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Volvo D5 Diesel swap - possible? madness? possible madness?

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 11:38 am
by Riverghost
yes, before some people start having seizures, i am seriously asking this question! theres a relatively mint vo thats had a rear end smash near mine, but the engine gearbox and frontend is still intact.

now i have a knackered engine, and i need a diesel level of fuel economy....... so whilst driving up to pick up my brother yesterday, had this idea!

now i know its been done with different engines from other hondas, k30s etc, and that often people end up running two ecus (one for the car, one for the engine) but im here wondering, could the same be done in this situation? its not going to be a swap and drop job, with a fair bit of custom fabrication, but im sure theres the people here that could start telling me if its possible?

The idea of a 200bhp + 2.4l diesel lump in this car, does funny things to me, and hell, its unique!

so please, throw your ideas, suggestions, rants and curses this way :D

Oli

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 11:40 am
by mercutio
with enough dosh and expertise anything can be done easiest way would be to cut the tunnels out of each car and swap em over then work out the engine mounts

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 11:43 am
by Riverghost
thats my thoughts, i know we have some resident fabricators and im sure i saw someone knockup some cnc'd custom mounts for their own engine swap a couple of months ago.

How easy/insane would things like doing the dash be? id have to think of changing that somehow, as no diesel revs to 8.5k!

and could i keep the 4ws?

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 11:47 am
by mercutio
Riverghost wrote:and could i keep the 4ws?
probably not as the signal from the engine ecu would be compatible also is the Volvo rwd? if so the diff would want to be where your 4ws is

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 11:53 am
by Riverghost
sure most of the volvos are fwd now. my old volvo 850 had a 2.5tdi and was front wheeled, think its the same approach still. dont quite understand how the 4ws works on these cars but perhaps i could make a converter box

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 11:55 am
by craig_jdm
yeh no chance of keeping the 4ws also thw volve 2.4 and box is alot!! heavier than the h22 could cause major handling problems the dash wont be that hard it will just get nowhere near the redline there are a number of problems and this will likely end up costing a fortune

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 11:56 am
by mercutio
possibly theres a civic guy who does a load of electronics he now advertises in some of the jap mags he was doing a 4wd civic with loads of electronic gizmos he could help

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 12:00 pm
by indigolemon
The Volvo's are all fwd now. That D5 engine is a beast! The Volvo common rail one I assume, so 195bhp?

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 12:05 pm
by Mudgey
Those were my CNC mounts :)

There would be so much to do you could write a whole book on it, but tbh it may be worth looking at others RWD conversions on the net and see if your happy dedicating yourself to that level of work and fabrication required to complete it. You could also end up throwing a lot of money at it that could get you a decent diesel car to begin with.

If you did want to do something different, you may be better off sticking with a Honda engine, here is an idea: Turbocharge a D15 with the 3 stage VTEC system, there is a guy in the states a number of years ago who tuned one to 260bhp, and it got 68mpg on a cruise as he retained all the emissions equipment and left the head alone.

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 12:08 pm
by Merlin
Why wouldn't the 4WS work?