Hello. I am very curious, what is the major reason you cannot transplant a Volvo 460 Turbo 1.7 litre Engine into a Renault 9/11?
if you were to attempt installation of that engine what would be the problem with the installation?
Oil pan, firewall (bulkhead) clearance problems, etc?

I am very curious, because if it can be made to fit, I would LOVE to install a turbo 1.7 Litre into my R9/Alliance here in North America, it would be worth it to have one removed from a doner (crashed) car and shipped here with all the fuel injection harness and sensors and ECU.

Rob

Hi Rob!
This topic has been discussed several times before, Juha explained things in a very detailed manner, just to citate this one...

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Here in Europe if we want a turbocharged 1.7, the obvious solution is locate a scrapped Volvo 460/480 Turbo that has a factory-turboed version of the basically same atmospheric Renault engine found in R9/R11/Alliance/Encore.
What makes it a bit more difficult over the big pond is that - from what I've understood - the small Volvo 400 series wasn't sold over there. So finding a scrapped 460/480 Turbo in a scrapyard over there is highly unlikely. The solution would be to have a complete engine with all ancillaries including electronics shipped from Europe. I know big 2nd-hand American V8s are shipped to European hot-rodders, maybe there's some organized business doing the thing in reversed way, importing European engines to USA?
It WOULD of course be possible to ask some Volvo-guru what exactly is different from the Alliance engine and then special-order all those parts from Volvo USA and fit them to your existing engine. This, however, is more or less theoretic since I'm sure the cost would be in the region of US$ 10,000+ if I know anything about spare parts pricing...

The 1.7 turbo engine used in Volvos by the way uses a multipoint EFI system, not a carburettor. In true Volvo fashion, the unit is relatively low-boost, the idea being not to produce maximum horsepower but maximum torque. A non-turbocharged, fuel-injected Volvo 1.7-litre engine puts out 109 bhp, the Turbo-version 120 bhp. From that my conclusion is that the boost level must be relatively low, therefore perhaps not having necessated major internal changes to the engine. Volvo no doubt have thoroughly tested the engine to be reliable in standard tune, but what if you'd want to turn the boost up to achieve, let's say, 160-200 bhp? How's the reliability then? I really can't answer this because I haven't looked into the subject, maybe some Volvo club would have more knowledge on this?
What I do remember reading is that, with upped boost levels, the F2N-based 1.7 OHC turbo engine is (allegedly) more likely to loose the pressure from combustion chambers to rocker chamber through valve guides, compared to the R9/11 pushrod Turbo engine which is considerd relatively safe to about 150-160 bhp without any major modifications. This I read way back on the British Renault 5 GT Turbo Owners' Club website (the 5 GTT uses the same engines as R9/11/Alliance/Encore). Maybe you can search for their forum archives as well. Unfortunately, only paying members can post to their forum nowadays so it's not possible for non-members to ask questions. The address to their site is www.gtturbo.org


The original 1.4-litre pushrod factory Turbo engine from a Renault 9/11 Turbo is obviously the second option, but again for anyone living in America that's just as hard to obtain. In fact, from these two engines, I'd recommend the Volvo-version. The reason being that if (=when) you need spares for the engine, there's an established Volvo organisation in the US/Canada through which you can at least special-order spares for the engine, whereas for a the original R9/11 Turbo 1.4 engine you'd have to order the spares yourself from Europe since there's no official Renault network over there.
There are companies there that specialize in hot Renaults and apparently have channels from Europe, like www.r-sport.net in the US and www.alpine-america.qc.ca in Canada, but ordering parts from them might be expensive. Maybe worth giving them a shout, anyway?

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scan the forum archives for furbo-related topics - i'm sure you're going to find some answers - (AFAIK there's a engine deflection angle problem, not sure about that however).

artur

Ok so it's an 11 but we all know the 9/Alliance egine bay is identical so we can forget about it being an 11!

The car belongs to a Finnish enthusiast, it used to be a grey-import original 1.4-litre pushrod Turbo, but the owner's swapped that for a Volvo 4x0 Turbo 1.7 OHC turbo engine a few years ago. For some reason I hadn't taken pictures from it earlier, but at this summer's annual Renault meeting I took a few shots from the car.

The pictures below are from Katriina's Renault Center (http://www.abc.se/~katriina), I'm not sure if these are taken by me or Katriina since we were both there.




The original turbocharger was recently replaced by one from a Volvo 850 to reach reach higher levels of boost. The engine ECU is still (AFAIR) original Volvo 4x0, but the owner has a new, fully programmable aftermarket injection system waiting for installation

From what I could see/can remember, the engine still had its original cast iron exhaust manifold and the turbocharger didn't seem to be too close to the firewall. There also seemed to be room for the inlet tubes/collector box above the engines, can't remember any mods in the bonnet (=hood).

If the Alliance is a 1.4L then the right front engine mount needs to swapped to one from a 1.7L. Otherwise the unit should bolt right in, since the Volvo block and transmission are in fact the same as the 1.7L Alliance. They might have different part numbers, but all fixing points and dimensions should be similar.

You'd probably have to find new places for the intercooler, ECU etc. since these were Volvo specific. But that shouldn't require more than a little rerouting of wires and hoses. The turbo downpipe probably has to be fabricated too, to achieve an engine-to-exhaust pipe connection.

Hey Juha, thank you so much, that was SO helpfull!!!
Now I just need to find a autoparts dismantler in the EU that can ship me this powerplant.

Work out how much it will cost and how much to ship it, and i've got a hell of a good (fun) project!!!

Thank you very very much

Sincerly
Rob

Toronto, Ontario, Canada