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JaredR's 1997 850R Estate

150K views 1K replies 77 participants last post by  JaredR 
#1 · (Edited)
Before I got the T-5R, I got this 850R. Before I got this 850R, I got a red/tan 850R estate from just north of Albany, NY, but, while it was sitting in a huge snowdrift in our yard last February, it got picked up by a front end loader that was supposed to be clearing the street, but ended up doing some off-roading in our front yard instead. This meant I needed another caR, so I bought this one off of the Atlanta Craigslist in April, 2015 with a blown engine and had it shipped up here. I was looking for another red/tan to replace the other one, but, given its cosmetic condition, what the guy was asking, and the fact that it was probably going to get parted out if I didn't buy it, this was simply too good a deal to pass up.

What's the history of this car?

  • 1996-08-01: OSD order placed. Original owner was a one star general in the Ohio Air National Guard.
  • 1996-09-17: Temporary Swedish registration issued.
  • 1996-09-23: Departed Sweden on M/S ATLANTIC CONCERT.
  • 1996-10-15: Arrived in Baltimore with 16 miles on the odometer.
  • 1996-10-22: Registered in Canal Winchester, OH.
  • 2010-07-30: SOLD to second owner in Atlanta, GA, at 253k miles. The original owner took incredibly good care of it.
  • 2014-05-29: "Sold" to 3rd owner at 262k miles. I say "sold" because this guy never actually transferred it to his name. I believe he had blown the engine by November, 2014.
  • 2015-04-06: I agreed to buy it at 269k miles. This got complicated because the guy never transferred it into his name.
  • 2016-01-27: Finally got a bill of sale from the 3rd "owner." Yay for VT's lax title laws. Luckily I have a copy of the title signed over to him and bill of sale from when he got it, so I can document the full chain of custody and that it wasn't stolen if I ever need to.

It's an odd history since the original owner sold it. I have to wonder what the story is with that second guy who owned it for 4 years and only did 9k miles in it.

What have I done so far?

  • Vacuumed and washed it. This thing was a mess. The guy left tons of junk in there and the car was covered in pine pollen. It was bad...and there is still pine pollen coming out of the panel gaps.
  • Somebody thought it would be a good idea to put in some really crappy Kenwood speakers in the front doors and take the tweeters out of the dash. Did a speaker swap from the wrecked R. Sounds good now.
  • Aired it out. Still airing it out, actually. 3rd "owner" was a smoker.
  • Bought some 850R floor mats on ebay. Pretty clear that there were some OEM Volvo mats in there until recently before I got it, but who knows where they went.
  • Started process of engine removal. Got everything ready to pull the engine, but then we discovered the engine was seized when we tried to turn it over to pull the torque converter bolts. Bolted a steel bar on to the end of the crankshaft where the serpentine belt pulley attaches and broke out one of the bolts trying to get it moving. Going to pull the head and try to get it going from inside, and, if that fails, then I guess we'll pull the engine and transmission together and put the M66D in the this one now and do the T-5R later.

What does it still need/what am I planning on doing? (in no particular order)
  • Needs a working engine!!
  • MANUAL SWAP! Obviously...this will eventually happen even if it doesn't happen at the same time as the engine swap. Going to use a M66D. Going to to turn the sport/econ button into a boost controller as part of the swap.
  • Need to buff out the paint. It is pretty badly oxidized from living outside in Atlanta, and I haven't been keeping up with the wax, either, since it was already bad when I got it.
  • Needs a new headliner. The fabric was falling, so the previous owner tried to use some thumbtacks. That didn't work, so he just ripped it off and the fabric was in a big ball in the back when I got it. Oh, yeah, I got a lifetime supply of thumbtacks out of this deal, too.
  • E-code lights.
  • Needs a rear spoiler. Thinking about adding roof rails, too.
  • Driver's door was damaged and replaced at some point. It was clearcoated when it was repainted, so I need to either find an original 609 door from a R that's getting parted, or have it repainted again in single stage. The clear that is on there is starting to show signs of failure.
  • Might put in a SC-901 at some point.
  • Maybe get another dash pad from somewhere and try to mod a dolby center speaker into it (anyone done this in an 850 yet?).
  • Needs a new glovebox door because some clown tried to pry it open at some point.
  • Needs to spend a day with a PDR guy. Surprisingly, there aren't any door dings, but there is a pretty good dent in the port A pillar, a small dent in the roof, and a crease that is only noticeable from certain angles in the starboard fender.
  • Front bumper has a couple cracks. Hopefully I can address those without a full bumper respray but I think it probably will need a respray.
  • Probably going to put in some heated rear seats and maybe some other goodies for the people in the back, like maybe an aux jack for the music management system I have planned, a P2 style armrest with the little storage bin, and some floor lights like the front seat gets. Maybe some P2 style B pillar air vents if I really go nuts.
  • Going to add a music management system that has enough space for all of my music. Can't fit it all on a phone so this is going to have to be something clever....and I'm going to use a stock HU because I want to keep that '90s feel. Hoping I can do something where I can hook it up to my wi-fi network and sync music directly from my computer.
  • Need to call up the original owner and see if he still has the OSD plates. Managed to track him down, but he's moved to AZ since he sold the car, so I'm not feeling optimistic. Failing that, maybe I can get some repro OSD plates. I have the temporary registration form with the reg number and expiration date on it.

