Took it on my 'Miata' loop yesterday. Company holiday luncheon, I played hooky instead. 125-ish miles of mostly twisty hilly two-lane country roads.
It just... for some reason, makes me tense to drive it. Not sure why. The Miata is just plain fun to blast around, the Volvo corners well, is fast as hell, but somehow, I'm just not at ease as much. I guess I need to take it autocrossing a few times and get more used to driving it at/over the limit. Where I won't go into a ditch if I overcook it.
I guess a few lingering issues I need to figure out somehow:
1) The shifter sucks. CD009 style (JK40C) with a top-mount from CBF Performance with an offset lever to put it in the right spot. It has some rotational play, which wouldn't be a big deal if it didn't have the offset lever, but with the offset, that rotation turns into side to side movement at the knob. 6 gears in a small area, with a bit of slop. Argh. And it pops very easily out of 5th, just the slight pressure of the Volvo rubber shifter boot pushes it out if you're not on the power. That shifter detent is also part of the shifter kit (stock spring loaded thing, interacting with their new part on the shifter rod). So... can't really use 5th gear to cruise along. The shifter is by far the biggest joykill of driving this around. It's enough to make me think about ditching the CD009 and putting a worked up T56 or TR6060 in it. I just want a nice precise shifter that actually works. And driving the super duper excellent Miata 6-spd trans and snick-snick-snick shifter just makes this piss me off even more!
2) Had some weird issues with hanging high idle. Let off going into the corner and it wouldn't always engine brake, idling at about 2K or so. And inconsistent. Engine braking or slight push? WHO KNOWS? It gradually got worse until I power cycled the MS and it was better behaved. Annoying. I don't have A/C on this, maybe I should disable the idle control and just set it with the throttle position. I tend to overuse engine braking in corners (staying in a lower gear) and it really annoys me to have to find out if I'll need to use the brakes or not corner by corner.
3) Clutch is annoying as well. It's a "800 hp" LS clutch, and it's stiff. And the engagement point is pretty high (my fault for not adjusting it) and pretty abrupt. It's a bit much on a long fun drive with lots of shifting. I think a smaller bore clutch master might help this. Lower pedal force, stretch that engagement point out some.
4) Engine (LH8 aluminum 5.3 with a T76 turbo, LS3 intake, and LSA cam) just seems a bit lazy off idle and at low RPMs. It pulls 5 psi at 2250 rpm, hits full boost at 2800 RPM and goes like stink when in boost. But I just can't help but think it feels lazy off boost. Almost enough to make me think the cam is off a tooth or something. Probably not too hard to check by taking a rocker cover off. And maybe I need to think about some other sort of cam? This isn't going to be a high RPM screamer, I'd like low end torque and a fast spool, and I'm OK with a low(ish) redline. Maybe it just needs a good professional tune. I used a canned configuration that came with the 'Gold Box' MS, and tweaked it a fair amount on the fuel side, but really haven't touched the likely very conservative ignition tables.
5) Related to above, slightly pondering a better suited turbo of some sort. I have a dual ball bearing 'T76' eBay cheap turbo on it now. I just wonder if something with a bit smaller turbine housing might spool faster and be more fun to drive. It's fun now, but there's just a bit more 'off boost/on boost' feel than I want. I was OK with that light switch feel on the 16V B230, small motor, lots of boost (20 - 22 psi), yeah, there's not a lot of middle ground. But with 5.3 liters I'd like it to feel more powerful off boost, come quickly into low boost (like 8 - 10 psi) and not have that light switch feel.
But all in all, fun drive. It didn't catch fire, the dipstick didn't pop out and put oil on the downpipe (like it did last year, bbbbRRRRRAAAAAAPPPP!!!! wait is that smoke, FfffFFFuUuUFUFUUU oh it's just the damn dipstick).