960 T6 - The shed needs a turbo

Hello from UK!

I have been a long time turbobrick lurker , and a RWD turbo estate dreamer. I have for many years wanted to make a brick of my own with a juicy turbo engine. Keeping it pure with volvo parts as far as possible. I have over the last few years, been collecting broken cars, but it is time now to do something with them. I have posted this project on FB and what not, but I have not yet made any progress, however I now feel I have enough parts and time to make a start.

The project accidently started when I brought this brick for the sum of ?600 -

<a href="https://imgur.com/nNwvg3Y"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/nNwvg3Y.jpg?2" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>
The heater matrix was bypassed, and there was the occasional gearbox code thrown but other than that everything seemed ok. The feeling of driving around this brick was excellent. I felt like a total Boss. This feeling was short lived however, because when pulling away from some traffic lights this happened -

<a href="https://imgur.com/vbNLOHA"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/vbNLOHA.jpg?1" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

Timing belt snapped. I suspect the car had been sat for a long time prior to me buying it and the timing belt had started to rot. Unfortunately the damage was too much for me to repair, all 24 valves were bent, valve guides cracked, pistons dented. - a general mess. Not wanting to scrap the car I looked at various ways to save it. Then ebay came to the rescue, a B6304 came up for £200. I swapped this engine in and cleaned up the shifter position switch, this seemed to sort the gearbox codes. we were up and running again.

<a href="https://imgur.com/dHLTdPR"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/dHLTdPR.jpg?1" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

I also took the opportunity to change the heater matrix, i didn't know what I was letting myself in for. This was an absolutely horrendous job -

<a href="https://imgur.com/PPEvfmY"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/PPEvfmY.jpg?1" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

Some time went by, I changed job, had some personal stuff to deal with, a couple of work projects, anyways the 960 kind of went down the list of priorities. I brought a shabby S80 T6 for £600 again. The interior and suspension was shagged, but the engine pulled good, and whilst this was a very comfortable smooth car, it could not compete with the 960 in terms of coolness or general floatiness. The auto gearbox in the S80 kind of pissed me off and when the next MOT came along I decided it was not worth bothering with. The two cars sat around for a number of months / years. I think you can all see where this is going.

I started reading about whiteblock T6 conversions, and decided it has to be done. I found a whiteblock M90H a couple of weeks back, complete with clutch, pedal box, cylinder dual mass flywheel etc. And i set about ripping the S80 to bits. I installed a 2 post ramp in the workshop i rent a couple of months previous, this came in very handy for dropping the engine out the bottom.

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This leads me to where I am now. I have most major components to do the swap, but of course there are many options and routs to go down.

What I really want is to make the most of the bits I already have engine wise. I need to decide what bits to take from what engine to build the best thing I have for as little money as possible. I am not looking for huge power 300-350 hp would be great, as the engine made 270hp? odd as standard, I feel that is achievable.

I will of course have to invest money in a turbo, as I am sacking off the twin turbo setup, and also I need to see if I can source a single mass flywheel from an old 850t. I will need a clutch, but I am not sure what to do about that yet.

As for management, I have built a speeduino, I thought I would give that a go to start with. But whatever i end up using I definitely want to go standalone. I have saved all the wiring, and will modify the looms to suit. Not sure whether to use the VVT head or just use the 960 head. My preferance so far is to use the VVT head to start, but block the actuator and just use it without VVT for now, then implement it at a later date depending on what ecu i have.

Anyways, lots of decisions to make, many of which will be dictated by budget.

Looking for turbobrick wisdom!

Cheers,

Chris.

You can achieve easy 300hp with stock turbos and it'll be really nice to drive with a wide powerband. I'd say install a bigger turbo later on if/when you get bored with that.

Lankku said:

You can achieve easy 300hp with stock turbos and it'll be really nice to drive with a wide powerband. I'd say install a bigger turbo later on if/when you get bored with that.

Click to expand...