Pictures!

This is what it looked like right after I vacuumed and washed it.

IMG_6903 by Jared R 945, on Flickr

IMG_6904 by Jared R 945, on Flickr

IMG_6909 by Jared R 945, on Flickr

The odometer works. Gear was replaced by the original owner at the dealer. Dealer pulled the mileage from the computer when they did this.
IMG_6911 by Jared R 945, on Flickr

IMG_6938 by Jared R 945, on Flickr

IMG_6939 by Jared R 945, on Flickr

IMG_6941 by Jared R 945, on Flickr

IMG_6947 by Jared R 945, on Flickr

IMG_6951 by Jared R 945, on Flickr
 
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9
#2 ·
And here is where it's at currently.

Valve cover is off. Need to go to Sears before next weekend to get a ½" drive 14mm 6 point socket to pull the head bolts. Not sure how we've survived this long with only a 3/8" drive 12 point 14mm socket.
DSC04497 by Jared R 945, on Flickr
 
#3 ·
Man, two project cars for you, I am jealous!

This one looks really clean for the miles. Funny it still has an OH plate on the front!

Good luck with your build.
 
#4 · (Edited)
Man, two project cars for you, I am jealous!

This one looks really clean for the miles. Funny it still has an OH plate on the front!

Good luck with your build.
It is amazingly clean. I would say, aside from the engine, it is in better shape than the T-5R, but I don't want to judge 19 year old Volvo plastics before taking a ride down a moderately bad road in it. The OH plate is quite amusing, especially because I don't think the car was ever registered under that reg number. According to all the service records I have that I've looked at (there are a lot, the original owner had vanity plates on it, so I have no idea where that plate came from.

I actually got this one with the intention of it becoming my DD. Right now, I'm still in college (living at home) and taking public transportation to school (driving into Boston sucks), so I really don't need a car at all at this point. I got the first 850R thinking I would pick up a cheap R while I still had time to restore it and set it up the way I wanted before I actually needed it, and so I would already have a car I'd be very happy to DD for at least the next 10 years when I graduate so I can start saving for retirement instead of dropping $$$$$ on a "decent" car that would probably only last 10 years total. When the first one got wrecked, I got this one with the same intention, except that now I essentially got both of them for free because of the excellent insurance settlement I got; all that's coming out of my pocket on this car is the manual swap, stage 0 on the engine from the wrecked caR, and the few other relatively low cost mods/repairs I have planned.

The T-5R just kind of fell in my lap. I knew I wanted one someday, but had planned on waiting until they turned 25 and then importing one from Europe given how impossible they are to find here. When mine came up for sale, I just happened to have the money sitting around thanks to that insurance settlement. The price was right and nice T-5Rs are trading now at €12-18k and rising in LHD European markets, so I decided it made sense to go for it. My plan at this point is to set both of them up similarly and for daily service so that the T-5R and the R can split the work on dry days and back each other up should either break. If the galvanizing on the R doesn't hold up as well as my experience with P80s says it should, I might eventually try to pick up a really cheap P80 or P2 as a winter DD when/if space allows.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Progress has been slow the last few weeks, but I pulled the head a couple weeks ago and finally pulled the turbo to inspect it today. Not surprisingly, the shaft play is pretty bad. I need to either rebuild it or get a different one.

