So. I just picked up for $1,500 a 94 940 from a guy who races VW's, and knows cars. It has an IPD cam, mild non turbo, it's great, but not super sporty turbo, but it also has a ton of suspension mods, parts, konis, biltsteins, lowered, came with three sets of wheels, and a BANGIN' system, which I and my Son love. The system, w/kicker, amp, speakers up the whazoo in the front cabin, all fabbed in place, alone are worth the price I paid. Score. It's going to be my new dependable daily driver. Guy was meticulous with maintenance records, 2nd owner, and was his wife's car. Drives better, handles better, than any 940 I've ever driven.

BUT...instead of curing my want for a sporty turbo brick, it's made it worse.
I want ponies. Given I have 2 940 wagons, albeit one is a Regina, would it be sane to just go with the 94 940 stock turbo? or "Go For the Gold" and get a 760 Turbo Intercooler, 1990. There's both available to me, the 760 is almost a guarantee mine if I want it.

These are getting harder to find, so I want to build up my stock. If I had a garage, and fewer junkers, I'd find a way to buy both, I'm disalbed and not rich by any means but I've got stuff to sell, it's what I do at home to make extra cash on the side, I sit on c's list and buy low/sell high guitar stuff mostly.

What say you? LOVE my new 940. The suspension steering upgrades are a must from now on. Half of what makes it fun.

And the big question I want/need answered is my little research has yielded that volvo put the M45 trans on the non turbos, and the M47 trans on the turbos, and that stressing a stock non turbo tranny is not in the best interests of the car... When I think about buying and rebuilding, porting, etc. my final conclusion is to just get a stock Volvo that was meant to be faster, and work on that.

I've always wanted a 760 T.I. the want is strong on that one, the "Ferrari Wagon"... but the 940 1994 would make a lot of parts commonality among a small fleet I'm building.

Thanks gentlemen! Been a long time since I've been here, health crap kicked up again, broken spine...a few times, new weird latin names for new weird rare diseases, but I'm doing very well in the Swedish station wagon dept.

 

photos are private and not showing.

I'd go with a 92+ 940 turbo, ideally 94-95 as they have some internal engine improvements, notably oil squirters to cool the piston skirts.

the 1990 740/760 turbos are a bit of a bastard, they have a 1-year-only front end, so headlights, grill, etc are hard to replace when they get crunched in a parking lot mishap. 1990 was the first year for the LH2.4 on a turbo. 92+ turbos have a bigger radiator, larger electric fan only (no more mechanical fan), etc. the 940 turbos are all intercooled, they just stopped the silly badge announcing it.

 

Flickr...
It's really nice looking trust me.

Thanks Pierce.

 

My '93 Turbo has oil squirters, but if I had it to do over again I'd look for a '91 940 SE for the tilt steering. I can't believe Volvo didn't add that to all 740/940's that have power seats. The seats sit higher to clear room for the motors which means your thighs will hit the steering wheel every time you get in, you'll have to drive bow legged and you won't be able to see all of the instrument cluster(and I'm only 5'11"). I solved my problem by raising my steering column an inch. 760's have the tilt steering but not the other improvements that you mentioned. My only concern is - When did Volvo stop making the "low friction" engine and go back to normal? If '91 SE's have that then maybe one with a blown engine that you could drop a later engine into.

 

the 91 940 SE's are really 960s (basically the 760 turbo updated to 960 nomenclature and trim), and they have the 960s' dashboard and completely different more complex internal wiring, along with things like climate control. the 91 940SE also has the older style power seats without memory, the control panel for these is very problematic, it has soldered in relays that fail, and are almost impossible to access. I had a 91 940SE wagon (my sons) and a 92 740 turbo (same as 92 940 except headlights), both were wagons, the 940SE was heavier feeling when driving, the 740T was much nimbler

91 turbos were the last year for the smaller radiator, and mechanical fans, 92+ have larger radiators and larger overflow bottles, and electric fans. IMHO, this was a significant improvement.

 

re: low friction? the B230F were the low friction engine, early versions turned out to be a bit weak in the bottom end so they beefed it up a bit, but remained 'low friction' to the end of production.

 

You probably have longer legs than me. I have a 32" inseam, all my height is in my torso. I've never had a problem with 940 wheels, although the pull out features/tilt on the XC, and all ammenities in the cabin, were sublime. It just blows up and fails every few thousand miles. I had to try one. Never again.

Maybe I can modify/fab some brackets for seats from the XC, I know I can put the front brakes from the V's onto 940s.

When I drive the seats slightly forward, not all the way back on the slider, but the tilt makes it a 3 person car, or fiance 5 yr old, 2 pitbull car. When I turn to look for traffic coming from the left, I'm looking out the rear passenger window. My spine is literally longer than Shaquille O'Neil, and...at age 45 I just found out, is..getting longer. I have A.S. so it's all self fusing (which isn't a bad thing for me, it's all just a pile of crushed crap) I'm actually 6'5.5", the running joke in my house is "Eat your vegetables. You're a growing boy."

 

What I'm referring to are the engines with short piston skirts and "floating" cranks that have that classic Volvo piston slap at start up. When was the last year for that?

 

If the seat position isn't an issue then I'd follow Pierce's advice and get the latest year you can. '94's and '95's have some of the upgrades from the 960's.

