Hello Calgary Volvo Lovers,

Its been awhile since I have posted on here...
Some of you may remember me some may not, but I used to own a 1996 Volvo 850 Platinum Edition, here is what it looked like:



I didn't have a full build thread, I mainly shared some fun photos, in the "Pics" section of the board, here is a link: http://www.calgaryvolvoclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2396

It was a pretty wild car... at least I thought so... sadly I sold it in late 2012, but I never lost the Volvo-itch
 
Fast forward to earlier this year, I bought a 1998 V70R, as I needed a fun winter beater. I had been driving other cars for a single winter at a time over the last couple of years, 2001 Subaru Foresters (a couple of them), 2003 Jaguar X-Type, 2001 Mercedes ML320 to name a few...
I needed a wagon or SUV, and I needed it to be AWD due to the winters that we have (in Calgary), ideally I would have gotten a manual, but I came across the V70R and it was a steal of a deal, although it needed some work and still does...
I will be loading up more pics later today, but I wanted to provide a starting point for what should be a pretty interesting and quick build:
1998 Volvo V70R Black on Charcoal (suede/ quilted, typical V70R interior), Auto and AWD, and needed or is need of:
- New/ refurbished driveshaft (already done)
- Had a transmission leak (already fixed)
- Has a oil leak (will be investigated further, as I progress on this project)
- Has a had a complete stage zero (partially done)...


The plan:
I wanted to build a mild upgraded car that can still be driven daily, and be reliable enough to still use as my winter car. The goal is to be in the range of 300 - 320awhp (375 - 400BHP)
The idea was to leave the car as is, in stock form, till the summer, when I take my summer car (2015 Jaguar XFR-S) out of hibernation, but I started the ball rolling on the parts orders, and most if not all the parts arrived before Friday Dec.23rd... now for most people the holidays (Christmas and New Years are busy times...) for me its a week, where I literally have two (2) events to attend, the rest of the time will be spent trying to do something productive...

Parts ordered and already received:
- Bosche Big Green Injectors (received)
- Porsche Big Break Calipers (996-351-425/426), these are different than my last Porsche BBK, but should work with some minor tweaks.. (Received)
- Volvo S60R/V70R Front Drilled Slotted Rotors (Received)
- New StopTech Brake Pads (99635294903) to go along with the above Porsche Calipers (Received)
- Rear Brake (Stock Replacement) Kit, comes with new rotors and pads (Received)
- IPD Parts (Received):
* Anti-Sway Bars (Front and Rear)
* Front Sway Bar HD End Links
* Upper Engine Mount (my factor one was toast).

- Eurosport Tuning Parts (Received):
   * Down pipe for AWD with angled (99-2000) flange
   * Mototec Touring Exhaust kit AWD
   * New Aluminum Inter-cooler
   * Turbo Pressure Piping and hoses (black)
   * Carbon Fiber Strut Brace
   * PCV Repair Kit (all parts and hoses)
   * Intake Manifold Gasket
   * Exhaust Manifold Gasket
   * All Coolant Hoses (upper and lower radiator, upper and lower expansion tank, inlet and outlet heater hoses)
* 15mm Spacers (pair) with matching bolts

- CJ Yother Parts (Received):
   * Turbo Tuner Motronic 4.4 (had to be sent back due to some issues)
   * Porsche Big Brake Caliper Bracket (and mounting bolts)
   * Porsche Big Brake Shim (1/16th inch, needed for my caliper choice)
   * R Exhaust Manifold
   * Complete K-24 Turbo Retrofit kit (Turbo that needs a rebuild, lines, hoses, gaskets, etc)

- Custom K24 Rebuild, so I have been dealing with Herman over at cherry turbos for quite sometime, all Volvo related, and I have nothing but great things to say about his products and service, so naturally I called him to discuss my plans. I was going to go the Ball Bearing Garrett GTX route, but after a lengthy discussion with him I figured why not go with what is essentially an upgrade with factory replacement parts. Fitting a Stock K24 into a 850 or V70, requires simply buying the turbo, and the relevant oil and coolant supply and return lines, along with possibly replacing the main water pipe. These are all factory replacement parts readily available...
I have supplied a core that needed to be rebuild (as mentioned above), and Cherry Turbos will build his special hybrid setup...
 
I will tune the car myself, and be controlling boost using the same boost controller that I used in my 850 (Turbosmart Eboost2), which I have already received...
 
