would taking a mid 80's turbo charged volvo and upgrading the turbo charger/intercooler make for a fast car?

or are the turbo charged volvo's im thinking of just turbo diesel?

 

The most widely used motor for Volvo in the 80s was the B23F and B230F motors. Fuel injected and carbureted. The stock turbos didn't make for much boost and the engine design didn't make much use of it. However, there are Garret turbo kits specifically designed for these motors to make them quick. A volvo block properly built will hold LOTS of boost. You're going to be fighting weight and old technology, but I think it's much cooler than simply dropping a 350.

 

There are owners on the volvo message boards that have their 7-series volvos in the mid to high 14's with upped boost and freeflowing exhausts.

Best engine in the 80's is arguably the '84 B23FT that came in the 7-series. It had a forged crankshaft large main bearings and stout rods. People who own the 240 series turbos strive to swap in the B23FT.

The B230FT from '85 up to mid 88 sucked, weak connecting rods.

Strongest of the B series blocks came from late 89 on up. These engines reverted back to the B23FT design and improved upon it by beefing up the rods even more.

The weak link in all this is Volvo transmissions. The manual tranny is not up the task of a 250+hp car. There are swaps for a getrag, but they're pricey. The automatic trannies are stronger in a sense, but also slower without a higher stall converter.

I've owned an '82 242 Turbo, added an intercooler, newer intake manifold, full catless 2.5" exhaust and upped the boost to 10.5. I ran decently, might have broken into the 15's at the track, haha.

 

Yes. A bigger intercooler and turbo would make for increased boost which would in turn increase power. And no, all the turbos are not diesel.

 

I ran 14.66 at track with jsut upgrade exhaust and turbo pressure the normal point where the truboes loss ther eficcency on the t3 was about 17-18psi good top end and the td04 13c is good for 16-17 psi and very QUICK spool up alot of times with jsut 10 psi i will roast tires from downshifitng in to first. but also in select models aroudn mid 88 area they used tdo5 turbos ithink 12b or something... als teh 90+ year exahsut manifold uses more tubular design then the earlier design....

 

The aw71/72 is good for about 300 hp liek he said about torque converter drill out the shift points and get MVP 2800rpm torque converter u will normally reduce your 1/4 mile time by .5 second but volvo have great handling wnats lowered with adjsutable sway bar end links to put the sway bars bakc in correct postion..