Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Picked the Volvo up on Tuesday.

I can't remember what I've said before but Tim found the initial failure point. There was an incorrect sized hose clamp on one of the radiator hoses. This was causing a minor leak which became much bigger under high load and high RPM.

The catastrophic failure was caused by me pouring a bottle of fridge temperature water into the coolant tank. I thought I'd let the engine cool down enough, but given the block and oil had got hot enough that the oil became thin enough to trigger the low pressure warning, I did not wait long enough. The result of that was the block suffered thermal shock and cracked between a coolant gallery and the outside surface. So the cause of the catastrophic failure wasn't too high boost, oil pump failure, extended high load or anything like that. Extremely frustratingly, once it had cooled down properly, it actually ran as well as before, no extra noises, but the crack in the block wasn't repairable.

This means that sadly I only have myself to blame as I ignored clear warning signs that I needed to stop the car, because I didn't want to have to pull over on the side of the M11 and make the family sit on the verge. I also wasn't thinking clearly by the time I did stop in Homerton (about 30 minutes after I should have stopped) and poured very cold water in to an exceptionally hot engine.

Most of the work has been remedial associated with the cracked block. The upgrades are moving up 100cc to the modular 2.4 Volvo bottom end from the V70R, along with adding the S60R exhaust/turbo manifold.

Tim's advice was that the 2.3 cylinder walls are junk after 250-300k miles and even though mine had been rebuilt with forged rods, that wouldn't stop the inevitable. By moving up to the 2.4, I wouldn't need to use forged rods, the standard bottom end can withstand up to 700Nm of torque, withstand boost well above what my TD04-20T is putting out, and they'll last 700k+ miles. My 2.3 was on 200k+ miles so was at 66-80% of life.

Tim has done the initial run in, but I'm doing the secondary run in which will last about 2k miles followed by an oil and filter change. I'm not allowed to use full throttle or the full rev range yet, but it still feels great to be behind the wheel again. Tim said it should spool a couple hundred RPM sooner, but I'm not really going to notice the difference until I'm full throttle and spooling the turbo to full boost.

It now looks very pink after a neglected winter and then sitting in the sun all summer, the plastics are faded, there's a tiny bit of moss growing, and the interior is quite grimey. A good friend of mine is a professional detailer and also quite good friends with the guy who runs StjarnaGloss so I'm hoping we can work out some sort of deal there to get it looking perfect again, I think we're going to shoot some video content of the detail and I'll do some proper before and after pics to go with it so that will be fun and might even get some interest outside from just my circle of friends.

I took some short videos of some 5cyl noise, even at partial throttle it still sounds as great as I remember. That 5cyl warble is so distinctive, and there's something about it that invokes happiness from deep inside me. Just rolling on the throttle and easing through a couple of gears has me in an uncontrollable grin that I can't get rid of. I'd absolutely forgotten how stomach churning it's acceleration is, a quick test of 4th gear reminded me how urgently I feel the surge of boost coming in, so I can't wait to feel it fully unleashed.

I'm just uploading the videos now, so will link them here, they're on my Instagram as well which I think most of you follow, but if not I'll cross post.

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