The timeline, is to have all the parts listed above, and my goal was to have all the upgrades done, starting on Dec23rd and hopefully being all wrapped up before Jan. 1st or 2nd, at least for the hardware, I don't expect to have the car fully tuned to its full potential till later in the spring, but to have a base tune to get me around in the meantime should be fairly easy to do.
 
The car will remain an auto for now... the long term plan is to eventually convert it to a manual, but I don't know if this is something I want to take on myself quite yet... I also am hopeful the auto can take the torque and power that I have planned, not to mention the AWD system as well... I am willing to sacrifice the auto (not really much of a sacrifice...), but I am not willing to convert to a FWD only, the car will need to remain AWD.

Sorry for the long post, and stay tuned for photos, here are some photos of the goodies in the meantime:

Here is what it looked like on the stock 15" Winter Wheels:


With 17" Winter wheels (Volvo Orpheus) to clear the Porsche Calipers:



I finally got the car up and running at about 9pm (my time) on Jan 2nd... I started working on this by Dec. 21st, only putting in  2-4 hours a day, I had some longer days (10+hours), if I wasn't met with too many obstacles. In total it was about 13 days (on and off) from start to finish, to complete:
Front and Rear IPD Anti-Sway Bar Install and Front End-links
New Exhaust from turbo back
Front BBK (Porsche 961-351-425/426, CJ brackets and shims)
Rear Brakes (rotors and pads only)
K24 and all associated oil and water lines
New Inter-cooler (Do88)
Reverse Inter-cooler plumbing
All new coolant lines, all of them (six (6) in total: upper & lower rad hoses, heater core hoses two of them, and over-flow hoses two of them)
All new PCV and fresh lines
SAS Delete
AEM AFR Gauge and sensor
Turbosmart Eboost2 EBC
I'm sure I'm forgetting something else...
 
I started off taking pictures on a daily basis, but eventually frustration, and timeline management set in, and pictures weren't as important...
 
Pictures of the turbo the day I received it:







Everyone has seen pictures of the front sway bar so I didn't' bother taking any, instead I took pictures of the rear sway bare for the AWD cars:









Here is the rear sway bar and the new exhaust installed on the car:















Rear brakes before and after, no upgrades, just new rotors and pads:







Front Rotors, before and after:





My winter wheels (Orpheus) didn't clear the new calipers without spacers. I ordered a set of 10mm and they didn't cut it, so I ordered a set of 15mm and they worked out.
I was lucky enough to score a set of awesome light weight summer wheels, that do clear the calipers with no spacers, I believe these were a hot commodity back in the day, and I got them locally at an awesome price. Here are some pics of me test fitting them:







When I finally got the stock turbo out of the car, I did some side by side shots in comparison to the new hybrid K24 turbo:











Some things to note:
I went this route so that this could be as much of a drop in place as possible...
Everything went smoothly with the exception of some surprise that popped up:
I snapped a exhaust manifold stud, and left about 3/4" protruding out of the engine, I thought it was enough to get a vise-grip on it, but that didn't work, instead I used this handy tool, that was way simpler than drilling out and using an extractor. http://www.princessauto.com/en/detail/3-8-in-stud-remover/A-p8250532e

The main water pipe that wraps around the back of the engine was also supposed to be replaced during the K24 swap, but due to some shipping issues over the holidays, this pipe got delayed and didn't get here till January 3rd... obviously that was of no use to me, so I had to come up with a solution on Thursday (Dec. 29th) or Friday (Dec. 30th). Pipe wasn't in stock at the local dealer, and finding a used one locally so close to new years wasn't happening... So I did some research. I knew that the reason I had to replace it was because the K24 didn't clear the water pipe and caused a clash, but I didn't know where exactly, till I came across this (refer specifically to post #51): http://forums.swedespeed.com/showthread.php?175077-S60-T5-2001-Rebuild-with-KKK24-turbo

Lots of useful info in that topic hence I included the whole thread, essentially I had a local welder do this modification and it cost next to nothing...

Also I knew the oil feed line needed to be modified as the earlier white blocks have an obstruction that needs to be cleared (i believe it is the oil squirter). I tried to bend the pipe but for the life of me couldn't get the angles right. so I did what I know works, I use the portion of the pipe that mates to the block off of the stock turbo, and put in a silicone hose to mate it to the portion of the oil feed line that goes with the K24, I have provided ample protection to the hose with heat shielding. Here are pics of this temporary setup:







While on the topic of K24, everyone discusses getting the lines, that go with it, but at no point are the bolts and banjo fittings mentioned. There are a total of four connections to the turbo cartridge:
Oil Feed Line is a different on the k24 (flange that needs to be held in place with bolts/ screws) and when you compare that to the banjo bolt on the 16T. There is a gasket that goes between the flange and turbo. I had the turbo line and the gasket but not the bolts.