Yes I think you are quite right, it would be a good way to get me going, then I can change the setup at a later date. I will see if the turbos will fit in the position they are in.

This weekend I got rid of the S80 and removed things from the engine, took the gearbox off, so I can clean the engine and look at any seals that might want replacing.. There looks to be some seepage from around the cam cover, and the side of the engine on the PCV is on has lots of dirt and oil. Not much interesting stuff to show really but the T6 gearbox is a weird looking sausage thing. I managed to get ATF everywhere.

I will see if the throttle body from the 960 will fit the manifold. next thing on the shopping list is a clutch and flywheel.

<a href="https://imgur.com/3RpTQdA"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/3RpTQdA.jpg?1" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

<a href="https://imgur.com/KUwN06z"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/KUwN06z.jpg?1" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

Turbos fit fine as they are. The rear turbo inlet pipe needs a sharp bend and/or a bit hammering of the firewall to fit.

My old 745 with a B6254 and T6 turbos:


You have to make an adapter plate for RWD throttle body. With a simple plate TPS won't fit in the original position but turning it 180? works. Just grind the axle on the correct spot.

Nice project!

Regarding seals.. I'd replace all you have access too now. Re-seal the oil pump and pickup too. My experience after more than a decade keeping some white blocks on the road, use Volvo seals.

Following, living my not started T6 project in a 7/9-series through this one. Have the engine and a car, don't have (made) the time yet.

Hmmmm.

I was casually having sexual thoughts about volvos, when an idea came to me. I am not sure if someone has done this before, but I was thinking about the twin turbo setup. The bulkhead does seem a little close to the turbo to get the pipework in, but also the two inlets are facing away from each other. Perhaps I could flip the rear turbo around so it faces the front and frees a inch or two for the downpipe?

well tonight I played with this idea, and it certainly seems possible with some small effort.

here are the turbos as volvo intended, you can see the rear compressor housing is quite far back.

<a href="https://imgur.com/FzkpW09"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/FzkpW09.jpg?1" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

The turbos are interchangeable with some work, the water inlet and outlet holes need to be plugged and the ones on the other side of the turbo block will need to be unplugged. also the wastegate actuator holes will need to be re tapped in another position on the compressor housing. it seems the turbo castings are the same front and rear, they are just drilled differently. the manifold will need two new holes, and the turbine housing will need to be drilled in a different position to fit the manifold the other way around.

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this image shows the coolant holes that will need to be used but are currently plugged:
<a href="https://imgur.com/sA9C1Mu"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/sA9C1Mu.jpg?1" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

as you can see here the manifold does not line up here, but you could easily make it work:
<a href="https://imgur.com/qPvsEU4"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/qPvsEU4.jpg?3" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

here are some shots of the turbo both ways on the engine:

this one is the factory position
<a href="https://imgur.com/MSdUC1E"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/MSdUC1E.jpg?1" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

and the way I am proposing to do it

<a href="https://imgur.com/1IsInV9"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/1IsInV9.jpg?1" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

There is quite a lot of space round the back now, and the downpipe can be made to fit nicely with some modification. The other advantage is that the inlet pipework and intercooler pipework can more easily be routed by clocking the compressor housing a bit.

The disadvantages i can see is that there might be less heat transfer from the turbo block to the manifold due to the reduction of surface area of the mounting flanges. however the turbo is watercooled, and also I could add some thermal mass to the exposed flange face with the remaining studs. the other disadvantage is that I would have to modify the oil and water pipes. I dont feel this would be too much of an issue.

Perhaps others have done this before? if so were there any problems?

Awesome project! What ECU are you going to use? Oem s80? Isn't there a immobilizer in the way?

I have made a speeduino. I will see how that goes, if no good then megasquirt of some sort.

The speeduino looks very promising, I can do batch injection with wasted spark. there is capability on it for VVT too, this engine has VVT on the exhaust. I know the speeduino community was developing knock sensing too. Ultimately we will have to see, but If i can get the speeduino working it will be banging.

