Fast Square Cars

What is it about Volvos?

Wow, been awhile

I’m really not good at this blogging thing. Well the cars are still around, the 240, 940 and I’ve added a new one since that last posts. A silver 960. This is a 94 model with the 6 cylinder engine designed by Porsche. Puts out about 205 HP and cruises along nicely. I’m driving the 240 again while the 940 is parked, it needs a head gasket 😦 So this week I’ll clear out the garage and pull the 940 in and start taking it apart in the evenings with the hopes to get it back on the road next weekend. I really need to blog about the 940 and all that has been done to it and what plans I have for it. The 240 was about the head to the scrap heap, it had been sitting in the driveway for a few months after my son brought it back from Athens GA. I was going to take the parts off of it I wanted to sell and send it to the scrapper. Glad I didn’t. It is kind of fun to drive a smaller car, it just needs some TLC to get it back to pretty good shape. It too needs a head gasket, but luckily it leaks coolant to the outside of the head and not like the 940 which leaks into the cylinders.

Whats for dinner

I get asked this question many times during the week. I usually say “look on the fridge the menu is there”. I create a menu for the week on Sunday before I go to the store. There are several reasons for this:

• If I have the meals planned out ahead of time they are easier to make.


• I can create a shopping list for the entire weeks worth of food.


• I can answer the “whats for dinner” question.

So what is for dinner this week? I only cook Sun – Thu, Fri & Sat are take out nights in our house. This week’s menu is the following:

Sun – Panko crusted chicken finger with apricot ginger sauce, sweet & sour broccoli slaw and sweet potato fries.

Mon – Grilled port chops, Uncle Ben’s Wild Rice and steamed green bean.

Tue – Cheese raviolis in spaghetti sauce and some kind of salad.

Wed – Salisbury steak on egg noodles and steamed brocoli

Thu – Pasta salad with pepperoni, kalamata olives, mozzarella with a balsamic vinegar sauce and some other veggie to be determined.

That is what is for dinner this week.

My First Volvo Part I

Alright, lets start with the Volvo thing. Why Volvo’s? I don’t know why…. We had a ’94 Ford Taurus wagon with the infamous 3.8 liter engine, you know the one with bad head gaskets, that was on its way to blowing the head gaskets a second time (I had already had the engine replaced once, for which Ford partially paid) . So it was time for the wagon to go, this was not easy as it was a present to my wife from her Mom & Dad so it had sentimental value and it looked cool as I had painted ghost flames on the front fenders after reading how to do it on the internet. We donated it and I replaced it with a Blue 1990 Volvo 240.

It was a normal non Turbo automatic 240. Now anyone who has drive a normally aspirated Volvo 240 with an automatic transmission know that they can’t get out of their own way.

I started to search around on the internet about Volvo 240s and start to realize that they could be made to be “cool”. Snooping around on the internet I found the Volvo 240 scene, yes there is such a thing as a Volvo 240 scene. I found several sites, turbobricks.com and brickboard.com, that piqued my interest in modifying the 240. Now these 2 boards are pretty much polar opposites in terms of working on and modifying Volvos. If you get a chance drop by and check them out and you can see for yourself (word of warning if you wander into TBs off-topic thread you could be eaten alive). Anyhow I found that you could actually make your older volvo handle pretty well with some available parts from IPD (this is an aftermarket parts supplier that provides candy to the older and newer Volvo hotrodders). I started adding suspension parts (bigger sway bars, lowering springs, poly bushings, better shocks and struts) and in the end the car handled pretty well. Now I’m hooked and addicted to this…. I start scouring eBay for items to put in and on the car. I bought Virgo wheels, these are the older Volvo Turbo alloy wheels, I found a rare Zender trunk spoiler, and I started adding gauges, replaced big clock with tachometer, oil pressure gauge. Then I started buying “performance” parts from guys on the bulleting boards. I bought a VX camshaft, upper strut brace, lower chassis brace, strut to firewall braces. I also purchased the IPD Sport exhaust system. I was learning about these cars and it was very easy to work on and I had vision of grandeur about a high performance Volvo. So this car is a tank, its heavy and solid and makes 112 HP stock, and that is probably 112 at the crank, so lets say about 90 WHP, not a rockership by anymeans, but it handles well. Rear wheel drive is where it is at, I started to explore the handling capability of the car and found that you could “drift” around corners pretty well, you can also take off ramps at multiples of the recommended speed for said ramp, it was fun. At about this time my son becomes a full-fledged driver and inherits this car. Before he gets the car I go looking for a replacement for me, now I have a thing about buying new cars, I won’t. My local showroom is craigslist with a search parameter of sub $2000. Well I stumble upon a 1994 Saab 9000 with a 5 speed manual tranny.

My next Swedish car

Now I have always loved the way these cars look and I wanted to get back to driving a manual car so I bought it. Wow, I’ll post about later, needless to say my love affair with the car didn’t last long. Once I acquire the Saab my son get the Volvo 240, he still has it, it has over 225,000 miles on the clock and has been modified even more and driven in some pretty interesting activities…

Here we go….

I’ve had this site for about 5 years now and I guess its time that I actually do something with it. My intent for this site is to discuss items of interest to me and hopefully share with you these same interest. As can be inferred from the title of this blog it’s mostly going to be centered around cars and the title is really a reference to older Volvo cars know as bricks. I have always been around cars, I grew up helping my dad fix cars that he would bring home. As life went on I never lost my interest in cars but I was never really able to do anything about it. Now I have some time, not much, that I can spend on doing something about my car obsession. I want to chronicle my current project car as well as share my car experiences. I will be posting about some of my interest which include:

These are some pretty varying interest, so hopefully you can find something that interest you in my posts. Well I guess thats that, I’ve now officially started my blog. Now time to go make dinner. In case you are wondering what dinner is tonight, it is King Ranch casserole from the 75th anniversary edition of “joy of cooking” with a tomato and avocado salad with an olive oil lime vinaigrette……