B230 & 900 horsepower...

Should be fine, I upped my manifold pressure from 5 to 11psi with a valve to bleed air from the wastegate control pressure line. I think it was worth about 240bhp and knocked 1s off the 0-60 time (standard 194bhp). No other mods apart from decent shocks and tyres. I read somewhere 13psi is possible without reliability worries, however my drive shaft complained after a while with some vibration, on reverting back to normal pressure the symptom is not there.

-- Tony

You want to know anything about tuning the Red Block turob volvo engine, then have a look at the forums at

and yes there is a B20 with a 16v head convertion and a bug turbo running 950bhp (its a drag racer) doing 7's in the 1/4.

The volvo fuel system (LH2.4) found on some of the cars can also cope with up to 30% larger than stock injectors without any other mods, and allows lots more boost to be used, however the Turbos small and is done for at

14/15psi, but a 15g from an 850 turbo can be dropped in, and silly power easy to get. The volvo engines are good for 300bhp (crank and rods are strong), the gearbox is the weak point.

Griz

i found this...

"Everton Biggs in West Palm Beach, Florida has a 1982 Volvo 245 that runs 10.1 1/4 mile and has made 942rwhp on a B230FT 16V and a G-Force

5-speed. In fact he won the NHRA dyno shootout at englishtown with an aenemic high 500hp pull."

Mention of Florida on this thread brings to mind my interest of a former life - Corvairs. Here was an air cooled engine that a Florida outfit forced to produce over 700hp some 35 years ago. They drove a "large" turbo with the exhaust of a JATO unit, so it was strictly for dragging. Obviously!

Had a friend who played with Corvairs (remember that the engine as about the same size as the iron Volvo, at just under 2.4 liters) and got a unit up to 30# boost, at which point one of the wrapped and otherwise insulated exhaust manifolds turned soft and collapsed . . .

bob noble Reno, NV, USA

30 lbs of boost in a corvair would have wiped the grin off of ralph naders face...i would bet.....

No, I think he would have shook his head, and muttered, "Unsafe at any boost".

yea...that is not much metal to "wrap around a tree".... what was the big "beef"...fuel tank location on the corvair?

Caveat emptor - I haven't owned or driven a Corvair, so all my statements come from reading about it. The Corvair was far ahead of its time for an American car - unibody construction, four wheel independent suspension. Very early model Corvairs supposedly had a problem where the rear suspension was weak and could collapse or cause spinouts. This was fixed in 1964, and the suspension was redesigned in 1965 - the year that Nader's book was released.

However, by then the damage was done. I think Nader's desire to be in the public eye is best indicated by his interview with British comic Ali G - who made him look like a total git.

The problem with the early Corvair was in the design of the independent rear suspension. There was no universal joint at the outer end of the driveshaft, so suspension movement changed the camber that the rear tire contacted the road greatly. Factor in the bias ply tires with sharp corners, rear carrying much more weight than the front (requiring a large tire pressure differential from front to rear for neutral handling), and a suspension that tended to "jack up" the rear of the car under cornering forces, and you had a recipe for sudden, uncontrollable oversteer. Or the rear could jack so high that the sidewall was no the road, causing the rim to dig in.