Volvo - Z-car Meets Zeemax by RED HOT

5 minute(s) of a 55 minute read

Out of the box the V-Tec has more power than the Volvo lump, but the Volvo is cheaper to tune and has torque...... lower down the rev range. Its quite a bit cheaper to buy than the V-Tec also; the Honda boys love the conversion too which keeps the prices of them higher. Only down side is when you discuss it with someone and say you have a "Volvo" engine going in....... the look on peoples faces changes to, You what!!!!

Thanks for the comments on the smoothing too  

10-12-2010

Cheers for the comments guys, seems we have a few Volvo fans in the midst too. Will try and update as often as possible and with as much detail to; might just assist any future Volvo or Z builders later down the line.

If anybody has any specific questions feel free to fire away and if I can help I will, Volvo builds are pretty new so hopefully we can all learn a thing or too, preferably not the hard way though!

No pictorial updates as they’d be pretty boring to be fair!! but here’s a summary of what’s been going on....

Firstly, when removing the rear end especially around the boot floor, rear valance and back section "sandwich" I noticed some rather brown and patchy bits, also known as rust. I couldn’t tell how bad it was until I had chomped a bit further and removed the rear valance corner sections. Upon further work and inspection it didn't look good so I removed this completely.

This took a little while as I didn't have a spot weld drill so I ground each spot out from below whilst trying to leave the rear section / top lip in tact. Once done I was glad I never left it as the sandwich filling (boot floor area) was pretty bad and rust was working its way up to the rear section; it would have been very annoying seeing this bubble up with rust after paint! A little surface rust was visible so this was ground out and treated.

Removing this seriously made the rear end wobble about so a new valance was ordered up to get some strength back into the rear end

The newly purchased rear valance was ordered on Tuesday and arrived on Friday so the weekend was a goer. It wasn’t an original panel so didn’t know what to expect, but as I’m going to be trimming it back a little for later plans   …. I thought I’d give it a go, and to be fair it wasn’t bad and id certainly buy one again, the outer ends needed to be pulled in slightly, but nothing a clamp either end couldn’t fix.

One thing to note is that prior to welding this back in place I did check the radii of the rear end to ensure it matched up with the curvature of the boot lid. With a clamp in the middle and one either end no further adjustment was required so this goes to prove the part can’t have been that far out.

Once this had been secured and whilst the grinder was out I decided to trim the arches right back too, these have been taken right back to where the Zeemax arches bolt onto the body, this should give me plenty of wheel clearance should I decide to go low.

The only grinding left prior to frame arrival / fitment is the parcel shelf and a final trim of the floor; left this longer than required as I’m going to cut this back once I have the frame in situ so I can cut to match the mounting strip exactly. Although I have dimensions I really don’t want to cut it short.

The only other update was the buying of a larger set of injectors. Been reading mixed reviews on the standard ones and the highest BHP figures available from them safely, so decided to upgrade. These are currently with Z-Cars and will hopefully be fitted before the mapping session on Thursday.

Currently have my fingers crossed as the injectors aren’t Volvo ones, but apparently they are direct fitment (according to a few Volvo forums), so I guess I’ll find out soon enough!

That’s all for now, still waiting on sheet metal parts and some machined components to enable the doors to proceed further (can’t wait to show these bits off), but once the frame arrives (should be before the month is out) dash, centre console and seat work can begin. For some reason that’s the bits I’ve wanted to start since the project began; a few different things going on here too, so keen to see if the ideas in my head can evolve into reality.