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Microsquirt 16v+t

yes... a regular bag of ****... wait.. I did take lh out and gained like 200whp. But I never ran mike's 16v chips. I love how people who don't know the first thing about tuning want to tell other people how things are.



all, yes, let's be all encompassing.

I found Mike's 8v images to be a great starting point, but ultimately shifted a number of things around when my car was still 8vt. I didn't use his 16v images, because see above and see prior history, as well as see the lh tuning thread. From a numbers standpoint the car had a great tune on it. from a performance stand point it ran like a pile of ****, so off it went.

Fine, I shouldnt be all encompassing. I do see a number of cars on thats board that are barely functional wrecks of a car.

The car barely runs, they buy a few ebay boltons and some chips, and are disappointed when the car still barely runs.

Then they blame the parts, sell it for pennies and leave the scene.
 
Do I agree that ditching LH is a great move on a car that has deviated that far from stock? Without a doubt, yes.

Do I think that the effort to try and keep lh on a car that has deviated that far from stock a fools errand? Yes.
 
I remember reading a dudes thread over on savar that made like 400 whp on unchipped 2.4 with a 16v head. I'm going to try and find the thread
 
so... one. I remember a guy that made over 400whp with a carburator. You should go buy a carb for your turbo.

And there are some guys over there that make over 300whp without turbochargers! imagine!


Great things are achievable when you've got a good grasp on what you're doing... which is largely why most of the cars floating around on this forum are underwhelming at best.
 
I love how people blame mikes chips. Take them out and your car will probably still run like ass

All the cars that had issue with chips...had issues otherwise. Usually by people who don't actually know how to turn a wrench.


I didn't run Mike's chips, I had Fred's chips and loved them. I see more **** saying this doesn't work or that doesn't work and I just picked the ??? up from the junk yard.

I honestly think if some people spent a little more money buying new parts vs a lot of effort using old parts they might have fewer issues. Just remember, there's a reason t was in the junk yard in the first place.

My .02
 
I did my 8v thing, then i did my 8v Variable geometry Turbo from a John Deere.First 8v VOLVO redblock vgt attempt in the WORLD! I made some linkage to make it work. After a year of beating it to death,On TLAO chips, and TLAO ignition chip. Lord athlon made the comment that "your car wouldn't make over 200 wheel with that junk chit", so i dynoed it . It made 254 wheel and 253 wheel ft lb on the dyno jet dyno.He apologized. It had 4 bent rods and took 24psi to do, which was a bit much, to make such little amount of power,I honestly was expecting 300 wheel, but didn't realize i had hurt it so bad. But i loved how the car drove, and it had instant torque part throttle that a dyno Just can't explain. Many who drove it commented that it felt like it had a v-8 in it right off idle. But my dyno sheet reflected nothing of the sort, and it was already hurt. It was also out of fuel and fuel pump was in the middle of taking a huge dump, as can be seen by erratic dyno plot at end.Totally untuned on lh 2.4, with completely stock head, stock turbo cam, stock 91 exhaust manifold with homemade up pipe, external wastegate, and stock na bottom end.I was also having crankshaft sensor issues at this point too which may contributed to the wavy graph, as the sensor was shorting itself out and causing periodic no start situation, but enough lame excuses it was what it was..Fun and made more power than everyone thought anyways for some thrown together stuff with no electronic tuning support.


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So i got a microsquirt, a 16 valve head, and a vw dohc tensioner, and a non turbo redblock bottom end.
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At the time, the 16 valve head had not been shaved, so i bolted it right up to the non turbo redblock and let it eat, no bent valves, NOTHING like most ignorant folks said would happen. Had I known this , i would have done this so much sooner.
The problem begins with bent valves when people don't time the cams right, OR the block has been shaved /resurfaced to be flat again, OR the head has been shaved. So measure your blocks and heads before slapping it together , to make sure they have been unmolested, before taking my word for it. I used all data for measurements.
I used a 850 timing belt and a stock 16valve Idler pulley and two spacers behind it with longer bolt, and 16 valve crank gear. I also used an additional stock cam gear for the aux shaft/oil pump drive, and i had to cut the red block crank pulley down a 1/4(iirc, double check for yourself) of an inch for belts to light up due to thicker bottom crank gear on 16 valve being thicker. That puts the crank pulley a 1/4 inch further out, and misaligns all belts.****SPECIAL NOTE*** To make sure the the vw dohc tensioner stayed solid , i cut a cross(x) pattern on the back (hell yes with a cut off wheel ;) )that mates with block and locktite-ed it with hd locktite. I never EVER move that tensioner, i always remove stock volvo idler to remove belt. It's held solid for three years and hasn't budged an mm.
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DSM coil pack with tach adapter makes sure my stock tach is in synch.
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Microsquirt wiring..I used stock crank sensor and wired in 2 resistors on cps plug to keep the car from having a rev limit at 3xxx rpm, with 2 ,10k resistors. I believe I was the first to figure this out, but no one really cares... Doesn't matter, works for me. Meanwhile people were trying to make their own sensors from other cars work , and use different sensors and brackets and nonsense.

