QUICK NOTE:Geoshitties page so make sure to refresh if all pics dont load, also link to subsequent swap pages is at the bottom of the page!

This page will cover my work modifying a volvo B234F head to fit a Ford 2.3l Turbo engine.

Interesting 16v head links: (some is stupid but I put it here during my build as reference since my pc has a habit of crashing and I wanted stone cold links...)
Link1
Link2(reported as dead, keeping for sake of arguments)
Link3
Link4
Link5
Link6(one line of info regarding the B234F head, under B, 7 down...also, head in this article is from a 91 940, though I have a head from an 89 740 too...)
Link7(timing is important heh)
Link8 a guy who ported his head.

Start date: (10/09/04)

Completion date: (??/??/??)

Background/Motivation:
Mainly because stock for stock ford n/a 2.3 is rated at 88hp compared to the volvo 2.3 at 140hp-ish. Thus, since the ford 2.3t is rated 170-190hp I can only imagine a turbo volvo...hmmm. That and the rumors on the different boards are that with about 15psi the few successful volvo swaps are running high 300hp range which confirms my suspicions. Also, after dabbling in the honda area for a little while I've really come to think of a dohc head as something of a sexy beast....grrr. Oh yeah, and while I'm building my mustang only when I get a chance to go to charleston on different weekends I really need something to keep me busy and from going inside on weeknights that doesn't cost an arm and a leg which I honestly dont think this will over the term that I've judged for it. Actually, I'll go so far right here and now to claim that I think I can actually get it "running" for at or near $400 total. claim made on 10/29/04, lets see if I can actually accomplish this :P
EDIT: 1/14/05 with my decision to buy diamond pistons for the swap instead of going with the $100 crower valve notching tool (ghetto-fab) to get my valve clearances the project went over the $400 mark. I only say this as I have access to a tig welder so I dont have to worry about the welding part or the intake/exhaust manifold...only raw materials. I will be experimenting with 91-96 escort intake manifold runners for the intake! My escort brought me to that thought. take a look at the junkyard for yourself. perfect sized round 180 degree aluminum bends! for me (free, dad's yard) for you at the pull-a-part, cheap as hell! hell, crimp them in a vise to get the initial oval to round bend and you're set! anyway, enough half-drunk rambling more on this later.

CONVERSION:
Here's the head I got from the junkyard. It's from a 1991 740 GLE wagon. The car's timing belt wasn't broken so I pulled it off saving everything and taking it all, got a really good price. Make sure to check the timing belt on these things FIRST before pulling unless you don't want the lower half as they WILL bend all the valves if the belt goes (found out the hard way on another head). Also, when pulling the head in the junkyard you need to remove the cams or all the lifters will fall out the bottom when you pop it off. And lastly, bring a small 8mm wrench and pop off the distributor cap before trying to remove the upper half as its nearly impossible to get the upper half off with the dizzy cap in place....man I cussed for 5 minutes over that...

here's a shot I did so you could compare the head itself with an old B234F gasket as well as a ford 2.3 gasket. As you can see, there's much to be desired from the 2.3 gasket for actual cooling passages compared to the B234F gasket.

you can see that basically all the big holes (head bolts/oil drains/someH2O's) match up on the gaskets. But it's the smaller ones that leave much to be desired...this picture was taken to show the smaller water passage holes provided in both gaskets...you can't tell in the picture but when you line both gaskets up perfectly and align them to the head...these small passages are OFF, the holes are blocked haha. My solution? I'm going to open up the holes in the gasket. Some people were opening the passages in the block/head...why? do it with an $8 headgasket...or two! and keep one as a template after you crank the boost and blow one haha.


Here's the traditional "oh look! the head is too short!" picture. So yes, I'll be having my block of aluminum added to the back and I'm going to get those water passages too. I'm completely anal about having as much uniform cooling as possible even though I know it's not necessary.