I'm thinking about going with the full factory manual 850R setup with the 16t, whites, and Japanifold now that I know I need to do something with the turbo. I know the 15g vs 16t debate is a pretty hot one, so I'm curious to get some 850 specific feedback on this swap. I want to stay with the stock exhaust (don't like the tone, drone, or volume with the IPD system that came with my T-5R), am not particularly interested in going to a track or impressing the guys at the dyno, and don't care about Vmax as I almost never have any reason or opportunity to go over 75-80 mph in the driving I do. Boston does, however, have a lot of fun entrance ramps thanks to all the pre-interstate limited access highways. There are even a good number of ramps with stop signs entering into traffic moving at 55-60 mph, and some of those are on pretty steep uphills just to make things even more fun. I don't use any of those regularly, but would like to have a decent 0-60 time without a ton of turbo lag for the few times a year that I do use one of them. I am not planning on rebuilding the engine at this point, so I'm setting my human rev limiter at 5,500-6,000 rpm for now.

Basically I'm looking for usable power below 80 mph. Given my expected usage, is a 16t right for me?
 
#6 ·
I've never seen rear mudflaps, neither my 855R nor 854R had them when I acquired them. What's the deal there?

I'm thinking about going with the full factory manual 850R setup with the 16t, whites, and Japaifold now that I know I need to do something with the turbo.
Seems that now is the time. What gearbox?
 
#8 ·
This is an awesome find! Looks so go for the mileage. Well worth the effort to resurrect it.

I say 16T is the way to go. Our S70 T5 always felt a little quicker/faster than 850 Turbos with the 15g.
 
#10 ·
#11 ·
Yeah, I saw that.....oh boy.....another part out I don't have room for. could use the 609 rear wind for my R and the rear mud flaps for my T-5R, though. Better stop now before I convince myself that this is a good idea....

I quite like that red/tan 855R on Titans that needs front suspension work and/or a subframe, too. Probably a better deal considering the work needed.
 
#15 · (Edited)
Success! I got my plates from VT today! Once they send me my registration, I can use that to transfer to MA when I am ready to actually start driving it. VT does not require insurance to register a car, so this is costing me zero to have this registration just sitting around ready to go when the time comes to transfer. No title, no problem!!!

 
#16 ·
This project has taken an interesting turn. The seller stated that water froze inside the engine and cracked the block, but, after finding a few other things that were not exactly as described, I decided to fill up the water jacket with water today to see what would happen. So far, the water doesn't seem to be going anywhere, so I'm not buying that the block is cracked anymore. It looks like I might not have to replace the engine at this point.

New plan is:
  • Remove oil pan
  • Remove connecting rod end caps
  • Remove the rust from the cylinder walls
  • Drive out the pistons
  • Reassemble with a new head gasket if there doesn't seem to be anything wrong.

Still planning on putting on a Japanifold and 16t. Seriously considering the BeĂĽst COP conversion, too.

Questions:
  • If I put this engine back together, I'm thinking about putting a RN head on since I already have the head off. With a RN head,
    1. What kind of fuel economy and power gains would I be looking at?
    2. What would I need to do to get the VVT going?
  • If I put on a 16t with an angle flange, are there any downpipe options/upgrades that will connect to the stock exhaust?
 
#17 · (Edited)
Stock 850 Turbo/R except when floored are 220hp motors. R "over boosts" for 30 seconds.

Stock T5 V/S/C70 motors make 237. That's a function of injectors and turbo. You'll get more low end torque when you have VVT and Beust can tune to have it driven by the rear O2 harness. Any stock exhaust will still work just fine even with the angle flange it's a 2 piece system just join them with a short connector to remove that stupid ball joint.

You can also expect the vvt to boost your mileage, I saw 32 avg on the highway at 75 mph in 5th gear (m56h) on a long road trip using cruise control and keeping just off boost


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#18 ·
Stock 850 Turbo/R except when floored are 220hp motors. R "over boosts" for 30 seconds.
That's only the automatic. The factory manual 850R is 250, but then they have a 16t, Japanifold, and whites, so that's maybe not an entirely fair comparison.

