1991 Volvo 940SE turbo

Description

4-cylinder Turbocharged engine (B230FT)

233,000 miles

Grey exterior, grey leather interior.

The 1991 940SE was the top-of-the-line Volvo for 1991, and was the ONLY year the 960 chassis was available with a four-cylinder turbo engine.

I’ve owned this car for over ten years, and in that time, I’ve done the following repairs/upgrades:

OEM Volvo euro-spec headlights.These have glass lenses and provide MUCH better lighting than the US-spec headlights.I was able to obtain the correct Volvo connectors, so they are hooked up to the car using a custom adapter harness that plugs into the original headlight connectors.

IPD sway bars front and rear.This car has the Independent Rear Suspension, and the IPD sway bar set for IRS is extremely rare.It was only sold for a few years in the late 1980’s, and IPD didn’t sell very many of them.Front struts are Boge turbo gas, with Sachs Nivomat shocks in the rear.

IPD strut tower brace and lower chassis brace.

I overhauled the engine 35,000 miles ago, which included new front and rear crankshaft/camshaft seals, new head gasket, new exhaust and intake gaskets and new valve springs.The head was cleaned and machined to ensure a tight seal against the block.Block was sandblasted and repainted.I installed an IPD turbo performance camshaft and the original IPD adjustable timing gear (that can be adjusted without removing the timing belt and is no longer available from IPD)Engine works very well, although it does have some very slight piston slap that is only apparent in low temperatures (below 40F).I’ve been using synthetic oil in this engine ever since and changing the oil religiously, so it is in excellent condition.

3-speed/overdrive automatic transmission shifts well and has had the fluid changed every few years.

All power windows and power mirrors work smoothly, as well as the power sunroof.Power mirrors have been retrofitted to 1992+ motors and switches, which are a LOT easier to find.

Brakes are in excellent condition and the car stops well without vibration or pulling, although the rear brakes only have about 30% of the pad remaining.

Air conditioning works.It has been converted to R134a, but like every other converted A/C system I have dealt with, it has to be recharged yearly.I just recharged it this spring.Cabin blower motor is quiet and works well.

It has a Clifford Alarm/remote start system with a long-range two-way LCD remote.Remote start feature is not currently working.

Stereo is a Sony Mobile ES CDX-C90 CD/AM/FM head unit that is feeding an A/D/S 40w amplifier.Currently, only the front door speakers are installed, but the car has been wired for speakers in all four doors with amplifiers in the trunk, with a 100amp power feed into the trunk to power it all.It also has a Dension Ice-Link iPod interface which works with most iPod models, although it will only charge iPods that can accept 12v/firewire charging.

The interior is in excellent shape – leather is in excellent condition with some scuffing on the driver’s seat, but no tears or cracks.Carpet is clean and in good condition. Floor mats are in good shape, and include both Volvo grey carpet mats and a set of Volvo grey plastic mats for the winter.

Interior plastics are good – I’ve replaced the pieces that have broken over the years.The speaker grilles on the front doors don’t match – I couldn’t get a perfect match for the driver’s door grille when it broke.

To help monitor the overhauled engine, I installed aftermarket oil temperature and oil pressure gauges, and a calibrated boost gauge in the center console.

While the extra power it adds to the engine is nice, the IPD Turbo cam does result in a somewhat coarse idle.This has mostly manifested itself as a tendency for the exhaust the rattle at idle, and some extra overall vibration at idle.

Tires are 205/55R16 Sumitomo HTR A/S P01 all-season tires mounted on 16-inch factory Volvo wheels.These tires have about 3,000 miles on them and are in excellent condition.I am also including a set of Toyo snow tires mounted on 15” steel wheels that should have one more winter left in them, but have already been driven for two full winters.

I am including the following list of spare parts with the car:

·Used turbocharger.

·Used Bosch alternator.

·Used power steering pump.

·Spare seat heater element.This was for fixing the driver’s seat heater, but I never got a chance to install it.

·Spare main fuel pump.It works fine, but I pulled it off the car because it was annoyingly noisy.

·Extra passenger seat leather.When I bought the car, the driver’s seat was trashed, but the passenger seat was in good condition.The used seats I found to replace the driver’s seat were slightly different from the original so I replaced both front seats, but kept the good leather from the passenger seat.

·Old Bosch Air Mass Meter….this unit is defective, but they can be rebuilt much more cheaply than buying a new AMM, so I kept it when I replaced it.

·Spare window switches.

·New Contitech timing belt.

·Set of used Bilstein front struts.I removed these from the car because I thought the ride was excessively harsh and replaced them with the Boge struts.

·Complete Electronic Climate Control assembly – spare parts for repairing the ECC are expensive and hard to come by.This is a goldmine of parts that you can use to keep the ECC working for years to come.

·Complete rear sub-frame and a set of rear control arms.

·As well as my general collection of smaller parts that are too numerous to list here!

Like any 25-year-old car, this car does have some outstanding issues:

·Driver’s seat heater is broken.It has shorted out internally and gets dangerously hot.I unplugged it to prevent it from damaging the seat.

·Exhaust leak near the catalytic converter/exhaust manifold.The exhaust overall is pretty rusty.

·There is a vacuum leak in the recirculation servo in the Electronic Climate Control.If the car is accelerating under boost, and the recirculate function in the climate control is engaged, all the air will end up coming out of the floor vents until the engine starts producing vacuum again.

·There is a small engine oil leak that I haven’t been able to track down. I have to add a quart of oil about every 2,000 miles.

·Driver’s power seat is moving forward and back very slowly.I suspect it mostly needs to be greased.

·Cruise control is not working.

·Button on the gearshift for controlling the overdrive only works when the gearshift is in neutral.

This has been my project car, and my daily driver for the last ten years, but I just don’t have the time to work on it any more.