So I'm more of a RWD redblock guy, but I found a 2004 S60R with the manual for a good price. I was half way through high school when this car was new. Basically, the turbo gave out by having the axle split in half. When I bought it, I could only really see that the turbine could come half way out of the housing and had impacted the waste gate arm and looked pretty bad. The guy had planned on keeping it and was a diesel mechanic so it seemed like it may be worth the risk.

I'm not too sure how great of a mechanic he was. The timing belt, which he just did was not tightened enough. Anyway, someone had the KKK turbo rebuilt. When I opened it up I found nice shiny new journals and it looked super clean. It looks like the rebuilder was a little too wrench happy and over-torqued the axle nut. The axle stretched and snapped under boost on the highway. That's how I bought it.

I bought a used KKK unit off eBay with plans to rebuild it. Two things looked strange with the used unit. The whole thing had been painted. And it looked like they sprayed down the compressor inlet since it had the same paint. That's weird. A soak in lacquer thinner and a tooth brush solved that. The other oddity is the blackness to the turbine wheel. In my experience they should look white-ish unless they are leaking oil.

It turned out this turbo had a major defect. The oil seals (which are like piston rings) where ejected and I found pieces of them inside the center housing. The rings are held in place by a ridges on each side (just like a piston) on the shaft. The inboard side ridge looks machined away. A tiny bump remained. One good hit of pressure and they would blow inward and the thing would leak. So I sent it back and they were very good about it and gave me a full refund.

I considered getting another used unit, but I've always wanted to try a ball bearing turbo. I did my research and it was recommended to me to that a Garrett GT3071R would be a good match. I got lucky and found one locally that was just needing to be liquidated out of stock. Then it was shoehorning time.

I'll spare the details, but essentially a turbo had 8 connections (oil, water, air, exhaust all with and inlet and outlet). I had to fit the standard Garrett connections to the funny Volvo connections and mind the really tight space that I had to fit it all in. The KKK compressor inlet measured in at about 3-1/4." The Garrett had a 4" inlet. Since I was getting a lot welded, I made hard lines for the water and oil. The bypass valve was another trick. I wanted to keep the stock charge air pipe just the way it was. I found a GReddy blow-off valve and modified it to fit on the compressor housing without interfering with everything thing that runs back there.

So at this point I've had the setup running for about a week and I'm pretty happy with it. I have a few items to pin down before really testing it's performance. Them someday I may have to get the computer flashed.

So here are a few pics to look at:
1)Painted turbo I bought
2)Ruined turbine, with good retaining ridges
3)Turbine I bought with ruined retaining ridges
4)The Garrett test fit, cannot install without removing cold housing
5)Hard lines for oil and water

 

A few more pics:
1)Turbine housing, we welded the V-band flange and a bypass valve flange
2)A lot of the parts for my "kit" (some unfinished)
3)The fresh air pipe where it joins the compressor housing
4)The car, I call it the Phoenix
5)My first mod, since I was waiting on parts, can you spot it?

 

Nice. Keep us updated.