2.3 NA regina to 2.3 Turbo LH2.4 motor swap

[comanche250]

So I'm considering buying a parts 960 car that was in an accident and swapping the DOHC straight 6 into my '91 740 wagon. Has anyone don't this swap before? I assume everything unbolts and bolts back up easily. Crossmember, ect. The car is only 2k. Believe it or not there's no other parts cars in my area so this is the cheapest option to ditch my Regina red block for something faster.

 

[240 240]

what year 960?
pre 95'?

Thats a ton of parts to swap over for an inferior engine

 

[comanche250]

what year 960?
pre 95'?

Thats a ton of parts to swap over for an inferior engine

It's a '96

There's a turbo 740 sedan for the same price but it's a complete car so I'd feel bad about robbing the engine out of it.

 

[Pietercc]

If you are ok with 180hp, almost no easy way to add more hp, and slightly worse fuel economy, ~22mpg , but a really smooth cruiser go for the whiteblock. If you want more than 180hp and slightly better fuel economy,~24, go Turbo. You don't even need a whole turbo car for it, just a turbo and if you really want to deal with repining a 2.4 900/700 series harness from dave barton.

Shoot, I would sell you all the hardware you would need, minus oil feed and return for a couple hundred bucks plus shipping, unless @spock345 still wants my Turbo.

 

[spock345]

If you are ok with 180hp, almost no easy way to add more hp, and slightly worse fuel economy, ~22mpg , but a really smooth cruiser go for the whiteblock. If you want more than 180hp and slightly better fuel economy,~24, go Turbo. You don't even need a whole turbo car for it, just a turbo and if you really want to deal with repining a 2.4 900/700 series harness from dave barton.

Shoot, I would sell you all the hardware you would need, minus oil feed and return for a couple hundred bucks plus shipping, unless @spock345 still wants my Turbo.

I still want the turbo stuff.

 

[spock345]

Also paging @AnthonyHardy2, he knows all the ins and outs of whiteblock six cylinder swaps.

 

[comanche250]

Well that turbo 4 cylinder car is the same price. Maybe I could put my Regina engine in it and keep a Volvo running.

What all would I have to do to match the 6 cylinder power?

 

[oldschoolvolvo]

What all would I have to do to match the 6 cylinder power?

Turn up the boost.

What trans would you run with the 6?
I don’t know if I’d go through the whiteblock swap and keep the auto trans. Doing a manual swap too makes the whole project more involved.

Pietercc has some good points.

 

[comanche250]

Turn up the boost.

What trans would you run with the 6?
I don’t know if I’d go through the whiteblock swap and keep the auto trans. Doing a manual swap too makes the whole project more involved.

Pietercc has some good points.

I would probably just use the aw71 from the car. A manual swap would be cool but I can't imagine how hard it would be to find a flywheel for a whiteblock and a 740 pedal assembly.

The turbo swap does seem to be the popular opinion here, I am not against that either.

 

[Pietercc]

Well that turbo 4 cylinder car is the same price. Maybe I could put my Regina engine in it and keep a Volvo running.

What all would I have to do to match the 6 cylinder power?

Stock boost is 8 psi, and makes 160hp. Get a manual boost controller and bump it to 10-12, you should make over 180. Get some Chips, a 3" maf, ipd turbo cams, and s60r injectors and then you have 250hp. I make it sound a bit easier than it is, but its much easier than a whiteblock swap. You will not be able to repin any existing harness, you will be adding the 960 harness into your car

 

[comanche250]

Stock boost is 8 psi, and makes 160hp. Get a manual boost controller and bump it to 10-12, you should make over 180. Get some Chips, a 3" maf, ipd turbo cams, and s60r injectors and then you have 250hp. I make it sound a bit easier than it is, but its much easier than a whiteblock swap. You will not be able to repin any existing harness, you will be adding the 960 harness into your car

Oh wow that's not bad at all. I'm familiar with turbos (diesels) enough to mess with the boost. I'm my Hilux surf I have the waste gate locked and just control the boost with my foot. Haha I can get the 15 PSI gauge wrapped around easily. 10 PSI seems reasonable for reliability.

 

[HiSPL]

I would probably just use the aw71 from the car. A manual swap would be cool but I can't imagine how hard it would be to find a flywheel for a whiteblock and a 740 pedal assembly.

