Bolbo Swaggons, The 7 Passenger V8 Twerk Taxi!

So since I enjoy things other than Galants, and I've wanted to go sideways for awhile I picked up a beautiful '88 Volvo 745 Wagon with the intention of mounting a LS series V8, 6spd, and a wicked suspension under it to go terrify 6 unlucky passengers at drift events.

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So $500 later, I brought it home and now let the tear down begin!

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Don't need any of this crap!

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Tired old B230 that was ran for several hours without coolant, it finally decided to not make anymore compression. Anywho, not a V8 so it needs to go!

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Man, I don't know if we'll have enough room for an LS, lol.

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Get it out of there!
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This happened....
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Since I had the old coilovers sitting around for the Galant with out anything to use them in, why not mount them on the Volvo? So I put some thick walled tubing in the lathe and got to work. Threads are 52x2.0 metric, so with a 60* bit they come out nicely.

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So on Monday I have to take them to the shop to get the tubes pressed into the knuckles and then tig them in place. The factory struts use a tube that is staked into place so welding them should hold plenty.

Once I get these on I'll be moving on to making new lower control arms to allow for some crazy steering angle when combined with the new steering arms I'm ordering from Kaplhenke racing.

Cooooollll....always been a volvo fan...looking forward to this

Oh this is gonna be crazy....can't wait for more updates!

Ok, got the tube pressed in to both knuckles but I'm going to work on my TIG skills a bit before I get these done. Hopefully I can get some good practice in tonight and get them all finished up!

Here we go with how they are now. The fitment is extremely tight, I could probably peen them in and be just fine, but I plan to push this car very hard and do not wish to shortcut things.

Here are the pictures so far!

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This is about maximum safe height.

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This is the lowest it goes.

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The set up will already give about 1.5-2" drop at max and then go down another 2".

crazy build!

I ended up drilling out the factory tower for now since I need to put the front end back together so I can swap the V8 into this car.

Here is the finished welds, don't be too harsh, I know I'm not that good yet.

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So here it is assembled and in the car, this is its lowest setting.

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Well that is for the lows, now lets see how high it can go! It can probably do taller, however there is a safe minimum for threads inside of the lower tube, this gives a good 4" of threaded contact space still.

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And there you go, it should only sink 1.5"-2" when weight is applied so the lowest setting is probably going to be too low, but we'll see. Its on 8k springs so not crazy stiff, but certainly firm.

For those of you curious what I do for a living, I'll shine some light onto some of the projects coming up here for the spring season of every form of racing, just about.

This is one of those projects!

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We bought the Suzuki Carry with a blown up engine due to timing belt failure, then ripped all of that stuff out and swapped in the engine out of a GSXR1000 drag bike that had been wrecked years earlier. The engine should be capable of just shy of 600 hp with the boost turned up. Currently its around 280 on 8 psi! Which makes for an interesting drive on 4.8" wide tires!

There are more projects to come, but those need pictures to really put them into perspective. This should give you all an idea of the kind of stuff that will be happening to the Galant in coming years.

looks like fun.. u have peeked my curiosity

Oh that looks crazy!

I seriously dig the name Bolbo Swaggons! The play on Bilbo Baggins, Volvo, swag wagon, it's just all too dope!

Yeah man, this is about the least serious build I've ever done, our goal is to just be crazy and have fun with it!

So my black friday shopping consisted of running to kc and picking up a 5.3 which was a situation, since the engine was supposed to be out of a 01 Tahoe and use the 243 casting heads the person who pulled it claimed they had 243 castings, where in actuality they are 862's. So since it was still a good 180 psi across the board engine we paid $350 instead of $500 which makes for one hell of a deal for that cheap for complete engine with accessories, harness, and ecu.

Next pick up is a T56 built buy Texas performance, which was expensive, however a really nice gearbox.

Now I'm going to be making control arms for the car to allow for more tire clearance and more angle once I get the quick steer arms. I'll post up pictures once I get closer to having them all the way done. Its going to be very good experience for what I'll be doing with the Galant, as the geometry is very similar I'll just have to be way more precise with the Galant.

Can't wait!

Wow, impressive and looks like alot of fun, id volunteer to be one of the chosen 6 for sure, lol! I'll definitely be following this one, talk about serious enthusiast, totally jealous of ur deeply rooted passion and skills dude.... please keep us posted.

Crazy projects going on lol looks like some good times to be had!

Hasn't been too much exciting going on lately, been a major waiting game. Parts are in now, the car is up at the shop, so now the real fun begins!

Fab work for suspension arms and engine mounts, big updates coming so stay tuned!

Nice pickup!

Long, day, 9 am to 11 pm, I'll make sure to snap up some pictures tomorrow, give you guys an idea of why this project and my Galant are going slow progress wise. There is a Challenger we are waiting for an engine on, a Camaro that needs a turbo set up, a Charger being put back together after an engine swap for a procharger boosted set up, and just lots more going on.

Right now we are trying to get the Volvo up and running so its going to be the focus this next week, so I'll keep things updated.