Group A
240 Ninja
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2004
- Location
- Portland, Oregon
This is the story of my current "daily driver", a cute little light blue 1983 242 DL with 600k miles on it. Nick-named "Badger" because of all the high mileage badges on the grill and the stripes (aka: faded to primer original paint) on it's roof.
The first time I saw this car was in the late 90's at a VCOA meet in the bay area. It had a lot of miles then as the owner used it to commute every day. That is the reason it has so many miles on it and up to that point I'd never seen a car with so many miles. As the years passed by and the regular VCOA members became friends I'd see it at most of the Volvo meets with more and more miles.
Unfortunately he passed away and his wife sold off his 122, 242ti and 242dl as a package deal to another VCOA member, Jane. She owned it for a while but towards the end of her ownership it mostly just sat at her son Isaiah's shop, Performance West. They hosted a Volvo get together and this is when I saw the car for sale for the first time. I asked about it and after haggling for a few weeks ended up buying the car. If I remember correctly it was at 576k miles at that point.
Here are pictures of it at home after it's first wash:
I of course had to lower it at least a little the same day:
I drove it for a couple months, but having too many cars and moving from Central California back to Portland, Oregon it was taken to my parent's property in California where it sat for almost 2 years. My parents would fire it up and drive it to town once a month just to keep everything working.
So one night the crew at RSI were all talking trash (me mostly of course) and a challenge of James (945TI on TB) and I going to California to get Badger, swap the aw70 out for a manual trans and take it to the Thunderhill track day to try to beat Jonathan's race car. So James and I loaded up his 244ti with everything we would need to do the swap and get it track ready as best we could in 24hrs after a 10hr drive. Of course something happened to the race car just before we got to my parents house and it wasn't going to make it. So plan was aborted other than just grabbing Badger and taking it back to Portland.
I did a quick interior clean up with nice carpets and 89+ seats, put my Gemini's on it and drove it like this occasionally. Here is a pic of it at the IPD Garage Sale:
Since it was an extra car at the time it was loaned to a friend that needed a car for about 10 months.
I put some 14" RG's (IPD's Virgo replica's that have been long discontinued) with good tires on it for her to bomb around on and me not to worry about the Gem's. She drove it looking like this:
I then sold my black 245TI and my daily driver 83 245DL had been turned into a race car, so I asked for Badger back. It was like pulling teeth to get back a car I loaned someone for free. Whatever, I got it back and drove it with the RG's for a while.
Then for the next IPD Garage Sale RSI had the prototype LM Rep set-up laying around so I bolted those on and lowered it as much as I could for the show.
Pics of it at IPD:
I liked it so much I decided to keep it this way for a while.
I drove it every day like this for about 2 months before I finally had enough and had to raise the front a little to get some suspension travel. The control arm angle is terrible and not much better after raising it up a little.
I drove it like this for several more months with several trips to watch the races at PIR.
Tye (Inc3pt), Kyle (KLR142) and I went to PIR to watch the races and Tye took some really nice pics of our cars:
Took it on a road trip to CA to see my kids and while I was down there Dan hooked me up with an original paint flathood the same color that I had previously sold him. Shout out to Big Rob for helping me with the fundage at the time.
I drove it like that for quite a while. Everyday and a couple trips out to ORP to watch the races:
I even used it to move across town. If I backed up the rear tires would wedge in the fenderwells and stop...
Then right around xmas I was texting while driving. Luckily it was only core support and front headlights/trim damage. Structurally it didn't get hurt.
I kind of rigged it up to drive until I could fix the core support and the headgasket started seeping finally after almost 600k miles. I parked it, but then Tye needed a car to drive so I loaned it to him for a week and while he had it the headgasket all but gave up. He made it to my friend's property where I store my cars and it's been there for a couple months.
I swapped in a white core support until I find a nice 86+ front clip. Motor is currently out of it and being put away for a stroker project when I can afford it. In the meantime, the same friend that's storing my cars for me gave me a good used 92 B230 out of a car he parted out to get badger back on the road.
It's getting a lot of work done to it right now. Motor will be pretty and a little peppier than stock with a shaved head and Cometic headgasket. Lightened flywheel and B cam will also help. I'm swapping in the good m46 I took out of my race car (need the speedo to work, otherwise would have went with m47) that has low mileage. Firewall panel will be changed for the clutch cable, new blower motor (old one squeeked on first setting) and an uncracked dash.