The turbo swap does seem to be the popular opinion here, I am not against that either.

850 flywheel fits.

There are kits to adapt it to a T5WC, CD009, or theres a BMW trans I can't remember the name of. Or the stock M90 from Europe. Plenty of trans options for a whiteblock. It's all been done.

If you are ok with 180hp, almost no easy way to add more hp, and slightly worse fuel economy, ~22mpg , but a really smooth cruiser go for the whiteblock.

Its easy and well proven to get over 200hp with a set of early cams and better exhaust. Even using the stock exhaust manifolds, which are pretty good, but using a 2.5" or 3" free flowing exhaust. Add some kind of better intake and you are knocking on 250hp.

The B6304 is a really good engine, but it is very choked on airflow from the factory. A little intake and exhaust work and get some of the early cams and it runs a lot better.

 

[Pietercc]

The B6304 is a really good engine, but it is very choked on airflow from the factory. A little intake and exhaust work and get some of the early cams and it runs a lot better.

It is a great engine, but I dont belive it will take the same abuse as the redblock. Plus the extra work to make it fit in a factory redblock car. I would put a whiteblock in my GF's car (no @AnthonyHardy2, not really) but never in a car I drive

 

[white855T]

850 flywheel fits.

There are kits to adapt it to a T5WC, CD009, or theres a BMW trans I can't remember the name of. Or the stock M90 from Europe. Plenty of trans options for a whiteblock. It's all been done.


Its easy and well proven to get over 200hp with a set of early cams and better exhaust. Even using the stock exhaust manifolds, which are pretty good, but using a 2.5" or 3" free flowing exhaust. Add some kind of better intake and you are knocking on 250hp.

The B6304 is a really good engine, but it is very choked on airflow from the factory. A little intake and exhaust work and get some of the early cams and it runs a lot better.

Adding an intake would definitely not get you to 250 hp. That would be a complete waste of money. Standalone ecu that is tuned. That would be a better investment of your time/money. The 6 cylinder whiteblock is a really good engine. Not many have done a good n/a build.

 

[HiSPL]

Adding an intake would definitely not get you to 250 hp. That would be a complete waste of money. Standalone ecu that is tuned. That would be a better investment of your time/money. The 6 cylinder whiteblock is a really good engine. Not many have done a good n/a build.

There are a few in Europe hitting 220-230 wheel on the stock Intake. They are either Standalone or using M4.4 and tuning it.

DaButcher did this years ago:

On the older b6304 with the stock 204hp output, I dynoed 242hp.
only mods:
air intake (but this sucked warm air, so I believe this robbed me for power)
3" exhaust (two mufflers, JT Superflow)

This car was also tuned to hit that number. I am not sure if these numbers are "corrected" or not.

 

[2manyturbos]

I would probably just use the aw71 from the car. A manual swap would be cool but I can't imagine how hard it would be to find a flywheel for a whiteblock and a 740 pedal assembly.

The turbo swap does seem to be the popular opinion here, I am not against that either.

You are not going to be able to use the AW-71 without coming up with a transmission-engine adapter plate. The bell housings are a completely different bolt pattern. You would also have to do something different with the flex plate. Those are also a different bolt pattern. I don't think the converter is the same distance from the bell housing surface either. IOW, you would have a lot of custom machine work to do to install a mediocre transmission. The engine swap with the AW-30-40 would be straight forward. The only real work would be mating the 960 harness to the 940. Again, that won't be a piece of cake. The Turbo engine with a simple Turbo Plus boost control system makes 180 HP. With the dash harness out of a Turbo 7 series the entire swap is drop in/bolt in, hook up the wires. 250 hp is a stretch with the above listed mods. 225 is more realistic and easy to obtain and still maintain daily driver manners and complete reliability.

 

[AnthonyHardy2]

I'm a bit late to the party and everyone else has pretty much said this already but +Ting your engine is a much better and easier choice than swapping the 960 engine in. IMO as much as I like the 6 cylinder whiteblock it doesn't make much sense to go through all the work needed to put a 960 engine into a 740 or 940 when 960s already exist and are much nicer cars overall.

