Hello, All!

I was just wondering what the horsepower output of die various B18/B20 engines is. I understand that the B18-powered PV544 Sport with dual SUs is rated at 90hp. But there are other Volvos, especially the fuel injected P1800s, that have more power. What's the status with the B20s?

Differently asked, if you were to look for a bone stock B18 or B20 engine, used, taken out of a running car, which one would have the most horsepower?

More detailed, which are the "best" cylinder heads, boosting the highest compression and the "best" cam?

Would be cool if we could make some kind of a list for future reference.
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www.californiaclassix.com/Bernard/PV544-1.html

Bernard,

You may find this thread useful: http://www.brickboard.com/RWD/index.htm?id=1274279&show_all=1

I have something in my files that says that B20 blocks with the numbers 496940 through 496946 had E heads.

Bob S.


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62 PV544 (B20, M41), '71 142E, '93 240 Classic Wagon.

Your question is a wonderful one but a bit simplified....

I would be willing to bet 99% percent of the B18/20 in the world today have been rebuild at least once. I wouldn't count on getting any truly 'stock' from a junkyard. Cams have been changed, distributors swapped, heads decked etc.... A fresh b18 with a single carb would have more horsepower than some of the tired injected B20's I have owned.

'Best' for one application would not be great for another. I sell a number of heads and block for cores to folks every year. Are you going to drive it on pump gas or have a supercharger on it? Those question effect what you want your final compression ratio to be. You can have a sky high compression ration but I personally don't see many gas stations carring nitromethane for your daily driver. Cams are the same range of questions. Heads come down to not just porting and polishing but also what type of carbs or injection system you are going to use and how many sensors you have/need.

Chris

Chris,
thank you for your quick response. I am a retired SCCA Pro road racer and my business partner and I are running a 200+ mph roadster with an experimental engine in land speed racing, so I know a little bit on the subject of speed. I really meant STOCK, bone stock, not supercharged, not running on Nitro.

Again the question: what are the most powerful, highest compression STOCK B18/B20 engines out there? (I understand that there's a 10.5 compression B18 head, somewhere, so which one is it and how can it be identified?)
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www.californiaclassix.com/Bernard/PV544-1.html

B20E - 130HP Only available in the US in 1971.

This might help:

http://www.vlvworld.com/indexframe.html?140/history.htm

Actually, the 10.5:1 cr, 130 hp (gross SAE) B20E engine was available in the US for two years... first in the 1970 1800E, followed by the 1971 1800E and 142E.
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Gary L - 142E ITB race car, 73 1800ES
BlueBrick Racing Website
YouTube Racing Videos

The B20E had a number of things that helped bump the power up over the prioer 118 hp B20 (B20B?).

- bigger intake valves - 44mm vs 42mm

- higher compression ratio - needed high octane gas back then, luckily enough they published a different octane number back then than they do now, the 93 octane you can get now is pretty roughly equivalent to the 100 octane it was built for. You will most likely need that premium though.

- 'D' grind cam - supposedly a version of the R-sport rally cam they made in the 60's for the B18. A more sporting cam with more power at higher RPM's. It's actually a nice perker-upper for any B18/20 with the more sedate 'C' grind cam. Unless you have an RPM hating auto trans, in which case the 'C' probably works better.

- D-Jet injection. They liked to advertise that the bump in HP is from D-jet, but that's not really the case so much, they just needed to justify the price increase of fuel injection somehow because they needed it on the cars to pass emissions tests. I think most of the changes above produced most of the 'extra' HP, but one thing D-Jet did bring that helped was the intake manifold. Long, uninterrupted intake runners, opening into a properly sized plenum. I think this was tuned to help bump up low/mid range torque.
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'63 PV544 rat rod, '93 Classic #1141 245 +t