Oil drain, line, gasket and bolts, is pretty straight forward (just re-use the bolts that were on the 16T), other than getting this in on an AWD car is an absolute pain...

Coolant supply, is a banjo bolt, but a larger size than the one on the 16T. its the same size as the oil feed line block side, I believe it is 14mm vs the 12mm, so along with fresh copper washer, I had to order this bolt

Coolant return, this is like for like, so fresh copper washers and I could re-use the banjo bolt


Everything was for the most part time consuming and a pain, so it was nice when I went to install the RIP kit, and found that it was the simplest drop in option, and went hand in hand with new inter-cooler. It wasnt till I went to install my stock air-box that I realized that my fresh air supply hose cant be installed due to how bulky the throttle body connector is...

So I had the following issues ever since I buttoned her up on Sunday Jan. 2nd...
TT ECU wouldn't work (so I am awaiting new one to arrive, and I am running on stock "R" ECU)
I got the AFRs to settle where they should be in closed loop, and for the most part I am seeing decent timing and AFR with the stock tune.
I cant exceed 13-14psig as I get spark break up (will check spark plugs), CEL comes on right after this happens...
I was having a smoking issue on cold starts (thick oil, 5W30 Fully Synthetic Mobil 1), car is parked outside and temps are getting very cold, but I believe this is a Engine Breathing issue, due to the upgraded turbo... It doesn't smoke under boost, or under accelerate or decelerate, simply while sitting at idle, once car is warmed up it gets better
The non-ideal oil feed line (silicone hose joining to hard lines), so I had to address this...
Brakes were squealing really badly
 
As of this past weekend (Sat. Jan. 7th) All issues have been resolved:
Still running the stock ECU, but I did replace the spark plugs, and put in new spark plugs with a slightly tighter gap: ~0.026 - 0.027
I am now able to run up to 18psig on the stock R ECU, with no CEL or any spark break up, it hauls... AFRs are low 11s, and this will be addressed once I get the TT ECU, new unit should arrive later this week.

Smoking issue has been resolved:
I started by drilling out the PTC in the air intake tube to try and reduce the restrictions from the block to Vacuum/ Atmosphere, this improved the smoking but didn't completely eliminate it. So I remembered something I had done on my old 850 when I was running a Garret Turbo, and I seemed to have a really bad smoking issue on idle, back then I tried everything with the drain line, but what finally solved the issue was creating a second relief to the engine breather system, I splice the tube that runs from the PCV box (below the air manifold) to the head, and put in a "T" to run this to an atmospheric catch can... I did this again, but instead I routed this second relief line (5/8") to the intake tube upstream of the turbo inlet... smoking issue has been completely resolved.


Oil Feed, the temporary setup you can see photos in previous post. I didn't have any signs of leaks, but it also hadn't even been a complete week... so I tried to use a standard Garret Turbo inlet flange to 4AN adapter, but the bolt spacing for this flange is different than that of the K24 oil inlet feed flange, so I cut the tube directly above the flange and drilled and tapped with a 1/8" NPT tap. This is what it looks like on the turbo:



And on the engine block I simply used a M14 to 4AN adapter (with a copper crush washer), see photo:

 
All buttoned up and connected with the stainless steel flex hose:



Brakes were the first things addressed on Monday (earlier this week). I simply had to file down the pad retaining pins more than I initially had, so far so good and these brakes are amazing...


Finally an Engine Bay Shot:


 
And a little video, startup, walk around, and interior:



So the car has been running beautifully for the past couple of days, but I am already picturing getting this switched over to a manual instead of the current auto.

Auto works fine, but they're just not that great for the year and the car...

I have already reached out to the person that did the last auto to manual swap on my 850, and he has no interest in doing it. Swannys (now Euroworks), no longer specializes in Volvos, but instead is going the route of Mercedes, BMW, etc... he said he can sell me whatever parts he may have in stock, but has no interest in doing the physical labor in his shop...

So I am reaching out to local and not so local helpful hands, if anyone has taken this on or is willing to take it on, let me know... I think this would be so much easier with an actual lift, opposed to doing it on jack stands in my garage...

My original timing would be to do this in April, or whenever I can bring my summer car out of hibernation, as I suspect this swap will knock the car down for 1 week (or maybe less)...