You can also expect the vvt to boost your mileage, I saw 32 avg on the highway at 75 mph in 5th gear (m56h) on a long road trip using cruise control and keeping just off boost
That's impressive. My dad's NA RN gets 32 at about 65 when it is running right. It's down to 29 or 30 at 75. I wonder if some of the additional fuel economy you got has to do with the lower compression of the T5 engine off boost.
 
#19 ·
Yea that mileage was impressive. It was still climbing into 33+ mpg when i got the the new york metro area and lost all patience with keeping my foot out of it. That was with a passenger and a full load of gear in the S70 (a wagon will be more efficient because it has better aero), ambient was 100 F and i had the AC on too. Mpg was verified by pump/receipt calculation in addition to the cluster avg mpg. Basically i drove from Buena Vista VA all the way back to eastern CT on one tank of gas.

What would make your conversion really easy would be to stuff the entire subframe/drivetrain from my t5m thats in the garage into that 850r. Already manual, 130k, new plugs, motor mounts, turbo, vvt solenoid ect. Its RN (obviously) and would be a perfect plug and play.
 
#20 ·
I can see how you might want to use some boost in NYC.

That certainly would be an easy solution, but I still want to put a M66D in this caR. Your subframe would probably make more sense for someone who wants a M56H. I'd also like to use a dual VVT engine if I do a RN swap, although I probably ought to email BeĂĽst and find out if he can tune for dual VVT before I spend too much time looking into that...
 
#22 ·
Scored some goodies for the 850R:


Finally got a correct steering wheel.


Coming soon: heated rear seats!


Also coming soon: burl walnut veneer on the back of the console now that I have an extra one of these to play around with.


This extra sport/econ winter button is going to somehow be modified to turn into a boost controller when I manual swap. I'd love to find some way to completely turn off the boost in econ mode for when I'm stuck in traffic or just cruising around in low performance situations, but I'm not sure if that is easily done (or possible at all) based on what I've found so far in my research on boost controllers. I am accepting suggestions on what to do with the WINTER button. I'm not coming up with many good ideas and I sure don't need a button for winter mode if I'm moving the TCU from the engine bay to my brain and I already have ECON mode to reduce the boost. The best idea I have for it so far is to wire it as a power cut off for the future rear seat heaters and then either have it turn on the up arrow or make some sort of custom icon to go in that blank idiot light space (the bottom left one in the left idiot light cluster right below the LOW OIL light) that will go on with the rear seats so that I can tell if someone leaves them on. That's the only winter-ish thing I've come up with. I've also thought about adding another boost mode with extra boost, but then I would have to relabel the button to say SUMMER or TRACK or something if I did that. In case you haven't noticed, I really, really don't want to have a button in my console that either does nothing or does something other than what it says....


Something like this seems like the easiest thing to do to keep the stock switch in use if M4.3/4 will support a setup like this, but this won't get me to zero boost in ECON mode like I would like ideally.


Also picked up an extra set of B pillar trim that I am going to investigate modifying to have an air vent in them like the P2s do.

In other news, I need to stop wasting time coming up with crazy ideas for interior upgrades until I get this thing running again.
 
#23 ·
Finally found the ATF and mixed it up with some acetone...



Hey, this stuff mixes better than I expected!



Then proceeded to head out to the driveway and dump it in my cylinders at 1 AM because....well, staying up late for no apparent reason is what happens when you're a college student on break and I'm pretty sure my neighbors all think I'm insane already so why not grab the drop light and get some work done?



whoa I need to go to bed or I'm going to miss out on having enough sun to find out how this worked out tomorrow....
 
#24 ·
I haven't gotten much done in the last few days with the exhaust project on the V70, but I did put the crank bolt back on and try jumping on it some more. That didn't work, so it looks like I will be moving forward with pulling the oil pan and disconnecting the connecting rods.

