Ok, now that I've got a fresh page to start with, we can continue with my progress. Went home over thanksgiving and decided to take my head with me to get all the cutting done to it and also decided to take apart my donor engine for my "porch engine" use. One of the big myths surrounding the volvo head conversion is that apparently you cant use 2.3 head bolts and that you needed custom head bolts. I decided to test this out so after ripping the head off the engine I grabbed the volvo and tossed it on top and snugged down a pair of bolts. You can obviously see the results:


Obviously this doesn't take into account the three recessed middle bolt holes in the head that are shorter. After finding that the bolts do in fact work people have decided to make hardened steel spacers of the required length for the three center holes. I'll give more details on those later. Also decided to take a few pics of the "other head concerns real quick such as WHY you need the block on the back of the head and why I want to CUT the front water bypass off and weld it shut instead of plugging it. You can obviously see how far that thing sticks out up front and I dont want any late project booboo's that need to be fixed (I only want to have to mill off the mating surface once on this head to keep as much combustion chamber as possible). And yes, that's my dirty finger holding the block up.


Here's a few pics I thought about taking while I was cutting/grinding on the head prepping it for the block and the front passage. I used a combination of air tools with grinding wheels and aluminum burrs that I actually have available to me at the family shop back in charleston...so I took advantage of them! lol. Anyway, just a shot of me grinding away at the back ridge and the front passage opening. I saved the front opening after it was cut off and ground it down to re-use as the "filler" piece to weld the opening shut with. oh! and yes! that IS a big ole jar of pickles in the left background of the second picture! for some ungodly reason my dad had a jar of pickles on the work bench (I think it was just there to get in the way personally).


Ok, continuing on. Here's a few shots after all the grinding is done. I made sure to make the grinds nice and deep to give good penetration for the welds only to find out that my dad's tig welder is out of commision. Oh well, weekend over and back in atlanta now and I can't find ANYONE around here that does tig and is willing to weld on a head! even AFTER I've told them I know it will warp the mating surface and I dont care as I'm going to get it resurfaced anyway. unbelievable. So this has me on hold until I can track someone down to do this for me. If it goes on too much longer I'll buy my own damn tig machine...this really has me peeved. Anyway, here's the pictures and dont worry about the one with the block, it actually fits quite nicely but I had it just held up with my remote controls so it didn't sit too nicely.




Finally found a machine shop to do my welding locally here in atlanta, actually they were a GREAT machine shop and do great work at reasonable prices and they actually had heard of this swap before and were very interested in what I was doing. Here's their website if interested. Got the head back in only two days and the work was great and just the way I wanted it. They did the front passage just the way I wanted, closed off and level. I'm glad I went this route instead of the plug method since there could have been some problems what with the water pump being RIGHT BELOW IT.

They did a great job on the lower block welding as well though it looks like they sorta welded it on an angle heh. It sits almost flush with the back of the block which I really like and it's outer dimension are very nice also, very snug. Just fyi, I used a block of 6061 aluminum 1"x1"x5.25"

They also did what I asked for the mating surface. I had them weld all three of the oil return holes closed so I could redrill them as I see fit to better match the gasket (they didn't weld very far up into the head on them so dont worry guys). Also, since the head gasket on the ford 2.3 sorta stuck out some on the sides and since I modified one of my older ford 2.3 gaskets with the way I wanted the water passages when I was back home modifying the head, I knew that with the modified head gasket in place I would risk coolant leaks if the gasket wasn't places "just so" due to the narrowness of the volvo head. I had the machine shop weld along the sides to bring it out far enough for me to feel comfy with. They simply evened it up with the aluminum block for me and then ground it down on the sides to make it look cleaner.

Anyway, they also milled the head (duh), took 15-thousand off of it and might I say it looks nice and pretty now. No head gasket side clearance problems for me.


Made a little more progress (12/16/04) today since I was able to get off work before dark and it wasn't bloody cold outside. Had an idea in my head for trying a different method to solving the oil feed problem from the block itself to the head. I already have the upper part of the lower head drilled for 1/8" NPT fittings as you can see earlier on. Well, I thought about simply drilling the engine block beside the oil feed since its nice and flat there. Also, I wanted to drill down some so I had space left to tap/thread a plug into the factory oil feed hole to prevent whatever oil pressure from just being there in the head gasket (just for the sake of arguments, if I cant find a plug shallow enough I'll leave well enough alone). Anyway, I started with a 21/64" drill bit and got my starter hole (pain in the rear), then swapped for a super small bit and drilled through, then started stepping up the bit size until I was back at 21/64" (this made the drilling MUCH faster and was easier on my bits). Then I got my 21/64" tap (used for threading for 1/8" NPT fittings) and threaded the hole. I just grabbed some hose and whatever fittings I had available to mockup what something to show what I did. Later, I'll change the setup to a pair of "T" fittings so I can feed the turbo also and instead of hose I'll use flared hardline (probably some old brake line I'll rob for free from the pull-a-part yard haha). And yes, you can get adapter fittings that will allow me to toss my oil pressure sending unit on the end.


update 1/14/05 Been about a month since I was able to do anything with this but I just decided to update real quick to make note that I just ordered my diamond pistons today. Went with stock a 2.3/B234F combo with a final compression ratio of 9:1 and .030 overbore. Should make for an interesting combination.
1/19/05My head made it back to me today after my dad mailed it to me. Diamond needed the new combustion chamber cc to get the pistons designed right and my dad couldn't do it since I had all the valves and whatnot here, and I needed the head anyway for other stuff. Anyway, I rigged up a ghetto cc chamber. Used some clear shipping tape over the chamber. Stuffed a packing peanut flush into the spark plug hole, tossed some quickly cleaned valves in and ran around the edges with vasoline to seal the cracks around the peanut and valves. I cut a quick hole in each corner of the tape and used a 5cc syringe from work (I'm a microbiologist with the FDA :p) and filled away. Came up with 45cc exactly. Do this over your sink while its completely dry so you can see if you get any drippage from the chamber as this will affect your final volume. If you do, pull the tape off, clean the chamber and reseal with vasoline. So anyway, the static cc in the head with .015" milled is ~45cc. Wow, that's a good chunk down from 53cc but it makes sense since these chambers are SOOO small, hell the valves are right up on the edges of the chamber as it is.

Also, I ordered my exhaust manifold kit today :D I ordered it through JGS Tools which I've used in the past for honda stuff when I goofed around with all of that. I contacted him a while ago to see if he could make me a B234F manifold flange and he said he had them in stock then stopped responding to my emails lol. Well, was goofing around earlier on his site and noticed the volvo section with the B234F pattern hah! Went ahead and ordered one of the manifold kits unassembled with the flange, without a wastegate flange and with a standard T3 flange for $149.99 ($168.99 with shipping). I did it this way as I'm going to set it up so I can use my already fabbed downpipe and the turbo in the stock location with the volvo head setup. Basically, I'll unbolt the turbo from the E6 manifold and let it hang, take off the 2.3 head and put the volvo head on and then get to work on the manifold tacking it into place until it all fits the way I want it. Damn the piping angles! full steam ahead!! JGS Tools Website For Those Interested Well that's about it for now.


I've decided this page is getting even longer than the first page so it's getting a third page as of today (1/19/05). Continue to Volvo Swap Part 3