Good to see you back, Ahmad. Nifty car!

If you do find a location and a guide who are willing to make this happen, I'd be willing to lend a hand swapping your transmission. I'm not able to take this on as a job myself but I'd be interested in joining you for a work day.

Looks like a pile of fun. April won't work for me, but I'd join in the fun for a day or so. May would be a lot easier work-wise.

I like how you do things Ahmad!

Mine is the '00 V70R so it has the 2.4L and 5sp auto. Fairly similar power mods were done over the holidays as well, but with more of a "bang for the buck" flavour than how you went. Stock turbo is a 19T so I went with a billet 11 blade "GTX" compressor wheel when I rebuilt it, custom 3" DP to stock '00 "dual" exhaust still to go on once I get it done. R-manifold inlet ported to head, and exit ported to ported angle turbo housing (both high heat powder coated). Also toy'd with brake upgrade using the 320mm S40 T5 rotors and calipers, but my winters are 16" with almost new studded, so just went with the stock 302mm replacement rotors with Hawk HPS pads.

Will follow your build very closely as eventually I wouldn't mind doing an M66 swap as well, but for now my 5sp is working beautifully - although with torque delimiting removed in 1st in 2nd it will be interesting to see if it holds up. (11 blade doesn't hit nearly has hard as the stock 19T, but it appears to spool sooner and pulls harder and more linearly which should be nicer for the transmission...

Rabin

Thanks Everyone for the compliments and well wishes, and offers to help out...

Rabin your car sounds like its going to be a blast as well... let me know if you ever head this way...

And Craig there's nothing guaranteeing that manual swap has to take place in April, really dependent on a bunch of things:
- Weather
- Getting all the parts together
- Finding a place that I can use their lift/ if I dont decide to do it in my garage on jack stands

The more hands on board, the more experience we have... Truly grateful for anyone that can pitch in...


On another note...

So I finally got a hold of Herman (Cherry Turbos) earlier today, and I must have misunderstood him...

I thought he was building the Viva Performance Retrofit/ Upgrade, but he explicitly was stating, "unlike Viva" he (Herman of Cherry Turbos) does it properly, with a larger shaft, to support the larger wheel(s)



This is what Herman had to say about what he does to the Volvo K24 turbo:

Compressor Side is machined to accept a 50Trim T04E wheel

Turbine Side: Porsche 944 late model K26 Turbine Wheel

Shaft/ Rotating Assembly: "Big Shaft" Early Model K26 (out of an Audi)



The beauty is this hybrid setup fits inside the Volvo K24 shell, so from the outside, no one would know what you have in there...

It also spools up ridiculously quickly, and doesn't fall flat in the upper RPM



So if I'm not mistaken, by quickly looking at some T04E 50 Trim Compressor Maps, again I have no way of knowing how this hybrid setup will flow, but I should get performance that exceeds that of a Hahn Racecraft Super 20G, but in a drop in(ish) packaging...



All I can say is that this thing at 19psig (on the stock "R" ECU, so not tuned), pulls my AWD Volvo V70R at a rate that I would say fully exceeds 300WHP.

Thanks for the great info on Cherry Turbo's - definitely sounds like Herman knows what he's doing!

Rabin

Sweet! Love this!

Looks like another great project Ahmad, good to have you back.

So I haven't updated in awhile, and I figured I would give a little story with how my 98 V70R auto became a manual over the month of February...

It all started when I went on a ~1,500km round trip with the Volvo (for work) towards the 3rd week of January, and the car drove beautifully the first day. Amazing how comfortable these cars can be on the highway...

Probably put 500-600kms the first day, and no issues, just fill it up with gas and drive...

Day 2 was looking like a great day, because I got to start it off by driving about 400-500kms, before my first appointment. Well I go to pull out of my parking spot and the car feels like it slipping, but I quickly realize its the transmission that is slipping and not the tires

So I drive/ limp to Walmart, buy a funnel, and buy some ATF (with plenty of extras), I am in Edson (had driven up from Calgary the day before), and I was driving that day from Edson to Chauvin. I assumed my Transmission leak had just returned, and simply leaked out quicker at highway speeds (higher rpm)... so I figured I would see how it would re-act to simply topping it up... It seemed to drive and shift normally once it had fresh ATF in it...

Well I got to Chauvin just fine, and was with my client for about 2-3 hours, and then I was on my way back home (Chestermere), so I made the 400-500km journey back to town.

