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Project Swedish Pony Car (242tic)

Hank Scorpio

Chubfest 2009 Survivor
Staff member
300+ Club
Project 242 (clubvolvo's offical project car)

Well it's offical, by a fluke of nature my 242 that I picked up last week was perfect timing for clubvolvo's launch. So heres the low down on the car.

I've eyed this car for over a year, for it was an old friend of mine's daughters car. She stopped driving the car and it sat with many "gremlins" that they were tired of fixing. After a few months (and no serious intrest from me) the price had dropped from 1500 to 200 dollars in it's no-running form.

So I bought the car, replaced the battery and it started right up! How about that. Today I replaced the driveline carrier bushing (I should have taken pictures) and adjusted the clutch to no avail. I think I'll give it one more try then next weekend the tranny comes out and a new (abiet not a super-performance) clutch goes in.

Heres basicly the plan for the car. There is two main goals for the car:

First is keep to a mild budget, I'll spend what I have to but some parts may come later than others

Second: Everything I'll do is reversible should I sell the car or what ever.

So heres my plans:

The int' is going to be fairly stock w/ excpetion to two corbeau seats, and 4 point harness. I'll probably install a simple roll cage as well. A new dash cover (ipd's replacement hard one, not fabric as it is now), white gauges (on order) and some simple mod's come first. I should also be picking up the intercooler from a guy in oregon with in the next two weeks.

Next towards the end of this summer will be the suspension. Most of it looks good, even though it has 225k+ miles on it. So probably all new polyurethane bushing will be put on it. Sport springs, SS brake lines, powerslot or xdrilled rotors. Now, sway bars are part of the list, but might not be on this first round of mods. My brothers 87 244 is going to be the reciever for my turbo bars when I do get ipds bars so I'm waiting for him to pay me.

This winter, the motor/tranny is coming out. It's getting a VX cam, 3" exhaust, possibly a watercooled turbo and some mild porting done. Here lies the main problem, SMOG. I have to be able to pass CA's smog laws so the motor will be fairly tame compared to what could be done. I'm shooting for 200-225 hp when I'm done.

After all is said and done, then the car will be repainted by next summer (I hope). This should be a great project and really fun to do.

Here's my question, do you guys want me to just post pictures of upgrades, or show things like pic by pic clutch removal? I'll try my best, and possibly open another thread for just that. Let me know what you want.

Well, heres the car before I bought it. Note the windows not working and all the punk stickers (LOL).

Thanks again,

Doug Kauer
 
heres a newer cleaner picture! I replaced the center driveline mount, next weekend the clutch and tranny are coming out. If the synchro's are shot, I'll probably rebuild the transmission. Then, the end of july (maybe the middle) look for springs, shocks, and bushings. Then sway bars and and upper and lower chassis braces.

Doug
 
Well, first project this weekend. I decided to do something easy and cheap for now. In 2 weeks look for the first round of suspension upgrades (springs, new bushings and new shocks, this still has the original shocks w/ 226k miles on them!).

So, I'm doing IPD's white face gauges. While I'm at it, all the plastic and vinyl in the car is being repainted black. Door panels included, and with some luck and some minor bleach I can get the carpets on the door panels to go more yellow. My over all theme for the interior is yellow and black. In the end of august, the last interior upgrade will be a set of Corbeau buckets (2) and 4 pt harness's.


I'll start having pictures up tomorrow night at the latest!

But... I also have a gig w/ my band, so it might be on sunday! But stay tuned!

Doug
 
I'll probably end up w/ a 5 pt belt, though crotch belts suck for daily drivers.

Well, heres some pictures of the interior upgrades. Gauges and paint lots and lots of paint. The actual dash is getting replaced soon, so thats why I didn't paint that part but everything else besides the seats got painted today. I used Dupli-color vinyl paint and it worked great!

Leaving the door panel carpets brown for now, going to try to bleach them yellow or white. My theme for the car is black and yellow.

Heres a picture at the begining.
 
heres a completed gauge cluster.

Best shop tool is a Digital camera. When I took something apart w/ lots of wiring I just took a picture then went back and looked at it, zoomed in ect when I put it back together!

Anyway, back to topic. If you haven't done these gauges do them. It's simple, takes about an hour, has great instructions and is EASY to read the gauges now. At night they look great and are quite easy to read.
 
Well I picked up my ultimate parts car today! 85 244 ti (thats right intercooled!) w/ upper and lower strut braces, sway bars, bilstiens, a new turbo, new head, new auto transmission and a bunch of other goodies for 1250 today!

What a deal. The front end is damaged but everything besides that sheet metal is ok. I also got an alpine cd player w/ it and 4 extra (not including the ones on the car) turbo wheels!
 
Well, some of you may have noticed that this is also now under general chat and is also locked. I'm going to keep this just to updates and pictures! If you would like to comment on it, this thread is still intact and open in the 200 forum.

Now, updates on the car. I've changed only color scheme on the car again. Now it's going to be redish orange color found on Prowlers and simliar to the GM color on trans-ams and such. So, the interior will be completely blacked out on the door panels w/ silver accents. Changed my mind on seats and color as well.

As far as mechanical that is all the same still. So far the parts I have amassed at my shop are:

Bilsteins, 25mm front and rear sway bars, upper strut braces, upper gt strut braces, lower strut braces, intercooler, everything to finish off my interior except the seats, 3" exhaust from mvpvolvo, 3.91 rear end from an automatic, electric fan (from my old firebird, big 16"), lots of turbo wheels, poly bushings, all new suspension pieces, new rebuilt turbo, new rebuilt head, and a MBC from turboxs.

The motor is coming out this weekend and monday it will go in for porting and polishing. With some luck it will only need to be honed so I can start rebuilding it next week! Lots of goodies, and fun stuff to do.

Soo, all I have to do is, rebuild the suspension, install new brake rotors, rebuild the motor and transmission, install the new rear end (and have atleast 4.11's put in the old one), install SS brake lines, put the interior back together, get my seats, order my cam, install the intercooler, do my airbox mod, do my mod's for brake cooling ducts...


Shesh, what a list! Actually, really honestly looking at about 2 months and the car will be back on the road!
 
Well, almost all my parts are here now. Today I got my 3" exhaust from www.mvpvolvo.com and all I can say is that it is beatiful!!! I am impressed and would recommend it to anyone doing a 240 (or 740) turbo and wants to upgrade their exhaust. The quality is amazing, and I really can not stress this enough. Seth at mvp has been great in dealing with my constant bugging him and my failed attempt to get my pay-pal account going.

All in all, it's worth every penny!

I also got my mbc today, it's a universal from www.turboxs.com and it also looks really nice.

Over the weekend I got the motor out and would have started taking it apart but it's been over a hundred degrees all week and it's just to hot right now. But, by the end of the week I'll have it apart and going in for machine work and porting and polishing. This weekend I'm hoping to have all my suspension parts off the parts car and cleaned up and ready to go on the 242t!

Well heres some more pictures!
 
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