km : Project

When our man Stu decided it was time to buy another project, we all sat quietly waiting to see what he would land on. His previous two project cars were BMW E30s, both of which were more rust than steel when he bought them. The first one didn’t stick around long, but the second one actually came out nice. On the outside anyway, and only after a string of fuel delivery issues. And neither was exactly fast by modern standards.

When a 1995 Volvo 850 T-5R came up for sale in Rockford, a mere hour and a half away, he decided to check it out. After all, for $2500, it deserved at least a look. Well, he bought it on the spot and drove it back to the office, where it arrived obviously in need of a little TLC.

The black-on-black wagon had seen better days. The Alcantara seats were splitting at the seams, the wheels – the optional 16-inch twist spoke design, not the cool 17-inch ones – had been painted black with a rattle can. The taillights too had been treated to a little spray-can tuning, and were barely transparent. The front clip had been replaced with a standard 850 bumper. And the steering wheel practically refused to return to center after turning left. Yes, it was rough.



He got right to work on the mechanical bits. Turns out the steering issue was a thoroughly destroyed strut bearing. A new pair, plus an all-new set of shocks and IPD lowering springs, put the old wagon straight down the road. When fitting a new exhaust (the old broke pulling out of Dunkin’ Donuts, leading to a full week of fat jokes) he broke a stud on the turbocharger, requiring an impromptu turbo removal to do some drilling and replacing.

We had a few laughs at his expense afterward, however. It appears he forgot to remove the paper towel from the intake plumbing – the one he had inserted to prevent loose debris from getting into the intake tract – when he reinstalled the turbo. No surprise, the car didn’t seem to want to breathe. At all. It didn’t take long to correct that little snafu, but more grief ensued following an oil change where the old O-ring refused to remove itself from the filter flange. Approximately three quarts of fresh oil were pressed through the new double-O-ring arrangement, at least judging by the black trail that leads out of the KM garage and onto the parking lot behind our office.



We continued to laugh for the several months as the wood-trimmed dashboard panels were away being fitted with a custom carbon fiber appliqué. In the interim, the handy Mr. Fowle crafted a bespoke filler panel in, well, corrugated cardboard. We called it the “IKEA package.” Needless to say, it’s not exactly the material of choice for hanging a double-DIN stereo. Or anything else for that matter. Eventually the re-trimmed dash panels arrived, and now we’re laughing with him. The effect is cool, but it does look a bit like a home-job.

It’s probably going to be a long road for Stu with this Volvo, but he doesn’t seem to be in any rush. The taillights are fixed, a new bumper is sitting in a side office, and there’s hope that the paint might actually buff out with a little bit of work. Thanks to EuroSport Tuning’s RICA Engineering ECU reflash, the turbo five is (optimistically) making a bit beyond the stock 240 hp, but now the focus is on getting it running reliably. That might be the wrong order of operations, but oh well. For all the laughs we’ve had, it’s actually a pretty solid project car that, when he finishes it, should still provide exciting performance and a fair bit of practicality for not a lot of money. Then again, we’ll wait and see about that last part.

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