I arrived in Chestermere at about 8pm (long day, I had been at it from 6:30am), and I was going through the Timmy's drive through when the car decided to all of a sudden just not move. I had to push it out of the drive through (push and steer on my own, on an incredibly icy path...)

If I let the car sit for 5-10 minutes it the transmission would engage, and it would drive again...

I parked the car for the weekend, and I mulled my options:
- I really didn't want to do the manual conversion now, as this is supposed to be my winter car, and I couldn't afford to have it off the road for 1-2 weeks...
- I really didn't want to spend anymore time, money or effort on fixing the auto transmission, as it will not be a auto for long...

Finally I decided if the weather held up (end of January and early February, the weather was beautiful in the Calgary area), I would pull my summer car out of storage, and get the winters on it, and drive it for my day to day stuff, and I will commit to having the Volvo out of commission for 1-2 weeks while it gets converted...

I simply didn't want to take this on (at this point, I couldn't give the car the attention it needed, as I was fairly busy with work, and I would be limited to doing this on weekends, and this swap would have taken months instead of weeks), so it was a matter of finding someone who could do it, and not charge me an arm and a leg...

I also had to acquire all the parts needed for the swap:
- M58 AWD Manual Transmission (sourced locally from Euroworks, formerly Swanny's Shop)
- Shifter, cables, and peddles (sourced locally from a C70 that was being parted out)
- Clutch that could handle power (sourced directly from SPEC Clutch, I ordered their Stage 2+)
- Master, Slave Cylinders, seals, a tonne of parts (sourced from Valentine Volvo and Eurosport Tuning out of Ontario)
- Single Mass Flywheel, A bracket and an engine mount (From Chapman Motors, out of BC)

Parts were all in hand and I had lined up a mechanic or two that would take this on, and I finally settled on a mechanic that would do this swap.

On Friday (Feb. 3rd) I loaded all the parts (including the transmission) into the back of the wagon, and dropped the car off at "U-Wrench", not without the sensation that I would be stranded on Deerfoot, when the transmission acted up again.

I met with the mechanic and his helper, and went over all the parts the notes I had written up and clearly indicated they could call me if they had any questions, I even offered to come in and help on the weekend if needed.

The U-Wrench is a shop where you can rent space with a lift and have access to tools, etc... I was strongly considering using this place when I could dedicate a solid week of me doing the swap, but the mechanic was renting space at this shop, and charging me an overall hourly rate... We had a general understanding of how long it would take, but still understand that this is a job that can present challenges, given we are working on a nearly 20year old car and things don't always go as smoothly as anticipated.

So fast forward to Friday Feb. 10th where I pull the plug on the whole operation, and decide to have the car towed back to my house, in all fairness:
- Drive Axles were pulled
- Auto Transmission and Angle Gear were removed from the car and separated from one another.
- Old torque converter out, and new SMF and Clutch, and pressure plate in
- Manual Trans and Angle Gear back into car/ engine bay
- Axles back in
- Master and Slave in and partially bled
- Peddles roughly in
- Shifter roughly in
- Shifter cables in (but wrong orientation)

So when I decided to pull the plug all of the heavy lifting was done, and it was something I could finish up over a weekend, or less...

So car showed up on Friday (Feb. 10th) at about 8pm, didn't touch it Friday. On Saturday did very little (about an hours worth of work), and Sunday is when I really got things going:
- Fix Brakes (they forgot the spacers for Porsche Calipers)
- Install Shift cables correctly (they had them reversed)
- Install SNABB Shift Plate and SS bushings (this was additional, but figured I would do it at the same time)
- Finish Installing the pedal assembly and wire up the cruise control, and vacuum hoses
- Install Shifter Assembly
- Cut Shifter Handle by 1.5" (I like having less leverage)
- Re-install interior (center console, all trim, driver's seat)
- Do the wiring portion of the swap
- Fill with Coolant.
- Check for leaks
- Reverse bleed the clutch (didn't do this till this past weekend, Feb. 18th)

Sorry for rambling, but so far driving the 5speed (now that clutch has been properly bled) and limiting boost to 15psig to break in the clutch has been amazing. Great to see how much fun these cars can be...

I got some interior goodies, I figured I would share some shots:











Shifter is a temporary one, I have this one on order, in fact it should be here by tomorrow (Feb. 24th):




Also once the clutch is properly broken in, I will install:

k24 block off plate:


custom Snaab 3" Intake:


3" MAF Housing:



Before the auto crapped out (on my long road trip) I noticed the stock K24 CBV seems to handle boost just fine up to 19psig, but anything over that and I would get boost fade, so I suspect its the CBV, and not a limitation of the turbo itself... so block off plate will go on, and I will have to install an external BOV/ Bypass Valve.