To add to the fun factor of my daily driver I'm installing a true trac LSD, 28/25mm IPD, IPD torque rods, IPD Panhard bar, and Poly bushings.
The first time I saw this car was in the late 90's at a VCOA meet in the bay area. It had a lot of miles then as the owner used it to commute every day. That is the reason it has so many miles on it and up to that point I'd never seen a car with so many miles. As the years passed by and the regular VCOA members became friends I'd see it at most of the Volvo meets with more and more miles.
Unfortunately he passed away and his wife sold off his 122, 242ti and 242dl as a package deal to another VCOA member, Jane. She owned it for a while but towards the end of her ownership it mostly just sat at her son Isaiah's shop, Performance West. They hosted a Volvo get together and this is when I saw the car for sale for the first time. I asked about it and after haggling for a few weeks ended up buying the car. If I remember correctly it was at 576k miles at that point.
Here are pictures of it at home after it's first wash:
I of course had to lower it at least a little the same day:
I drove it for a couple months, but having too many cars and moving from Central California back to Portland, Oregon it was taken to my parent's property in California where it sat for almost 2 years. My parents would fire it up and drive it to town once a month just to keep everything working.
So one night the crew at RSI were all talking trash (me mostly of course) and a challenge of James (945TI on TB) and I going to California to get Badger, swap the aw70 out for a manual trans and take it to the Thunderhill track day to try to beat Jonathan's race car. So James and I loaded up his 244ti with everything we would need to do the swap and get it track ready as best we could in 24hrs after a 10hr drive. Of course something happened to the race car just before we got to my parents house and it wasn't going to make it. So plan was aborted other than just grabbing Badger and taking it back to Portland.
I did a quick interior clean up with nice carpets and 89+ seats, put my Gemini's on it and drove it like this occasionally. Here is a pic of it at the IPD Garage Sale:
Since it was an extra car at the time it was loaned to a friend that needed a car for about 10 months.
I put some 14" RG's (IPD's Virgo replica's that have been long discontinued) with good tires on it for her to bomb around on and me not to worry about the Gem's. She drove it looking like this:
I then sold my black 245TI and my daily driver 83 245DL had been turned into a race car, so I asked for Badger back. It was like pulling teeth to get back a car I loaned someone for free. Whatever, I got it back and drove it with the RG's for a while.
Then for the next IPD Garage Sale RSI had the prototype LM Rep set-up laying around so I bolted those on and lowered it as much as I could for the show.
Pics of it at IPD:
I liked it so much I decided to keep it this way for a while.
I drove it every day like this for about 2 months before I finally had enough and had to raise the front a little to get some suspension travel. The control arm angle is terrible and not much better after raising it up a little.
I drove it like this for several more months with several trips to watch the races at PIR.
Tye (Inc3pt), Kyle (KLR142) and I went to PIR to watch the races and Tye took some really nice pics of our cars:
Took it on a road trip to CA to see my kids and while I was down there Dan hooked me up with an original paint flathood the same color that I had previously sold him. Shout out to Big Rob for helping me with the fundage at the time.
I drove it like that for quite a while. Everyday and a couple trips out to ORP to watch the races:
I even used it to move across town. If I backed up the rear tires would wedge in the fenderwells and stop...
Then right around xmas I was texting while driving. Luckily it was only core support and front headlights/trim damage. Structurally it didn't get hurt.
I kind of rigged it up to drive until I could fix the core support and the headgasket started seeping finally after almost 600k miles. I parked it, but then Tye needed a car to drive so I loaned it to him for a week and while he had it the headgasket all but gave up. He made it to my friend's property where I store my cars and it's been there for a couple months.
I swapped in a white core support until I find a nice 86+ front clip. Motor is currently out of it and being put away for a stroker project when I can afford it. In the meantime, the same friend that's storing my cars for me gave me a good used 92 B230 out of a car he parted out to get badger back on the road.
It's getting a lot of work done to it right now. Motor will be pretty and a little peppier than stock with a shaved head and Cometic headgasket. Lightened flywheel and B cam will also help. I'm swapping in the good m46 I took out of my race car (need the speedo to work, otherwise would have went with m47) that has low mileage. Firewall panel will be changed for the clutch cable, new blower motor (old one squeeked on first setting) and an uncracked dash.
To add to the fun factor of my daily driver I'm installing a true trac LSD, 28/25mm IPD, IPD torque rods, IPD Panhard bar, and Poly bushings.
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