While I have this engine apart (assuming I discover no fatal problems with it), I am thinking of making the switch to the lighter crank and pistons and 147mm rods out of an 02+ B5234T3 and possibly adding the windows in the crankcase that the RN engines have. Will this work? It seems to me that doing this and then dropping a VVT RN head on would get me all the benefits of a full RN swap but at a lower cost and less aggravation (given that I already have this engine apart). Am I missing anything here?
 
#25 · (Edited)
There hasn't been much progress lately, but I did manage to get my parts car started up today. It hasn't run in a few months since it decided to stop starting. There was no spark so I tracked the problem down to a broken wire going into the fuel injection relay. Now that I know there is no serious problem and it runs as well as it used to, I'm thinking I'm just going to swap subframes for now so I can scrap the parts R and get the 850R at least functional for the moment and then build my new RN/M66 setup on the extra subframe to minimize downtime. This will free up space in the driveway so I can do the shocks in the T-5R.
 
#26 ·
Quick question guys; which bolt do I take out of the steering column universal joint to drop the subframe?
 
#28 ·
Dropped the subframe tonight. Sort of.



CRAPPY CELL PHONE PIC WARNING



And then there was insufficient lighting for further photos. But everything is free on the subframe except the brakes because I can't find our 7mm allen wrench to get the calipers off! So basically the subframe is sitting on our piano cart after doing a test lift just far enough to make sure everything is good to go (except those brake lines, obviously).
 
#29 ·
IT'S OUT!





 
#377 ·
Weird. Feels like we've been here before.



Oh wait.

I guess we have. 0/10 would recommend trying to roll an engine around on anything other than concrete. Wasted about 2 hours getting it moved out of the way this afternoon because my cart wouldn't roll.
 
#30 ·
OH BOY! Looks like a lot of work going on up there. If I were you I would remove those two fogs. With my luck I would probably hit one of them and break it!
 
#32 · (Edited)
Yes, things are finally moving along nicely! I took off the fogs off the wrecked R and the screws broke, so I think I'm going to try to leave them on.

Where did you source the heated rear seats from?
Those switches are purely cosmetic at this point lol. They are the front switches out of the black 850R sedan I parted out in post 22. The actual rear switches are supposed to have a timer on them but I'm thinking of just wiring them up to one of the unused idiot lights and leaving them with no timer. I believe the heating pads themselves are still available new.
 
#31 ·
Where did you source the heated rear seats from?
 
#33 · (Edited)
Just killing time between classes at school now that I found the pinouts for M4.4......

 
#34 ·
Got the engine out of the wrecked R today. This thing is absolutely covered in oil and dirt pretty much everywhere; there must have been a massive oil leak somewhere in the engine bay at some point, although there has been no evidence of any active oil leaks for the time we've had it. I suspect that one of the transmission cooler lines may have been leaking (note the jerry-rigged transmission cooler lines and yes I'm getting rid of those and the jerry-rigged oil cooler lines) and then driven on plenty of dirt roads.

The shock of the day is that the turbo has absolutely no play! It turns out that there were boost leaks everywhere (someone tried to patch a huge hole in one of the intake hoses with hot melt :facepalm: among other leaks) which I suspect is the reason there was no boost and that the engine was running horribly rich (15 mpg average highway) and severely down on power. We will find out when I put it in the new car with the hole-free intake piping that I have. I am optimistic that this may make this engine run better than I'd ever hoped.

OIL EVERYWHERE!


Starting to get better......sort of. That's about a half a coffee can worth of oil and dirt on the ground already.
 
#35 ·
Youre going to do a T belt, pcv, RMS, FMS, Cam seals, motor mounts and other maintenance items while its on the driveway and easy to work on right?
 
#36 ·
If I was going to keep this engine in this car long term, I would definitely be doing all that. T-belt and PCV I'm going to swap over from the blown engine (PCV looks fairly new and ~30k on the T-belt), but the rest of it probably not. That time and money is going to go towards developing my VVT controller and the B5254T2/M66D swap, which will hopefully will be ready sometime before the end of the year. We need to pull the T-5R out of service to do the suspension work and my dad's V70 for a brake overhaul, and neither of those things can wait another 6 months, so the main goal is just to get this thing running so we can get rid of the parts R and get our driveway back (and have an extra car while one of the other ones is out of service). I'll be surprised if we go 2,000 miles on this setup.
 
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