Also on that same road trip, I could see the stock MAF sensor, in the stock housing was being pegged for flow at 12-13 psig, so by going with a larger MAF housing I can use the stock sensor and allow for better tuning for the greater flow expected by this turbo (at all boost levels).

3" intake goes hand in hand with the 3"MAF housing, better flow for the turbo.

I expect to be making these upgrades over the next month so watch for updates, assuming the weather holds up...

Then I will get this thing on an AWD Dyno to see what kind of power its making...

Great job at documenting all of that, really appreciate the detail especially considering how busy/stressed you must have been. Waiting for some dyno numbers, should be good...

Thanks Jim!!!

Dyno will probably happen sometime in April, so pretty soon, I have some final things to tweak, and once I am switched over to summer tires should be good to go...


Some more updates...

So its been a couple of busy weekends, with a little break in between, but I have done the following:
- Installed CBV Block off plate (what a pain)
- Installed BOV on inter-cooler piping
- Installed 3" MAF Housing
- Installed 3" Intake Tube
- Re-positioned/ Rotated the battery by 90degrees
- Installed Crane Ignition System and Coil
- Installed New Shifter Cables
- Installed New Shifter Knob
- Installed New Heater Core

See photos with description below as necessary, not in any particular order:
New Shifter Knob:




New Turbosmart BOV:


Block Off Plate:



Another shot off the BOV, before I turned the battery:



Old vs New Shifter Cables:




You can see where the cable would fail. This would pop out without warning. Car would still be drive-able, but I would lose, 2nd, 4th, and Reverse. It didn't take long to pop it back in, but that wasn't a suitable solution... as in the past 6 weeks, that has popped out 2 times, and I said enough is enough, so ordered a new set of cables from the dealer:



New vs Old Heater Corer:


Common Failure point:


What the new and improved design looks like:


Proof that this is the original, nearly 20 year old, heater core:





Installing the cables was pretty straight forward, till I went to install the sockets/ clips onto the shifter/ lever, with the old cables, I would line them up and give a gentle tap to the bottom of the socket/ clip with a mallet/ hammer... well that didn't work with these new cables, as the ends were pretty tight, so one smack to many and next thing you know, I ended up busting the dreaded plastic clips on the ball seat. This happened late Saturday (18th) evening, around 8:30pm, so everything was closed, and nothing is open on Sunday... so what to do...









Three (3) screws are holding it in place, that seat isn't going anywhere...



Pictures of the battery turned sideways for clearing the intake:





New Coil:



Crane Ignition System, below battery:




That's it for now... I have some nice spark plug wires coming in the mail, to take full advantage of the new improved spark of the upgraded ignition system... Also have new rear calipers going on soon (with fresh brake lines)... other than than, I am fine tuning the tune, and getting ready for when I think its ready to go on the dyno... If all goes well, I would think sometime in April, this will also give me a chance to have it on summers instead of winters... My other car didn't like being dyno'd on winters and ever since then I have decided not to put a car on a dyno with winter rubber, with enough power, the soft rubber compound used for winter tires, will slip really badly on the rollers and you will not be ably to dyno, and possibly destroy the tires in the process...

So in the above post I mentioned the rear calipers as I had just ordered them earlier that day... well they arrived and are now installed, and all I can say is wow...


I know the majority of the braking force is done with the front brakes... part of the reason, I upgraded the stock front brakes is this particular car always braked very weak, with the stock brakes, and I have a theory that this car's rear brakes haven't been doing their job for quite some time...

So when I bought the car only the front brakes were stopping the car (just my theory). Then when I upgraded the front brakes to the Porsche BBK, and installed new rear pads, and rotors (I did notice the calipers seemed to be in rough shape, but I didn't assume they were seized or inoperable)... the car did improve dramatically, but after putting in the new rear calipers yesterday, and getting them properly bled, now the car stops the way it supposed... with all four (4) corners braking...

Here is a pic of one of the old calipers vs the new, both old ones looked this bad:

Great updates Ahmad!

Love the 5sp swap - I had and miss a 98 T5m that I had while I rebuilt my R, and the only reason the R was kept was the AWD. Would love to do an M66 swap on my car, but it's working too nice to mess with it. (Plus I got way too many other projects!)

Rabin