98 V70 T5 The fun begins and a stage 0 comment

Post by **timmybdaddyof3** » 11 Sep 2014, 14:43

Being that I rarely get to work on my own car (normally I am under a clients - and as they say never by a car from a mechanic), last night the Volvo got a little love.

Besides a fresh change of mobile one,
She got euro side markers (complete with factory harnesses off a~2000 s70)
Remote start with window & sunroof automation, progressive unlocking and I kept the factory alarm in tact.

As far as stage 0 -
I had not inspected the ignition system, and was just going to replace everything (so it is done myself, my way)
upon connecting the tach sense of the remote start to the coil I pulled the main coil to distributor wire. At which point i realized coil wires are for sissies.

I will now +1 the fact that these cars will run on damaged parts...there is nothing in the way it runs that made me suspect this, even after putting it back together.

Post by **matthew1** » 11 Sep 2014, 15:03

Good post.

P80s are very durable. They have a high tolerance for decayed parts.

Post by **erikv11** » 11 Sep 2014, 16:20

Thanks for the post. Amazing.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 11 Sep 2014, 19:00

What is amazing is that your car ran, but if you put on anything but Bougicord wires the car falls flat on its face. The OEM coil is kinda amazing though, I changed out an air filter and forgot to plug the coil wire back in. The car started and ran, albeit terribly, with the coil wire dangling about 3/4" out of the socket.

...Lee

Post by **timmybdaddyof3** » 11 Sep 2014, 20:19

right now its running Bosch premium cables...when i pulled it apart i thought for sure it was going to be garaged until the new parts came. Could not believe it restarted and runs like nothing is wrong. It is making me seriously question my choice to go with Bougicord and MSD...My head says its the right move and I was going that way for the peace of mind, but what I am witnessing just does not make sense. Now I am considering ordering another set of Bosch wires to go back in (although with my luck I will learn that Bosch wires only work in these cars when they are missing the conductor)

Post by **mecheng** » 11 Sep 2014, 20:51

It looks like it broke when you were pulling the wire out, maybe because it was sticking but the conductor must have been intake or a small enough gap to arc across. No majic really.
I put a bit of lithium grease on the boots to prevent them from sticking.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 11 Sep 2014, 22:58

timmybdaddyof3 wrote:right now its running Bosch premium cables...when i pulled it apart i thought for sure it was going to be garaged until the new parts came. Could not believe it restarted and runs like nothing is wrong. It is making me seriously question my choice to go with Bougicord and MSD...My head says its the right move and I was going that way for the peace of mind, but what I am witnessing just does not make sense. Now I am considering ordering another set of Bosch wires to go back in (although with my luck I will learn that Bosch wires only work in these cars when they are missing the conductor)

My first 850, the '94, had a mish-mash of original (from the factory) Bougicord wires and two or three Bosch wires that replaced them piecemeal. I think the Bosch wires were used since none of them matched. The car came to me showing somewhere around 135 k on the clock but the odometer had long since broken. As I recall the OBD-I flashed out in the mid 150k mile range when I learned how to read the real mileage from the cluster.

At any rate, I jumped in to stage zero the car using my tried and true recipes for a Chevy. I bought Advance Auto Parts Premium wires, Bosch +2 Platinum plugs, a Fram oil filter, etc. At least I did buy a Bosch distributor cap and rotor. In short, I made nearly every mistake that could possibly be made. The lifters clacked like crazy, the car misfired, the mileage fell from 30 MPG to upper teens and I couldn't understand why. Then I happened upon a little website run by some Matthew guy.

With the generous guidance of some cat named "MadeInJapan" I got quickly learned the error of my ways but I was just sure that Bosch wires had to be better than something French. I've been to France, I've seen Citroen 2XVs, how on earth could they make anything that was good? How could it possibly be better than a good German company like Bosch? I've been to Germany, I've seen Porsches, Mercedes, Audis, and BMWs. I have driven in the left hand lane, albeit not for very long, on the Autobahn in an Opel Cadet (until the rapidly approaching German cars started to flash their lights about 3/8 mile before they got to me). I respect the left lane!

MIJ didn't do a good enough job of talking me out of buying Bosch wires, for which I paid a premium in price over the Bougicords. I was sure I was right about that one.

The car ran much better once I put on a Mann filter and bought a cheap set of Bosch copper spark plugs and properly gapped them but it still wasn't right. I finally bit the bullet and bought the third set of spark plug wires in as many months - a new set of Bougicords. Then the car finally returned to the joy it was when I first picked it up in Indianapolis and drove it back to my cabin in Missouri.

I understand your thinking but think some more!

...Lee

Post by **timmybdaddyof3** » 11 Sep 2014, 23:51

I have worked on enough of them to only trust Bougicord, Volvo or Bosch coppers and the same for cap and rotor....not quite sure how the french got it right, but they did.
And I can honestly say I have not met many cars as intolerant to improper gap as a Volvo.

Mecheng- didn't come apart when i was pulling on it....slipped right off like a properly installed one; like I said, the part that really amazes me is I did the "oh $h8&, let just pretend like we didn't see that" and shoved it back together (while inside thinking no way its gonna start, much less run)....started it up and drove around the block like nothing was wrong. I still don't get it, and I don't really trust it, and the proper parts are on order.