As may be suspected by the logo's for this site, I'm a Volvo fan.
I have two 240's and have owned a 765 Turbo Wagon and 744 normally
aspirated sedan. My car history has a lot of wagons (a couple of
Subaru Legacy Wagon are in there as well) in it as I've allways been
fond of them. And come on here! Some Wagons are just downright off
the hook. BMW's M5 Wagon, the new Audi RS6, and Passat VR6 Wagon (the
boxy ones in particular) are just a few that get me to swoon. Where
Volvo's are concerned 745 and 855 turbo wagons in particular hold
huge sway over my heart. 700 wagons more so then any other. Any
wonder then that Dug's Volvette
is high on my drool list? So when I became aware of Ken's project on
Turbobricks, I was instantly keen to keep an eye on it. Besides,
anybody that names their car Irene in addition to doing all the work
Ken has is bound to end up with something special. Now perhaps I
should let you be the judge of this, but at somewhere in the
neighborhood of 519hp, I'd say it's special. In my book (and this is
my site after all right?), this more then qualifies. When a grocery
getter is capable of crushing 95% of what's out there, then something
is up. Having bought the car in '06 with a B23F, Unitek 531 head, and
a 15g as a daily driver, the intent was not to end up at the level it
is now. But after busting up the rear end then ...

...and 1 week later I found a piston and many other parts
laying in the road behind my car. And there was a large hole in the
block where they seemed to be escaping. I was pretty discouraged, and
really needed a car to drive. This really had me in a bind. My 242
wasn't running as I was preparing to do a major rebuild on it. So now
I had 2 dead cars.

He started a build with a B23 and a Volvo 16 valve B234 head.
While the head work was no big deal (porting, welding, and deck
cleanup) and the price for it was good (fifty bucks!) their was not
much choice for rods when he started this project ('06). The solution
was forged H-beams for a Mitus4g63. This also increased the stroke of
the motor, which was a plus anyway. The car ran well with this setup
for 6 to 8 months but was limited by ignition problems that also
managed to hold it to 12 psi. This brings us to May '07 where he got
the desire to really deal with the ignition issues and increase the
performance of the car a bit. This started with selling the existing
custom header (that he made BTW) and using that cash to kick start
his new efforts by building an even better one. After selling off a
stockpile of other bits he ended up purchasing a Garrett GT35R with a
.63 AR turbine housing from RK
Autotechnik.

Truly this is a turbo matched to the motor now.

By October '07, he had Megasquirt running (tho not yet thoroughly
tuned) and decided to turn his attention elsewhere. This was to
install his Wilwood brakes and rotors using a kit from Avalanche
Performance. About a week later, he starts one of those amazing days.
The ones where everything aligns perfectly. Women smile at you, the
clouds go away, and dogs do their business in some other blokes yard.

I finally felt like I had Irene working well enough to
take her over to the local dyno shop for some serious open throttle
tuning. My expectations were not astronomical. Realistically, I
thought the motor was capable of low 400hp range after tuning and
with enough boost. But I really didn't plan to push it too much
today. I really needed to just spend some time tuning the AF ratios
and timing with the feedback you can only get from repeated dyno
runs.

So how did it all come out?

My goal for the day was to get some good tuning time, and
end up with a safe drive able tune for the road race trip planned the
next weekend. If I got a good hp number at the same time, that would
just be icing on the cake. I had a previous best of 248 hp with the
old smaller turbo, so I was sure I would make more power than that.
But I've been working out alot of problems over the last 2 weeks. So
when I made the first run, and the dyno operator tells me 490hp, I
was a little skeptical, but very happy at the same time. Over the
next 6 runs I tuned the fuel and timing maps; The maps needed quite a
bit of work. I left the boost level alone, as it is controlled by the
spring in the Audi wastegate right now, and not too easy to change. I
resisted the temptation to raise the boost level, even though that
evil voice in my head was telling me to run MORE and MORE boost. So
after just a few iterations I was putting down 500+ hp. And when the
smoke settled, I ended up with one very nice pull of 519hp. Here is
the graph.

519hp!

Really, this was one of those epic days I'll remember for
a long time. It is probably that Irene will make more power in the
future. But this day really caught me off guard, and opened my eyes
to what a proper sized turbo and header can really do for a motor.

Fer shizzle! It certainly reminds me of how much I need to dump my
Franken-Turbo 15g! Anyway, the car these days is being re-tuned and
touched up with a host of new bits to support even more performance.
The first notable change was a switch to the more detonation
resistant e85. The rest of the goodness includes ....

• 1000cc injectors for more
  alcohol flow.
  
• Bigger fuel pump for more
  alcohol flow.
  
• A set of camshafts that
  should push the usable redline up to 7000+ rpm range.
  
• Some stiffer valve
  springs to compliment the new extended power band.
  
• And the main ingredient . . .MORE BEWST The
  injectors are letting me push about 20psi safely now.
  

Whatever the results are, this car rocks and is going to keep on
kicking arse. If you are interested in keeping track of this car, pay
Turboricks a visit and see the latest in the thread (which I quoted
from a great deal BTW). CLICK HERE NOW! Good job Ken!