exhaust work and the intake will speed up, and when the intake speeds up so will efficiency, I wager. With special pistons and some milling of the heads, some quench pads could be added. Not gonna go that route, though, not for an engine I'm not supposed to get invested in.

It sure was nice of them to cast the cylinder number into the port...WTF. I'd have to see it, but my thoughts right off the bat are to dramatically reduce the sh!t that is cast in behind the valve guide. I'd do "the usual" in behind the valve and open up the area...but part of any decision I would make there would be based on geometry. From what I can see, it looks like the designers have given the head a lot of room in beside the valve stem towards the combustion chamber, but things slope away on the outside edge rather dramatically. There is a lip there behind the seat in the port roof...correct?

Do you have any cross-sections? I'd guess that there is a water jacket hiding in behind the port roof towards the cylinder edge. I'm still thinking about this, but my initial reaction by viewing the photos is that the designers were trying to get the gasses to flow out of the centre of the bore (what do the pistons look like?). While not misguided, It looks like there isn't anywhere for the gasses to go around the edge (carbon deposits etc). Hemi's usually flow towards the edge. Get some volume in that area.