Well, here it all is taken apart down to the bare head parts to get hauled off to the machine shop for a good cleaning. Mainly I just want everything clean so I don't have to worry about oil stains and stuff on my apartment carpet. That and I want to paint the valve cover and the welder said he wouldn't weld the lower half unless it was clean. Oh, and if you were wondering, yes, one of those $20 autozone valve spring compressor tools WILL work. May have to hit the center part a few times with a hammer to close it enough to sit on the spring caps enough for compression but it's all good.

Picked up the head today from the machine shop after the bead blasting. Overall it really looks good. There's a "few" deep down places that didn't get hit for one reason or another but I can get those myself so I'm not too bad...too bad they wouldn't budge off the price though. Oh well, still looks good compared to the neastiness they started out as:

Anyway, still waiting for my aluminum block to come in (grrr, stupid slow shipping). Well, while waiting on it I figured I'd at least get my valve cover completely finished. Over the world red is a sign of power. Ferrari, lamborghini, lotus, FORD, GM, pontiac, honda, acura, nissan, etc, etc, etc all have donned the tops of their best performance engines in red. Personally, I love it. Thus I decided to do my valve cover in red AND to leave the "volvo" insignia in place just for a conversation piece when I pop the hood :p. Anyway, I did a base coat in wrinkle finish and top coat in high temp red. Here's the results, I like it:

Now to take a look at the "redesign" of the cam tower oiling. The cam tower oil feed comes from around the second to back driver side head bolt. At the bottom of the head is the oil feed, it makes a diagonal path upwards into the yellow circled hole seen in the picture. This path continues up into the cam tower at the matching yellow circled hole and spreads out down the oiling path. To get to the other cam tower, the oiling path travels across the middle of the cam tower, across one of the cam tower bolts, and onto the other cam tower oiling path. I had several different ideas of how to make it as simple as possible to redirect the oiling and after looking at a few other peoples ideas online I decided to make it a rear feed oiling system.


NOTE: um, **cough cough**, I realized after posting this pic and during review that I must have gotten carried away in microsoft paint and gotten hasty and forgot to FLIP the picture haha....anyway, the head is BACKWARDS...flip it around but leave the red circles in place and that's where it is actually supposed to be drilled :p

There's two options for converting to rear feed oiling system on this head. They are circled in red. You've got the same outcropping as on the factory oil feed on both back areas. The other good part is that on the outside of the head (shown below), you've also got access underneath on the outside of the head. As you can see though, the passenger side has more material built up around it to make adding in a threaded adapter a bit more difficult. Basically, I'll drill a hole in the lower part of the head on the driver side going to the outside where I'll thread a fitting and then run a line just about straight down to the traditional aluminum block that will be welded on...once it finally decides to arrive that is. Anyway, I'll of course show pics when that is done.

Ok, well my 1/8" thick plate for my intake manifold came today and that got me in the mood to goof around with the head again. I've been thinking the past few days on the oiling part so I pulled out the head again and it was downhill from there. I had a 1/8 NPT thread pipe fitting around (same thread as used on most braided oil feed line kits, etc) so I used that as my test fitting. One thing I DID NOT want to worry with was having to do MORE welding to the head like I saw on the other head that utilized this rear oiling method. So, I tossed a thin bead of black silicone on the upper cam tower and tossed it on the lower portion to make a template area. It was of course JUST big enough inside for the inner diameter of the 1/8 NPT fitting...nice, very nice. Tossed the head in one of my little plastic tubs and got out one of my smallest bits and made a starter hole so the larger bit wouldn't walk, then got the proper size bit and made the leap of faith so to speak. All in all it came out just about perfect for what I want. I got right on the edge of the outer head which, surprisingly enough, is exactly what I wanted since I wanted to be able to tap the threads at an angle and not have to worry about being crunched down under that lip any if I had to do in-car work...now the fitting will be a bit better exposed. Anyway, here's the results. Guess now it's time to decide exactly what fitting type I want to use, whether it be a stepped nipple end or an actual threaded NPT fitting end...probably end up being a stepped nipple so I can simply use high pressure oil hose haha.




I've decided this page is getting sort of long so it's getting a second page as of today (12/3/04). Continue to Volvo Swap Part 2