Hi Guys,

I was wondering if I bought a B5234 T3 with an auto trans, could I convert it to a manual trans? Usually this is possible by changing out the flexplate for a flywheel and installing a pilot bearing. Is this the case with this engine or would it also need a new crankshaft or cause me other miseries? This would be for a project car, not an S70 or 850.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Steve

It shouldn't be more difficult than any other auto/manual conversion. The crank mechanism is the same for both.
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If you're not driving it "like its stolen," are you really driving?

Thanks for the encouragement. I bought it as an engine/trans package but it came with the AW50-42LE auto box. This will be for a future project on my Ford Focus. He threw in the engine harness and the axles for fun. Now I'll just have to keep a vigilant eye out for a manual trans. Are these the M59's? The engine is out of a 98 S70T5.

Steve

Your profile says you're in the states, so getting your hands on a european transmission (the M59) is going to be much more difficult. I'd keep your eyes open for a M56, much easier to find. If you want the challenge, I'd say find the M66 (six speed) as far as I can tell it'll mount up easily. You might have to change the flywheel, but I'm not sure. Since its only 10 bolts to switch them I'd think it'd be worth it for another gear.. Finding a M66 might be a challenge, I believe they started in '04 or '05, so most of them are still on the road. The M56 should be pretty easy to get your hands on though.
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If you're not driving it "like its stolen," are you really driving?

Yeah, I do live in the US. I didn't realize that the M59 was a euro only trans but after a little research, I see that the M59 seems to be the same as an M56 except with the addition of a viscous coupling on the diff. I'm not a fan of viscous units - they're good on road cars and they're very good for what they do, but the hardcore race applications never seem to use them.

It looks like a late-model (post 2001) M56 would be a good starting point. Adding in a Quaiffe torsen LSD would make it a strong, low-$ street/rally box. My target for the project would be a 450-500 WHP output, and I think the M56 should withstand the abuse in a light-weight project car and have a reasonable life expectancy.

Thanks for the tips on the flywheel. I'll have to do more research in that area. I'm sure that there are also several lightweight flywheels and clutch sets in the aftermarket that will work well too.

The M66, as far as I can tell, is an AWD trans. I'd be only interested in 2WD. Since this would be going into a 1st gen Focus, it wouldn't drop into the engine bay like it would on the 2nd gen Focus that we never got here in the US. The only iteration of that chassis we saw here was found in the Mazda 3 and the Volvo C30. My plan for my 1st gen Focus is to build a tube-frame mid-engine structure with fully fabricated suspension and tie this into the lightened body structure. The challenge will certainly be to design proper geometry at the rear and keep it from getting too wide. The B5234 with the trans is pretty big compared to most transverse fours. It's going to be a long-term hobby project, so there will be lots of fun designing, researching, parts collecting, planning, and building & fab.

Steve

You will also need the computer. If you have a 98 setup, you're in luck because 99 and later, the computer is matched to the VIN. (I don't know where the computer is finding the VIN to compare with, unless it's in a separate computer.)

The flywheel is dual mass (which includes a damping system), and it weighs a TON. They are very difficult to resurface. I got lucky because my local machine shop knew of another machine 25 miles away that had the right equipment. BMW, Mercedes, and most Volvo dealers just tell you to buy a new ($800+) flywheel every time you do the clutch, because of the equipment required to resurface them.

Also, I'm pretty sure that the shifter cables are not adjustable, so it makes doing an engine swap into a different type of car very tricky. You will probably end up fabricating new ones.

Peter

Hi Peter,

Good thoughts on the 99 and up cars! I didn't know that! It sounds something like the "hardware signature" that Windows XP uses to register your copy of their OS. You can go along and upgrade your hardware until you get to the motherboard - if that burns up and you have to rebuild your computer, you have to call up Microsoft and beg them to register your OS for you and promise that you're not a software pirate. So it could be that each sensor on a car has it's own serialized signature that the ECU reads. If that's the case, you could get away with a swap if you re-used all of the old sensors together. Then again, it could be that the ECU has its own trend analysis it records for the engine and when it senses a sharp change in the data it knows that it's got a new engine. Very sneaky sort of stuff implemented by Volvo! Perhaps in the name of warantee claims for those of us who like to "tamper" with our cars.

So will owning a car be like owning software someday? "You don't own the car, we do... you only own our permission to use it."

When I do this project, it certainly won't include a factory ECU. In terms of engine management they are too slow and need to be piggybacked and fooled into doing the job necessary for a modified engine. Fortunately there are plenty of great aftermarket programmable ECU's out there (Motec being the most powerful and most expensive). Tuning is part of the fun!

Good info also on the flywheel! I'd like to get one for measurement and examination. It sounds like a stock flywheel would be useless for a hardcore clutch and a free-revving engine. A quick search of the popular clutch makers shows that nobody I know of makes a Volvo clutch. IPD doesn't carry flywheels either. I'm sure there is some kind of other flywheel out there that will work (like BMW or something else) without reinventing the wheel.

I signed up on turbobricks. I'm sure somebody there has some experience searching for special parts.

Steve

If the '98 uses the dual mass flywheel, you could most likely retrofit to an 850 flywheel. (Or maybe the naturally aspirated models use a one-piece flywheel?)
But, you would have to pay attention to bell housing lengths or you could find that the clutch won't engage / disengage properly if the distance between the pressure plate and the throwout bearing is not what was originally intended. (I guess you could fabricate a spacer to go behind the throwout bearing, if the distance becomes greater).

The M66 is/was available as both FWD and AWD, the FWD being less common. After looking around it seems that it'd just give you closer ratios, which might not make much of a difference with the power you're planning on putting out. The M56 is going to be the easiest to find. You can pull one from a junkyard for around $125. I'd say pull '96+ as some OBD things changed from the earlier ones. Otherwise the differences are small enough that you can fabricate work-arounds.

Good luck with the build. Have you checked out turbobricks yet? Lots of performance stuff is discussed there, they might have ideas. Easiest way to get your chassis right is to draw it a few times and make sure its what you want before you start. Makes building it a lot easier if you know exactly where each piece goes, and how far off they are from where you want them to be!

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If you're not driving it "like its stolen," are you really driving?