97 engine swap to a 95???

Arnold · Post by **Arnold** » 18 Oct 2007, 13:25

Hello I got a bone yard engine from a 97 850 turbo vehicle and swapped it into my wifes 95 Volvo 850 wagon. The guy at the wrecking yard checked his database and said the engine would work fine in the 95. The car has 120,000 on it and a tiny piece of the timing belt came of the edge and fell down and snagged in the timing pulleys below and bent 19 valves and snapped the head off one all the piston tops were damaged as well.

So anyway I swapped this 97 engine that had 32,000 on a totaled car in which everything seemed to be pretty much identical to the 95 engine. It wont start it just cranks/turns over. It is getting fuel but no spark at all coming from the coil. I swapped the cam and crank sensor out of the old engine and still no spark I have power to the coil and I check it with a multimeter and it is in with in spec. I also ran the obd II tuner and come up with no codes. I have gone through and recheck all connections and grounds and anything else I can think of. So i am thinking either the ignition control module on the coil or possibly the ecu is bad. I don't have a ton of money to go buying new sensors and coils so that is why I used the ones of the old engine. I am going to go right now to a u-pull-it yard in a bit and snag a coil from there too.

My main question is, Is there anything different between these two years that would cause this 97 engine not to work in the 95 car? Thank you very much.

volvoaddict007 · Post by **volvoaddict007** » 21 Oct 2007, 09:32

I'm not sure how much I can help but here's a concern to make diagnosing your problem more likely for others.

It sounds like your wife's car may be a non turbo. That would be a 2.4liter motor if so. The turbo motor is a 2.3 liter. Different ECUs etc...

I would clarify this first.

va007

Arnold · Post by **Arnold** » 21 Oct 2007, 10:53

Thank you for the response. I pulled the old engine and turbo and put the new one in that would have been pretty hard to miss, it is definitely a turbo car. I have now tried a different coil and still no spark. The only thing else I can think is the ecu is bad.

volvoaddict007 · Post by **volvoaddict007** » 21 Oct 2007, 14:45

I had a feeling your wifes car was a turbo ( add edit: but wanted confirmation as I didn't see T or turbo on the description ). So sounds like the right motor . I know when I did an engine swap I had to use the wiring harness off the transplant ( good motor ) to get mine to run right. That would be the wiring harness that comes off of the ECUs / fuel injectors etc. I am going to have to turn this over at this point as I will be away from a computer for a day or 2.

va007

volvoaddict007 · Post by **volvoaddict007** » 23 Oct 2007, 15:24

I'm back and am curious if you had any resolve there. Power to the coil but not beyond certainly sounds like a bad coil, coil to rotor cap wire, rotor cap, rotor or really bad plug wires. After I swapped my motor and the harness I continued to have intermitant spark problems until I replaced the last 4 items there with good quality parts although I was getting codes as well ( an inferior yet new rotor cap and rotor needed replacing ) No codes sounds a little suspect to the scanner not adapting/working properly.

Arnold · Post by **Arnold** » 23 Oct 2007, 15:42

I have replaced everything with the best quality stuff you can basicly get. IPD is only a few miles from me so I got there performance wires, plus new plugs, cap, rotor, all that stuff plus a bunch more odd's and ends. I put a different coil on it and still nothing. I tested both coils and they seem to be good, I also took them to autozone and had them test them to the specs they have in there book and both were good. I am at work 14 hour days today and tomorrow so I won't be able to play around with it much until Thus, or sometime on Sunday. Oh, I also borrowed another obd 2 scanner from a friend just in case the one I got from IPD was bad and it does not pick up any codes either. This car is begining to drive me nuts

.

volvoaddict007 · Post by **volvoaddict007** » 23 Oct 2007, 22:02

2 great things about the the'95s is the on board diagnostics ( which I would go ahead and run for the hell of it ) and the manual you can download on this site.

There you'll find trouble shooting .pdf as well as wiring diagrams.
It mentions checking the air gap and then the resistance values in the pick up coil ( I don't know what any of that means ) of the distributor. I would imagine that throwing a timing belt could mess up the distributor as well. Are you using the distributor that came with the transplant?

These Volvos have some strange wiring... for example: wiring from the fuse box through the ECC to an A/C relay and through the ignition control module for some bizarre reason.

I'd check the ECU for the correct #s. The motors should both be B5234T with 57 in the 6th and 7th VIN #s. Call Volvo and Saab Auto Dismantlers.

http://vandsautodismantlers.com

Give them VIN#s from both cars. They wanted my whole vin# for some reason as opposed to just the 57. Maybe the wiring harnesses are different.
They might be able to tell you something else that is not compatible and they give warranties although they are not as cheap on some things.

Did you keep the wiring harness for the '95 in there?

If you find an ECU at a pick your part it's nice to have a spare. Those types of yards in K.C. only charge $17-$20 for them...if they happen to have an 850T.

Would someone please help me here in that if Arnold has voltage to the coil, wouldn't that rule out a bad ECU as well as a bad ignition control module?...

Anyway...hang in there brother... I feel your frustration. Not sure how you found such a low mileage motor but would definitely increase the value of an already relatively low mileage Volvo.

Arnold · Post by **Arnold** » 23 Oct 2007, 22:43

Thank you for the information, this is very helpful. I will get the vin #'s and take them to work tomorrow and see what I can find out. I am using the distributor from the good engine. And yes I still have the 95 wiring harness in the car. As far as the low mileage I lucked out on that. I called around to several yards and most of them were 130k or more. I found this one and re-asked him if he was sure it was so low in miles and he said yes. I came and looked at it and it was immaculate, I couldn't believe how clean it was. All aluminum pieces where shinny and un oxidized turbo looked brand new everything just looked perfect. I could tell it wasn't just a steam clean by the looks of it, plus all the other engines there that where ready for pick up where greasy and ugly. But they knew what they had and the price reflected it as well.