To put the whiteblock in your 740 you'd have to pull the 960 harness and spend several hours separating the engine and trans wiring from the rest of the harness and then figure out how to connect everything to the 740 wiring harness, find and install a 3.73 rear axle with a 48 tooth tone ring if your 740 doesn't have one already, install the 960 instrument cluster into the 740 somehow, swap the front half of the driveshaft because the AW30-40 is ~30mm shorter than a AW7x, modify the transmission lines somehow to connect to the stock radiator or swap in the larger 960 radiator, and modify the 960 AC lines to fit the 740 if you want working AC, and do a hundred other little things I'm forgetting.

Its easy and well proven to get over 200hp with a set of early cams and better exhaust. Even using the stock exhaust manifolds, which are pretty good, but using a 2.5" or 3" free flowing exhaust. Add some kind of better intake and you are knocking on 250hp.

At least in my experience it seems you need a tune to actually see a power increase from those mods since when Volvo switched to the late cams they also adjusted the tune to create a more linear powerband. I had the early cams and a 2.5" exhaust on a 1998 960 engine and while the cams shifted the power band up there wasn't a real power increase overall.

 

[comanche250]

I'm a bit late to the party and everyone else has pretty much said this already but +Ting your engine is a much better and easier choice than swapping the 960 engine in. IMO as much as I like the 6 cylinder whiteblock it doesn't make much sense to go through all the work needed to put a 960 engine into a 740 or 940 when 960s already exist and are much nicer cars overall.

To put the whiteblock in your 740 you'd have to pull the 960 harness and spend several hours separating the engine and trans wiring from the rest of the harness and then figure out how to connect everything to the 740 wiring harness, find and install a 3.73 rear axle with a 48 tooth tone ring if your 740 doesn't have one already, install the 960 instrument cluster into the 740 somehow, swap the front half of the driveshaft because the AW30-40 is ~30mm shorter than a AW7x, modify the transmission lines somehow to connect to the stock radiator or swap in the larger 960 radiator, and modify the 960 AC lines to fit the 740 if you want working AC, and do a hundred other little things I'm forgetting.


At least in my experience it seems you need a tune to actually see a power increase from those mods since when Volvo switched to the late cams they also adjusted the tune to create a more linear powerband. I had the early cams and a 2.5" exhaust on a 1998 960 engine and while the cams shifted the power band up there wasn't a real power increase overall.
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Okay that's great information. And yeah I'm thinking a turbo redblock would be better for me.

Would it be better to spend 2k on a whole car and swap the engine over (plus harness since my wagon is Regina) or would it be better to piece together a +1 and Bosch 2.4 setup? I was just gonna drop the trans do swap the flexplate but I'd I have to drill the block for the drain I'd have to drop the pan so that would mean pulling the engine right?

 

[Pietercc]

Pull the engine and trans together, especially if you are working by yourself, you will not be able to get the trans and engine back together in the car without a lot of struggle. It took @spock345, @AnthonyHardy2 and myself 45-60 min of struggling to get it back together, with one person spinning the driveshaft, one person looking through the clutch fork hole for alinement, and one pushing on the engine. You can drill the whole in the car, but I recommend doing it with it out, pan dropped, and flush the block after to get all the shavings out. Reseal as much of the engine as you can. If you use your current NA engine you will need to run premium since the NA engine has a higher CR. And again, the easy way is to get a 2.4 harness from a 240, but you can get the 740 one new from DaveBarton.com. If you piece it together you should be able to get upgraded components for the 2k, Like a 15t turbo, IPD turbo cam, chips and injectors

 

[comanche250]

Pull the engine and trans together, especially if you are working by yourself, you will not be able to get the trans and engine back together in the car without a lot of struggle. It took @spock345, @AnthonyHardy2 and myself 45-60 min of struggling to get it back together, with one person spinning the driveshaft, one person looking through the clutch fork hole for alinement, and one pushing on the engine. You can drill the whole in the car, but I recommend doing it with it out, pan dropped, and flush the block after to get all the shavings out. Reseal as much of the engine as you can. If you use your current NA engine you will need to run premium since the NA engine has a higher CR. And again, the easy way is to get a 2.4 harness from a 240, but you can get the 740 one new from DaveBarton.com. If you piece it together you should be able to get upgraded components for the 2k, Like a 15t turbo, IPD turbo cam, chips and injectors

Good to know. I'm a mechanic by trade so I know some tricks to getting autos to mate back up . Can I just run 91/92?