Team-BHP - Volvo 340 Turbo Project, from 80hp to 160 in a budget

I present to you a project on behalf of myself, and a buddy of mine.

The initial concept for this project was to attain an inexpensive car and to make it more suited, but on a budget, for having fun on track days, and otherwise.

With limited funds available, and not forgetting that it absolutely had to be RWD, we ended up purchasing a Volvo 340. As a car that never crossed out minds for a potential candidate for this project, and realizing that it is basically a "grandma-mobile", it actually ended up filling many of the requirements we had set for the prospective vehicle.

The car was purchased completely OEM and unchanged. The car was whole and complete, with the exception of a few mundane, easily attainable items.

Since, I am assuming, that this car was not sold outsite Europe, so most of you not know or most likely do not recognize the model, here is some information about the little 340.

This particular 340 was a small family car that was launched in the mid 1970's and was kept on sale by Volvo until 1991. It came equipped, depending upon option, with a 1.4 or 1.7 Renault sourced motor (an 1.6 Diesel Renault engine was also available).

As Volvos go, the 340 is a relatively small and light car. It weighs approximately 2200 lbs. (1000 kg.) and was available in 3, 4 and 5 door derivatives.

Our attained 340 is from manufacture year 1990 with the 1.7 liter motor. So, officially:

Volvo 340 GL 1.7

Original factory specifications can be seen in this link:

Volvo 340 GL - GLE 1.7 car, information, technical specifications, specs, data

This is a photo a few days after the purchase, but after a LOT of cleaning and detailing with the interior and exterior:

Messing around:

Inicially we were thinking that with the carbeurators we would be able to generate a bit more power, but then decided to completely change the motor.

The 'chosen' was the version of the 340's same motor, but which was equipped to the later 400 Turbo cars: a 1.7L Turbo motor with about 120 Hp at stock specifications. Stock specifications of this car here: ;)

Volvo 480 Turbo car, information, technical specifications, specs, data

Pic of the engine in the 440 Turbo (transversly mounted)

Last pics of the car before we got into the motor swap:

Engine bay before the swap was like this one (note that the engine is longitudinally mounted):

Here you can see us finishing up with the motor swap to install the 1.7 T from the 440T into the 340

Some photos:

In general, here we have everything out, along with the electical items and almost all of the tubing/hoses which are here just for measuring/location purposes..make sure everything reaches where it needs to reach:

The Turbo, a Garret T2 and the exhaust... "home made".

Intercooler (from a Fiat Croma I guess)

Here is a front view...the entry to the intercooler is a bit small. At a later date we will either install a larger cooler, or the front bumper will get a "re-styling" in that area

This piece of tubing is not definate...it was just there to judge the sizing.

All of the wiring passed into the driving compartment. Everything is dissassembled, everything electrical connected...all the needs to be done is tie the wires down into their locations. The second photo is the hole we made to pass the cables/wiring (the old motor was carb'ed...no wiring looms)

The intake manifold that had to be modified. The intake was on the right side, but on the 340 that would not work as it would hit the brake servo...so the intake was moved to the left side:

Some more stuff:

Since then we have made some more progress, need to take new pictures, it is almost ready :Cheering:

Yesterday the motor has already ran...

The final objective is to achieve a hp/weight ratio of 6 kg/hp...or 13 lbs/ Hp

Also we will be re-painting the whole car, white is the choosen colour.

Awaiting your comments