'82 Volvo: An Exercise in Stance

[aprophet13]

i gave the previous owner of your car so much shit on turbobricks for his fake double lip low.

good thing you dumped it.

Haha ya it seemed weird to scrape going over little bumps but still have wheel gap on 16's.

Trying to get the suspension figured out to get it 1" lower around, I think that would qualify as real lows

[philohlean]

If you know your current offset and width just go outside a measure, its not hard. This has been discussed hundreds of time on tb. Also try checking out the thread "building a drift 245" on tb, he is running a pretty flush setup and has all the info on his offset/width/tire size etc. Just remember, for every inch wider the wheels are, they will poke 1/2" more... ie 16x8et 0 will poke 1" less then 16x10et0

IMO 240s need about the equivalent of 8" wide et -40ish in the rear to be flush and about 8" wide et -15ish in the front

Thanks for the info! would be out measuring as we speak if my car was at school with me haha. I will hopefully be test fitting a set soon, and am going to keep those numbers in mind.

You'll need to consider 2 things when trying to fit wheels:
1) inner clearance(shocks,spring,struts,brake calipers, etc)
2) fender clearance

1- I had some FWD offset volvo wheels that are only 6.5J but would not fit.. this is because they rubbed the strut on the front, and the inner fender well in the rear. I think anything more than 4.5-5" Backspacing (how far the hub sits from the back lip of the wheel) is pushing inner clearance.

2- My current steelies are 16x7 ~et0 in front and they are pretty much flush. The PO also put spacers on so idk the exact offset but something around 3.5" Front spacing (take your wheel width and subtract back spacing)

For the rear, my wheels are 16x8 ~et-10. These poke just slightly with rolled and pulled fenders. This is around a 4.5" Front spacing. I cant say for stock fenders, but pulling them isn't that hard and lower offset wheels get all the honeys.

For your front 8.5s I would say 50mm spacers should do it. That would put you at ~3.75" front and back spacing. It will easily clear the suspension and will poke ~.25" more than my front wheels. Look at my pics for reference.

For your rear 9.5s I also think a 50mm spacer would clear. Your backspacing would be 4.75" which will also clear, and it will poke .25" more than my rear wheels. Look at pics for reference. In the rear that will be a decent amount of poke. You could even drop it down to 35-40mm spacers I would only be worried about the inner clearance. You'll really have just to get them on the car and see what clears, and if they are flush to your liking.

Hope that helps.. Your car looks good btw!

Thanks! It's my pride and joy . .25" inches further out than yours in the front and back? DAMN son. That's a lot of poke hahaha. But I do want the honeys.... Trying to convince my dad what I am attempting to do isn't completely retarded, (terms like flush and stretched tires just sound like safety hazards... although admittedly the latter can be). I am ordering a pair of 50mm spacers and will be test fitting them in the front and back, see what I like. Decided on 215/40/17 and 205/40/17 for the tires, now I just have to figure out how I want to get more lows.
Thanks for all the help dude

[aprophet13]

Thanks! It's my pride and joy . .25" inches further out than yours in the front and back? DAMN son. That's a lot of poke hahaha. But I do want the honeys.... Trying to convince my dad what I am attempting to do isn't completely retarded, (terms like flush and stretched tires just sound like safety hazards... although admittedly the latter can be). I am ordering a pair of 50mm spacers and will be test fitting them in the front and back, see what I like. Decided on 215/40/17 and 205/40/17 for the tires, now I just have to figure out how I want to get more lows.
Thanks for all the help dude

Haha well the front is basically flush so a quarter of an inch further should be very doable. My front fenders are untouched besides the lip on the inside being rolled flat. The rears may require some work but its well worth it in the end.

Exact same with me, my dad doesn't get why I would want a narrower tire and wider rim, and why being able to go over speed bumps is a bad thing.

For going low you have 3 options:
1) cut springs, not ideal but that's what Im on now and with KYB shocks it isn't really bouncy, just a little harsh.
2) DIY Coilovers, here's a really good write up: http://www.forums.turbobricks.com/sh...ad.php?t=85793
3) Buying from a volvo vendor- RSI,Kaplhenke. They are not cheap but those are your only options for a pre assembled package with guaranteed fitment.

[philohlean]

Haha well the front is basically flush so a quarter of an inch further should be very doable. My front fenders are untouched besides the lip on the inside being rolled flat. The rears may require some work but its well worth it in the end.

Exact same with me, my dad doesn't get why I would want a narrower tire and wider rim, and why being able to go over speed bumps is a bad thing.

For going low you have 3 options:
1) cut springs, not ideal but that's what Im on now and with KYB shocks it isn't really bouncy, just a little harsh.
2) DIY Coilovers, here's a really good write up: http://www.forums.turbobricks.com/sh...ad.php?t=85793
3) Buying from a volvo vendor- RSI,Kaplhenke. They are not cheap but those are your only options for a pre assembled package with guaranteed fitment.

Really? I guess I just misjudged how far out they were on the angle of the picture. That's definitely doable. Hahaha I managed to convince my dad that stretched tires will help with the fender lip, but slamming it..... that is beyond all explanation. Oh well. I really want Kaplhenke short strut coilovers, but I am not sure if it'll be as low as I am going for. And they are hella expensive.

