Ideas for parts cars and project

yanga001 · Post by **yanga001** » 14 Jul 2020, 11:00

Hi Everyone,

Over the past few years I've accumulated a few decent parts car and i have come to the following impasse. I found a really cheap but decent 99 2.3T that has a nice interior, recently swapped engine, and was had for under 500 (locked front brakes). I also picked up a m56H recently and have a full 98 s70 parts car that had a broken but not broken transmission (dead computer). I am fairly tech savvy and can code moderately well so i have become interested in the tuning scene. I know that there are free softwares and write-ups for ME4.4 tuning, and i have toyed with the idea of attaching the manual to the turbo engine. My question is as follows.

How bad of an idea would it be to put the electronics of the 98 into the 99. It would kind of be like a reverse RN swap except everything needs to be moved out and swapped over in terms of harnesses and electronics. It would essentially entail stripping out all the electronics and swapping in the 98's

As a tentative list i know the following modules would need to be swapped:
-dash
-immobilizer
-key ring
-probably the climate control
-ECU & TCU
-remove ETM
-sacrifice the side air bags
-coil packs to distributor caps
-engine cooling fan
-cruise control
-ECC controller (abscate)
-VVT control maybe (I've read that you can leave it unplugged as it will stay locked up ~volvo speed posts)
-ABS system
-brake booster

Were there a lot of differences between turbo engine harnesses, parts, and sensors between the two years. I spent some time on ye old volvo store, and in terms of compatibility it seems that the 99 turbos shared many components with the older 98 turbos.

I remember taking a look a while back and i know the 99's still had the stamp out for the throttle cable that the 98's used.

My end goal would be to have a manual t5 that i could perform at home tunes on.

I will spend some time tracking the changes between the years and i might ultimately just accept the automatic transmission and costly tuning requirements.

However one can always dream!

Link to the free tuning post and wiki
http://volvospeed.com/vs_forum/topic/15 ... g-for-m44/

PS: the simplest implementation of this may require swapping the full interior into the 98 parts car, RN swap and tune it for the turbo.

Will edit post as i find more information

This would be for a street build as i already have the parts car and thought it would be fun to see what i can do with them.

Post by **abscate** » 14 Jul 2020, 11:26

The 1998 electronics will have to be modified to drive the VVT on the 1999 turbo exhaust. That could get to be a big project.

The ECC controller is 1999 special so that wou;d have to be sorted too.

Post by **FLXC90** » 14 Jul 2020, 20:32

Throw the 2.3 and the M56 in the 98, use the interior, swapping skins from the 99 seats to the 98 to keep air bag functionality, then get a tune from VAST, they can set you up for your COP and VVT. Granted you wont be able to blow it up if you miscode it that way, (yeah I know, be the hero when it rocks!!) And you already have the N/A intake and throttle body off the S70 motor, follow a proven plan

callahanoffroad · Post by **callahanoffroad** » 15 Jul 2020, 05:08

I think the question that wasn't asked is: track car or street car, and what are inspections like where you live?

Post by **Chuck W** » 15 Jul 2020, 05:20

yanga001 wrote: ↑14 Jul 2020, 11:00
PS: the simplest implementation of this may require swapping the full interior into the 98 parts car, RN swap and tune it for the turbo.

Yes, turbo into non-turbo car aside, this would be the simplest option. The '99-00 ETM's are a real deal-breaker for me, personally.

As asked; is this a street car? Does your area require inspections?

You'd still want to source a '98 turbo engine harness (and do a hard comparison on the body-side harness to see what changes are there (if any)).

I'm (getting more) familiar with the M4.4 tuning, as we have 2 '97's with 98MY M4.4 ECUs. Only minor changes currently, but being able to make changes and not be tied to having to have specific components for a build is nice.

Having a full '99 "parts car" to swap things from will be beneficial for everything but the engine managment.

As a side note, I know there is some ME7 DIY tuning out there, but I don't know if it also covers the '99-'00 cars. I've also heard it's a little more involved than the M4.4 stuff.

yanga001 · Post by **yanga001** » 15 Jul 2020, 08:48

Thanks for the input, it would more likely be a street car, my area does not require as involved inspections. They check brakes, basic lighting and essentially call it a day.

Post by **j-dawg** » 15 Jul 2020, 08:57

I believe Hilton Tuning offers a tune-it-yourself package for the 99-00 cars.

yanga001 · Post by **yanga001** » 15 Jul 2020, 11:02

In terms of tuning, my goal isnt more power it is more so to have a manual compatible turbo. I've looked around and the prices i have come up with in canuck dollars hover around 1000$. As that is quite out of my budget i am leaning more towards these conversions.

Hilton tuning is around 750 USD AFAIK for the manual conversion
IPD was 725 USD
I was looking at ARD but they recently went out of business.

If anyone knows a cheaper tune for a manual (not looking for power gains, just to have a manual) then this whole process might be avoided.

Post by **Chuck W** » 15 Jul 2020, 11:26

If you're looking at M4.4 tuning, VAST is the way to go.

Really, just dumping a manual tune onto a M4.4 is easy business, but adding COP and VVT functionality is another layer. A layer that's not needed initially, though. The wife's car is still currently running a distributor and the exVVT is left unplugged, even though the '01 motor has provisions for both. I plan on making both functional after I deal with my current manual swap project.

If it was me, I'd spend some more time digging into the wiring differences between the '98 turbo vs non-turbo cars, just to see what's needed.
The harness splits in the engine bay under the ECU, with one side being "engine side" and the other being "chassis side". Obviously engine side, things are different, but I also imagine there are a couple changes on the chassis side.

That, in my opinion, will be the biggest hurdle to overcome, as anyone who has ACTUALLY done the turbo swap into a non-turbo car hasn't really shared the secrets.

Maybe if Hilton has the tune (which is looks like they do), then you could go that route, and only have to deal with the manual swap itself.

The M4.4 tune stuff is cheaper, but you'll have a lot more work to do getting to that point.

yanga001 · Post by **yanga001** » 15 Jul 2020, 13:49

Chuck W wrote: ↑15 Jul 2020, 11:26 If it was me, I'd spend some more time digging into the wiring differences between the '98 turbo vs non-turbo cars, just to see what's needed.
The harness splits in the engine bay under the ECU, with one side being "engine side" and the other being "chassis side". Obviously engine side, things are different, but I also imagine there are a couple changes on the chassis side.

I started going through the pages. Fortunately it seems most of the wires are shared, which was supported by volvo part website compatibility.

https://www.volvooftorontoparts.ca/p/Vo ... 42053.html

Funny enough i purchased some scrap wiring from a 2000 v70 that a friend was parting out and it my go to good use on this project.

The dash wiring seems to be different between the 98 and 99+ years so ill look through the wiring diagrams to pinpoint the differences. I suspect it has to do with the introduction of the CAN network, however i noticed that the same pin wires were used between years in some other areas.