Hi Dave,

Nice to hear of your thinking. We are thinking together on this.

I agree with your logic on the blocks as I have seen many projects setup that way to look into the future and minimize inventories.

When I purchased my GT, the service manager had lots of brochures. He was like a salesman and loved the car. Could say he wore two hats at the dealership!

The brochures pushed the idea that Volvo was trying to get sporty!
They expressed or stressed the point that the air flow was directly across to the exhaust side.

Another term used on the GT was a short throw shifter. Was it the transmission or a Hertz like shifting mechanism, I can't say. If it was really shorter, shorter than what? This was my first Volvo so, I had no reference point.
All of my cars seem to shift the same so the GT was suppose to be leading change. The CIS injection was ahead of domestic cars. Suspension was different than may later '86 wagon. Some real comparison there, I think not.

Well, that is, until my '91, it does have a lighter, smoother and consequently faster clutch system. I think it's was called a short throw too. Volvo could have a pattern in the sales propaganda department.

I agree with you again that he is putting in or had better be putting in, components of the nineties cars.
He might be into racing and has a blueprint! Hopefully there is an excess to a good balancing machine.

Volvo has gone into some extravagant work to pump more power out of that iron block.

In the beginning the block was over built to be a two liter engine.
Later they supercharged it with a turbo. Same piston and rod weights.

As displacement and sales got bigger those older components were going to be an issue.
Looking around they saw what other makers were doing. Guess what, vendors were called and they came a knocking.

Sintered connecting rods are lighter and can be made thinner with strength. The Pistons got shorter skirts like the rest of the industry. Choices were plentiful over the years.
Performance went up but it was clear their inherent block design was still heavy enough and they ran with it!
And good run it was!

Luckily reliability and quality of Volvo endeavor was like the core of the red bloc!
I wish I felt or could see that faith in what I see today. (:-(
They seem to be going the throw away route from what I see coming into the junkyards already.

This UK poster will have to give this all a thought while doing a worthy engine build on a old block
He must have goal worth his effort of going larger!

It will be interesting to see how Bryan's efforts progress!

Phil