[aprophet13]

Ya 1500 for just front coil overs and camber plates? I could not honestly justify spending that much. As much as I love kahplhenke, definitely check out RSI.

They have front coil overs for 700 + the struts you choose, so if you get Bilstein HD short struts it would come out to around 1000. For the rear just get their adjustable perches. You can choose your own spring length and spring rate, they're only 750. Then get short Bilstein Shocks for 200.

For the front if your comfortable with a little grinding and a little welding (you could even have an exhaust shop or some one do it, it is just welding the stop ring onto the strut) that DIY thread I posted is a very cheap and very good alternative. You can use any strut insert you want, and get what ever spring length/rate you want.

[aprophet13]

winter break update

After 4 months of waiting I finally got back Dec. 19th and have gotten a few things done.

First order of business was replacing the rear shocks with some new bilstien HDs:

The mandatory "needing wood to get onto the jack" picture


The bottom mount on the shock needed to be trimmed in order to fit into the trailing arm



after a few hours of trying to compress the shock into both the mounts (im sure there was a better way of installing these) they finally got installed!


I also switched back to the square headlights, the ebay 7" rounds I bought were so dim that road reflectors wouldn't shine back. I kind of like seeing at night while driving so I swapped back.

I ran out of zip ties so the grill wasn't on yet. She looks pretty classy.




Random side note: I saw two of olga's family members while cruising around the bay.
First was a late model wagon


Second was someone behind me while I was driving


Ok, back on topic, next I installed a grip royal steering wheel










Another random sidenote: underneath the exhaust is a roll of electrical tape.. so not sure how much lower the front will be going


Next was assembling the wheels, they were only 20 bolt, I dont know how the 34 bolt bbs guys do it..








The final sizes are 16x9 with a 7 inch lip and 16x11.5 with a 7.5 inch lip. Haven't even started polishing the rear 2 wheels but just had to bolt them together for getting redrilled. Taking them to california wheels tomorrow.

Thats it for now, feel free to leave feedback, good, bad, doesn't matter

[soab]

With years of Saab ownership I know your pain of 5x108 lol

[Wyatt Lay]

Will be surprised if those wheels ever make it onto the car, but I hope they do. Car looks great though, way to put the square headlights back in.

[mitchbrock1]

are you in sacramento area?

[philohlean]

Can't wait to see those wheels on dude. The Grip wheel is PIMPIN too, what adapter did you use for it?

Wish I had half decent weather to work on mine right now, it's like -15 with wind chill and I can't even get my car near any tools with all the snow

[keenan]

I don't think the rims are deep enough.... Jeez. How long before they get on the car?!?

[Mike36]

Why not run the CCWs (original specs) with spacers just like your doing with the BBS wheels?

[aprophet13]

Also, I know I should make a separate build thread for this, just too lazy right now. My dad wanted a project car too, but instead of paying a shop to do all the work on it he's letting me keep it at my mom's house and work on that too. He's making all the decisions on this one, I'm just installing the parts he picks.

Its a 1972 240z. Plans include, RS Watanabe wheels, G-Nose bumper, and future motor swap.








Yes that is a black wife beater cut up and used as an exhaust hanger. Pretty genius I'd say.

Changed the oil and flushed the coolant the morning after I got it


Dropped the radiator drain plug in there and its plastic so it was fun fishing it out!

Thats it for now, next on the list for the volv is cutting up the V70 side skirts to fit, it isn't going very well.

[aprophet13]

Side Skirts

While I am waiting on the wheels to be redrilled I have been working on modifying the side skirts from a newer volvo, a V70, to fit the 242.

the one on the right shows the skirt in stock form (disregard left one)
I trimmed both of the two tabs running along the top of the skirt


Here was a test fit of the trimmed skirts:





You can see the front end was too long, so I trimmed out about 3" of material on the skirt and cut off the end cap. The other problem was that the slope of the skirt (almost vertical up and down) did not match the slope of the fender (around a 70 degree angle to the ground). I trimmed this angle into the side skirt.




This is the end cap I cut off and trimmed to fit around a bolt on the inner fender


Here is me trying to get an idea of where to mount the end cap back onto the trimmed skirt


Now comes the fiber glass work, I just want to preface this with the fact I have NEVER used fiberglass or done body panel repair so this was all very new to me.

I started off by roughing up the surfaces with 80 grit sand paper




Then I had to think about how to join 2 totally separate pieces together
1) tape the outside of the piece to maintain the desired placement


2) hot glue the inside of the pieces to maintain shape while being able to remove the tape on the outside



3) cut fiber glass mat into useable strips


4) apply resin/hardener mixture to panels then place strips and saturate with more resin (repeat a few times to get layers)




5) remove hot glue from inside of the panels then repeat step 4



I honestly don't even know how tell wether or not it came out OK but I'm assuming since it was my first time there was a bunch I could have done better. If anyone else is trying to mess with fiberglass I would say focus on using on the inside of the panels because now I have a ton of sanding on the outside to do so it appears flat and even.

Thats it for now I'm going to try to sand down and do a test fit today.

[244Brick]

COOL!! Loving this.. YOu have my favorite frontend... My 244 was quad light and I LOVED it!

I heard on the fiberglass it's better to tear the mat instead of cutting