The VGt was great with the 8v, but it was downright dangerous with the 16v. That's how much the 16v head flows in difference. The vgt made boost instantly, and boosted past the throttle plate no matter how open or closed it was. This was very dangerous for daily driving. I could never keep the throttle at a constant level in traffic. I was always off and on it off and on it. Because it was ready at a moments notice, and one could very easily rear end someone with this car, so VGt had to go. Never thought that would happen, it worked too well!! first VGT turbo Volvo 16v in the WORLD.

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I went to a 60/62 rev 6 turbo on ebay.

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Log manifold still, and went through a cracking ringland escapade always on number 4. I found that the backpressure in the Log manifold was causing this situation past 22psi.Lesson to be learned is to stay away from a log manifold if you plan to run big boost! At 24psi it would bend stock rods on pump gas the very first time i hit it, no matter how rich i ran it. In the meantime i upgraded to metal cometic head gasket from rsi, which took a full month to get to me, and rsi arp headstuds. Still stock bottom end, but with die grinded /belt sanded pistons, first at 3mm, then at 1.5mm.



Came across this pic when i turned that hoe up to 28psi with 8v, and blew all the fluids out side of block, that was a fun night , until we were almost home and decided to mess with my neighbors 348 stroked fairlane with 5.30 rear gears.. I got beat , barely.. So i cranked it up and went passed him by a bumper and she let go, so he won.

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Fresh $62.50 block from a buddy, na block 1.5 mm shaved pistons this time and h beam rods..
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Made some coolant mods. I eliminated the steel line that goes from the water pump, under the exhaust manifold, because exhaust was making it boil in the steel line under long hard runs..What a crap design. I ran the back port for heater core back up to thermostat and made a very small steamport inside the hose, with some sort of jet i had, i think it was a nitrous jet. according to my laser head gun, the head only varies 12 degrees from front to back when hot, compared to 30/40 degrees normally. I also drilled out the other blocked off water ports on the head -on head gasket surface with very small drill bit.








I also added a walbro 450 fuel pump, replaced the hose from in tank pump to in line pump, and eliminated The In line pump. Then, I added injector clinic 1000 cc injectors, and started adding a swish of e85 to the tank.I saved my pump fuel map. Then i added e85, First one gallon, then two, then tuned, then eventually went to full e 85. I had already stuck the turbo out of the hood and had Orlando Holmes redesign the manifold at this point. Breaking ringland issue went away immediately.Now i have a exhaust manifold that will probably outflow the stock 16v head. Still has stock buckets and stock springs. Stock 16 v car cams. Stock intake manifold,Ported for 960 throttle body.

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On my 2j vr sensors with the Pro setup I had to use a 10k and shunt with a 1k as well, if I didn't it would spike rpm to 7000, stall the motor with 30* of timing then fireup, but since it snap shotted th map signal at the rpm/start spike, the initial baro reading was off and my tune was rich!!!

The 3 and 4 wire coil packs are the same, the 90 4 wire style has the "or" gate on the coils for the tachometer while the 3 wire setup has a tachometer output on the igniter itself
 
12 tooth crank and 1 tooth cam. That's non vvti, vvti runs a 36 tooth wheel and 3 on the cam
 
The turbo was very tight and i plan to go larger, so out the hood it goes for an easy fix and easy addition of power due to fresh air,and dropped underhood temps, and even lower egts, and lower coolant temps across the board, plus i like the way it looks.A/c is colder and less heat soak.
 
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Now that we know we have a fake rev limit at 3k, maybe i will put an interference switch in between the resistors and v+, v- , and have some antilag/launch control...

cant you just build an active low input on a proto board and wire it inline with a clutch switch to the microsquirt and actually be able to set the point of launch control and gain things like flat shift? My launch control active low circuit is mounted inside a gutted relay and theres actually enough room in the relay housing to have the switch mounted in there too...
 
After you add a 10k *************************************************************************************************** UPDATE You need two 10 k resistors**********************************************************************

Should be 1 5k



Coil pack, 4 plug, terminal one from left to right-looking at plug with hitch in middle straight "up"
Terminal 1- coil B (2/3)
Terminal 2- coil A (1/4)
Terminal 3 -Tach -right into tach wire off stock single coil.
Terminal 4 -12volt ignition Positive switched off relay.
**** Make sure to get Tach adapter and PTU with DSM coil pack for 1990 year model.**
1990 PTU or Ignitor.
With the three notches on top , from left to right.
Terminal 1 -coil A
Terminal 2-ecu trigger 1
Terminal 3- Ground
Terminal 4- not used
Terminal 5-ecu trigger 2
Terminal 6- coil B

I also used stock coolant sensor, and ran a trigger ground for fuel pump back to stock lh ecu to trigger both fuel pumps. Also used 960 tps. GM 3 bar map, GM ambient air.
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