Suppose I'm the guy with the 165 :-)

I did the conversion two years ago. This was a project where the engine/transmission swap was planned from the beginning but the differences between US and swedish parts situations of course should be considered carefully. I found 960 parts (particularly low mileaged) hard to locate but in the US, the situation must be virtually impossible. Swedish prices doesnt differ t-h-a-t much between Volvo spare parts for the 960 and older cars, either. The B30 I replaced btw was all worn out, consumed serious amounts of oil and gas and would have cost me as much to rebuild as the brand new 960 engine I used. The cam timing gear failure actually didn't matter, that slow and heavy old piece of junk would have been thrown out anyway. It was the perfect start signal for the swap, though, and B30s literally are given away for free here - nobody wants them with our gas prices.

The reason for this swap anyway was that I wanted a modern powerplant, not an engine basically designed in the 50's. I also like inline six cylinders and that doesnt leave many options if you want to stick with Volvo. The transmission also made me curious with its electronic control and different driving programs. In Sweden, 960's haven't got the trouble reputation of yours and at least my engine works as supposed. I do change the timing belt religiously though, but thats not actually a problem if you're used to servicing your car as scheduled. Transmission electronics gave me some headaches but the problem finally turned out to be a faulty speed sensor.

As described on the homepage, this swap doesn't come easily since the B6304 despite of low weight and ultra short design is too wide for the 164 suspension/steering parts. I chose to go with 240 front suspension parts to achieve the required space but a few months ago I saw another project (sedan) where the builder kept the 164 suspension - he had to redesign intake manifolds, alternator mount, motor mounts and throw the AC out, among many minor mods, instead.

Link to the page if you're interested:

http://switch.to/estate

Good luck,

Martin

--
65' 121, 73' 165