Picked this car up in November, been working on it off and on ever since. Got distracted for a long while by my other cars having problems which I decided to give priority (gotta have something to drive) but I'm back on it now.

The car has a good maintenance history, headgasket/valve stem seals/head resurfacing and timing belt/tensioner/water pump were done last year. MAF is new, ABS unit was replaced...too much stuff to remember right now. I have over $10K in receipts from the PO for the 6 years he owned it...and he was happy with it!





This is fun.





Here's the short of what I've done so far.

Had several stored misfire codes, but ran strong. Cleared those and the only that re-appeared was a misfire on Cyl 3 at cold idle. Went ahead and did full ignition, fuel filter, air filter. Wires were old and the cap/rotor were pretty bad, so I was hoping that would fix it.

Car ran great, but no change in misfire code. Was getting a bit of smoke from the exhaust (and dipstick) so I decided to go ahead and do the PCV system as it was oily. Unfortunately, that was a bit of a bust, the PCV appeared to be completely operational and unclogged.

I also took the opportunity to have the injectors sent off and cleaned by Mr Injector in Idaho. They came back with flow and pattern tests; almost all of them were out of spec, something like a 30% improvement overall. I'd say it was $80 well spent.

At this point, I assumed the oil was from excessive blowby, so I bought a compression tester. A couple of the pots were a little low (cyl 3 was one of them, 145 PSI) but nothing really awful. Definitely in the ballpark of other tests for similar mileage turbos I have seen on here. So I put some seafoam down the spark plug holes and let it soak for a week, treating it a couple times like that. (yes I cranked it with no plugs to remove any liquid)

When I got the car back together and cranked it up, I did not get the cold idle misfire code anymore. However, I got a throttle position sensor signal code at idle (WTF). I can view the sensor data on my code reader and it appears to operate normally. I removed it and the resistance is within spec per my Volvo service manual. The code is never stored - it goes away when the car is shut off.

Tried to drive the car and it started belching blue smoke, also got multiple misfires under light load. Got the car back home and it was smoking from behind the engine. Lots of oil dripping from back there too. Crap. Pulled the exhaust shield off the turbo, and see that one of the studs for the downpipe is broken off. Oil is dripping (if not pouring) from the connection.

Well, nothing to do now but pull the turbo and see if the oil leak is internal to it, or coming from the motor. Did that weekend before last, and was happy to see the leak was internal to the turbo. Sent it to Evergreen Turbo in Ocala Florida last Monday to be rebuilt/balanced, and he had it on the way back on Friday. Very happy with that, I was expecting it to be a couple weeks.

Charlie at Evergreen said that the thrust bearing was completely shot. Fortunately the unit was rebuild-able and the wastegate and compressor bypass valve were OK. They also repaired the two broken studs on the exhaust turbine housing. I need to order parts today; hopefully I can get it back together (again) next weekend.

Still confused about that TPS code. Will just have to do more diagnosis on that when it is running. I can only assume that the Seafoam did, well, what it's supposed to do, and broke loose some oil sludge in the turbo, causing the oil leak to go from minor to major.

I also may or may not have cut the TWC in half, busted out the clogged innards and welded it back together (a large long term oil leak straight into the exhaust is not friendly to the TWC. Hoping that this had something to do with my misfires). Interesting that the original misfire at idle code seemed to go away, I cycled it several times and it never did it, where before it happened every time. Just have to put all the bits back where they go, and see what it does now.

TL;DR - Car was broke. Still is broke. Might be fixed soon.

 

Nice. What kind of stereo is in there?

 

The powered sub is an Infinity. I don't remember what the PO said the other speakers are - he had the system installed professionally. It sounds impressive.

The head unit is a Chinavasion....kinda buggy, touchscreen made in China unit. It runs Windows CE and has DVD, backup camera, GPS, TV, and wireless internet. However, the camera needs to be replaced, the provided GPS software does not have maps of North America, and I could not figure out how to switch the TV from analog to digital (but it appeared to have the function, not sure because the manual is short and poorly translated). DVD/CD/radio works great, and apparently you can access up to 4 GB of MP3s from the SD slot.

 

Cool, when I grow up I'm going to get a nice HD digital, DVD system.

 

snail mail.

Ordered gaskets and such from IPD on Monday...it has not even shipped yet. Big disappointment there, I will NEVER order from them again. There was actually less time in turnaround getting my turbo professionally rebuilt/balanced, and shipped back, than getting the bits to install it shipped from a Volvo supplier.

I should have just emailed FCP about the stuff I could not find in their online inventory.

Shout out to Evergreen Turbo in Ocala Florida. Very professional in workmanship and customer service.

 

My experience with FCP has been twice the shipping time as IPD.

 

I could excuse shipping time, they can't help what happens once the shipper has taken possession. It has been three full business days and it has not yet left their warehouse.

 

I'm kinda in the middle of both and I get fcp stuff in 1/2 the time as ipd.

I had someone order a bunch of stuff from iPd and a week later we learned that they never shipped the order because they had a problem with his card. Never bothered to call him about it, just tossed the order in the trash and re-used the order number. So when he tracked the order it was showing delivered 1/2 way on the other side of the country.

 

I dont think we can argue are way through this point. Each of us have had different experiences. I got totally frustrated with FCP waiting for the product to actually ship. You have had the same with IPD. What can I say.

 

A week and a half after placing the order, IDP decided that some of my shipment is backordered until at least the 30th. How professional.

Have contacted FCP, the representative I spoke with was confident they can source everything I wanted. Supposed to call me back tomorrow morning.

 

Full parts list (copper crush washers and oil supply line as well) ordered from eEuroparts.com. They had (so their website said) everything in stock as well as being the only ones who could get the washers. FCP said they were dealer only, which is a problem for me because the closest dealer is a 2 hour round trip.

Maybe I will FINALLY get this thing back going, ya know, so I can find out what else is wrong with it. :P

 

things are finally actually bolted together.



and back running.



with some fresh kicks.

 

Nice. Don't see to many purple wagons.