The ECU will be a bit of a project in itself, and I will make a log of my progress on that on the speeduino forum after I have completed the mechanical installation of the T6 engine.

I have been trying to find an 850T5 single mass flywheel, this is the only thing I can see holding me up, if I can find one by by feb I will have to buy this one:
https://www.classicswede.co.uk/Whit...lutch_suits_T5_and_960/p1733344_17250257.aspx

I have been working on some other things for the last week, I will get back on this this weekend.

Here a couple of pics for anyone interested:

I got the blank board, then ordered the components, an arduino plugs into the back of it. It uses tuner studio to programme it. all the code is open source so you can add / modify features if you are motivated / clever enough.

Well i did a bit more tonight, I drilled and tapped the holes to swap the turbo position, then removed the water jacket plugs, and found they were untapped. I need a M12x1.5 tap to tap the new coolant ports, and also a couple of M12x1.5 blanking plugs to block the old holes.

I am not sure what to do about the wastegate actuator, but I expect I will have to modify the bracket to make it fit.




I had to get a bit creative to clamp the exhaust housing down, but in hindsight I probably could have just wanged a couple of holes through with a hand drill!





Going to fit them to the engine and looks at oil/coolant lines.

Nice work!

Speeduino, nice. I ran speedy on my B6304S swap, and it worked great.

Well I did a bit of trial fitment today, and I am fairly satisfied. unfortunately I ran out of argon so i couldn't start welding anything together, but I just mocked everything up with masking tape.

First I looked at the intercooler feedpipe, I wanted to use the original aluminium pipework as far as possible, I have ordered a 2" bend with a bead on the end then I will use some silicone, or just use the standard pipe chopped in two from the s80.
I will need to weld a collector of some sort to merge the two turbo outlets into a 2" section.



then I looked at the coolant lines. turns out these are easy to bend if you heat them up with a blow torch and gently form them round a bit of brass.




I will have to weld a bit of pipe into the oil return. this needs to be a hard line really as there is holding it into the sump really apart from the friction of the seal, and the rigidity of the pipe. I chopped the oil return and will make up a bit of pipe to join the two together.


The waste gate actuator will be ok to be mounted in the same position as the front one, I will just have to bend the rod a bit to make it fit.

After I have got all the pipework to fit I will take the turbo system off and fully disassemble, clean and refresh any seals. Both turbine wheels look to be in good condition with minimal play. The engine felt strong in the S80.

So just waiting on some pipe and the M12 tap and die to be delivered then thats the turbo system sorted for a bit.

That’s fantastic!

I did a bit more this weekend, I made come brass plugs and copper washers to blank the now redundant holes






Then I removed the dowel that stops the compressor housing from rotating,
clocked the housing to where I wanted it, marked the spot,
then filed out another keyway.




I drilled some more holes in the compressor housing to
reposition the wastegate actuator and enlarged
the holes in the actuator bracket.

I then used a high performance gasket kit to fit the compressor housing.
Lipstick was found under the carpet of the 960 when I stripped it down to replace the heater matrix.




I then bent the arm of the actuator to fit its new position




this seemed to work quite nicely

<a href="https://imgur.com/FaIkROn"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/FaIkROn.mp4" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

Turbo can now be fitted back onto the engine.
I will have to see how the paper gasket hold up. I suspect it will be fine.

Yes, wow!
If you were going to do it again, presuming you would go to a single turbo at some point. Would you go this route again? Also, the rear turbo outlet. Could one use oval piping or make some space in the firewall etc???
I had stripped a S80t a few months ago, waiting on spring to get going on my 95 965. This thread has helped and inspiring! So thanks

Nice to see another 960 turbo being built. One of the things that put me off using the twin turbo setup is clearing the steering but it looks like with how you have positioned them it should clear.

As to the flywheel I stock flywheel and flywheel with clutch packages for this kind of conversion