 

How about overall electronics and wiring? I heard the 760's we're problematic. Perhaps a carryover from the organic wiring harnesses of the late eighties? As far as the '91 SE, if it's a 960 in disguise, I haven't run across any complaints about 960 wiring, unless they changed it again when the actual 960's came out.

 

I believe it was circa 1989 when they beefed up the main bearings and piston rods, then 93 when they added the squirters as the final fix for the piston slap.

 

its just more complicated, with more power stuff, fuses and relays all moved around relative to the (late)740 and 940.

yeah, the biodegradable era was like 82 or so til mid year 87.

 

Well, that makes sense. If they dropped a red block into a 960 body, it had to be beefed up to handle that inline 6. Personally, I'd still go with a SE and just do upgrades as the parts became available. Handling isn't my top concern anymore, I prefer comfort(OMD - Old Man Disease!)

 

the turbo brick had MORE torque than the I6, especially in its early configuration (my wife had a 93 960 wagon in the mid/late 90s). the I6 was amazingly smooth (as all good I6's are, I love the 3.0/3.2 mercedes I6's from the 80s/90s)

 

That's interesting - the turbo 4 had more torque than the inline 6, yet I don't think the 6 was designed for high revs?

 

Pierce, can you see them now?
Should be public view now...
I've owned going on 14? of these? Love this thing...

My ultimate goal is a Father/Son sport car. I think the last time I was on here my boy was in diapers fascinated by vacuum cleaners. Now, age 5, he's a total gear head, favorite show is "RoadKill", asked me if I could "Make a dyno.." yesterday. When I said how much complex machinery they took, computers, steel, he informed me "You could make it out of wood." I'm a good woodworker, but I think he's overestimating Dad's skill.

I want to keep the non turbo a daily driver, it's had meticulous maintenance, the engine bay is uber clean, every oil, belt, serpentine, radiator, you name it, it's new/like new. Guy had his own garage, and before that is was a single owner, bought new from a Sheriff in MA.

I've always wanted a hot rod brick... Over time, get something with a 3" exhaust, DOCH 16V, I'd like it to make streetable power. I'll have a lot of learning to do, and probably be better off on some of the high performance forums.

My Son, all he wants to do is talk about building a hot rod, and I'm mildly obsessed. I mean, if money was NO object of course I could get a 240 custom with an LS1 in it, but I want to keep it drive-able, and shoot for 250-300+ horse at the rear wheel. That means replacing stock parts, maybe tearing down the block, who knows. This could take years, so given that, still the 94?

Given that it seems like from what you're telling me the block itself in the 94-95s are still best for that goal, correct? Talking paint, bling, etc. Body work I'm fairly decent at, metal fab, welding, hammer dolly, paint, etc.

A good way to do it cheap is shop and be patient, and buy someone else's "project" that they get stopped on, with tons of parts, I mean this car easily has $6k of parts on it, including wheels, tires, suspension, sound system... and I got it for a fraction of that.

Think of it like a puppy my Son can grow up with... I love the "look" of the square headlights, mid late 80's 760s, but I do love the 94-95 940s. They're more than half of my Volvo history.

I'll pull the brakes from my XC with the blown trans for my 940, FCP has a kit, offset spacer, just have to run 16" wheels for the 302mm rotor. Part out the rest of the car. Exterior is mint. Engine is good.

IPD had the "R" 4 piston Brembo kit, but that's a bit much at this stage. considering I can have what I've already got for free, sans the spacer kit.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/144209.../shares/Ki0Aor

 

I had a '93 960...
I frikken loved that thing... only problem was parts commonality. Even the wheels were different, you couldn't put 940's on there for offset. Unfortunately, it wound up saving my life when someone drove through a stop sign blinded by the Son. And my Son's too...

I mean...if this were pimp my ride, and powerball, I'd have someone build me up a custom fabed oneoff on a 960 base.

 

um, the first round of 960s' used the same wheels as 940, as long as they cleared the brakes (any wheels that fit a 940T would fit). it was the 95+ 960 gen2 with the face lift that went to FWD offset wheels.

now, various of volvos RWD wheels required different wheel bolts, ball vs cone head, and such.

 

Something wasn't working. Even AutoZone and junk yards had a hard time finding a pair of steel/hub caps. I just put two on the front, everytime I'd turn too far, grind, grind, grind, the rear wheels didn't move so I just kept those.

And it was pretty stock. That's weird. I even remember parts suppliers having different parts numbers, but you know these things inside out.

 

maybe it was a '95?
I total'd it in 2014 which was smack dab in the brain lesion/chemo/roids era.
Holes in the brain and all.

I kept the plastic cover off the top of the motor, The VOLVO 24 VALVE plastic cover...as a souvenir. I was so pissed that thing died, both airbags deployed, my Son was rear faced, 18 mo old, EMTs commented on how well I had him strapped in. When it comes to my memory if someone else was there, I generally go with their event... I'd have to find the old title.

I will say one thing Volvo F'd up, and that was putting the air bag under the frikken horn. I slammed that thing and the breaks when I saw the blinded lady start not to only not STOP at the "STOP" but accelerate through as I was committed, so reaction I slammed the horn with my right palm. My thumb got shattered, and bent back to my wrist. It's still all fubared. Took until March 2015 until I could bend it a bit more.