Discovering the history of my 1963 544 has been interesting. It was restored in 1983 and with documentation and work orders in hand, I'm starting to get a feel for its journey.

The body and all its bits are a 1963. The interior, besides the paint job, has been largely left original. Everything else on the car, from its bumpers to the kingpins to the engine are either new or refurbished.

The engine and the M40 transmission, as I've learned, are not original. The transmission was rebuilt and the B18 engine was sent away to be refurbished before returning with a 0.040" bore, matching cylinders and pistons, a polishing, and whatever else I'm assuming matches.

I've heard some 544s start and this one sounds...well...louder when it gets going. Not angry loud, but discernibly more robust. The exhaust appears not to have any leaks or holes. I guess it could be its natural sound or simply some timing/fuel-air/tuning issues with the idle. Who knows.

My question is this: what exactly is its performance? With the 0.040" bore I'm assuming it's no longer 90hp but with lower octane gas these days I'm assuming it's not as powerful as it once was. The car is 1963 stock otherwise with no modifications or anything done outside the Volvo specbook.

The overbore won't have any effect on horsepower, and depending on the brand of pistons the compression height may be lowered so the static compression ratio doesn't even change. What makes and engine sound robust as you say is compression ratio and camshaft. So maybe the head was milled, and maybe someone stuck a D cam in there, or more. Made the original engine into a P1800 engine.

That's sort of what I was thinking, someone slipped a better cam in it while rebuilding it. A 'D' cam really perks up a B18.
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'63 PV544 rat rod, '93 Classic #1141 245 (now w/16V turbo)

I had a 63 544 when it was one year old. I liked to run solo events, and ice racing , some of my buddy's also had 544's, these cars were the dominate car at all events, they were very fast, if you had a 544 you knew you would go home with a trophy