Monday, April 14, 2008

Sylvanna is dead! Long live Sylvanna!

Yeah, that's the case. I've decided to stop any further work on my project car, Sylvanna (a turbocharged '89 Volvo 244). Other things in life are forcing my hand and forcing my schedule.

This is really a bummer in my mind. My ex wife and I picked up the car when we got back into the country and needed something to get us by while we worked towards other things. After getting my wife a 765 Turbo, I turbocharged Sylvanna, did a lot of work towards the guage set, suspension, transmission, audio, wheels, and have recently had a worked head finished and delivered a block for a rebuild.

Driving the car was the bomb. Mad torque and killer handling. It accellerated off corners like a bomb blast! When it got sideways, it always provided tons of feedback and the Fuzion ZRI's give great feedback while not being harsh during the transitions between sliding and traction.

Prolly the only area where it was kind of a bummer was the brakes. 240's have fantastic OEM brakes with gigantic 4 piston calipers. Remove the glaze from the rotors and the bite and overall power is impressive by modern standards. The problem I was having however seemed to be the rotors, fixing run out, and getting them and the Hawk HP+S pads to bed properly.

I really enjoyed that car a great deal and will really miss seeing it go away. :-(

On the bright side, almost all of the things that have been done can be translated to my other 244, Motoko. That said, I've already started the process of moving stuff to the other car. So far, I've got the drivers seat, front speakers, spacers and wheels, and front sway bar and end links (with poly bushings). So from now until as long as it takes, I'll be subracting from Sylvanna to add to Motoko.

There are some other advantages as well. Since I got a suspension rebuild kit (essentially all new bushings for both ends), I can just take some of the bits off Sylvanna, rebuild, and put on Motoko. This will work great with the control arms and trailing arms that I'm still going to have braced and boxed.

You know, another way of looking at all of this is that Sylvanna is being transplanted into Motoko. A lot of Sylvanna will live on in Motoko. Considering the rebuilt engine and AW71 will be there, a lot of what was the very heart of Sylvanna is making the trip.

Now just to find a roommate! $1300 bucks by yourself sucks!

I'll get pics of Motoko up in upcoming posts.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, thanks for stopping by :-) I have had a peek at your blog and now know why you watch Jezza and Top Gear! :-)

What's your take on the Dodge Neon SRT4? My boyfriend was dying to get one when we lived in the US. I myself would have been over the moon with a Ford F250 or something equally as beasty :-)

BDKR said...

SRT-4's are cool even though they are FWD. I have a mate here with one as well. It's a mean looking car if that's your thing.

Personally, I like wagons. If I was crazy enough to spend the money I would put into a house on a car, I would buy an M5 Estate. I've owned two Subaru Wagons, 1 Volvo Wagon, then my ex wife and I had a Subaru Outback.

Is this strange coming from a guy? LOL

Cheers