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RT Mechanics Ltd. demonstrator car
THE PERIL - 1995 Volvo 854 T5-R
From a very early age I have always been car mad (of all types, not just Volvo's!) And have had a big interest in motor sports, etc. I followed Volvo BTCC during the years when the 850 Series made it's debut - I thought this was a great thing to show that Volvo's are not boring and slow and had planned to make a copy of the white Volvo touring car at some point. Some years later, as RT started to grow, for one weekend a month I worked through a good friend in the Porsche GT 2 Lemans series for a couple of years and then went on to working in the European Le Mans series which took me all over the world with the team working on the cars before having the chance to be a mechanic at Le Mans - the best sports car race in the world which was a real treat for any petrolhead - just very very tiring!
As RT Mechanics continued to grow and grow I had to give up the racing world and focus more on the normal day to day work. I had been thinking of having a demonstrator car for our company for some years and as we slowly found our way into the small world of Volvo modifications, I thought it would be a good route to take to Volvo show the world what we can do with these much loved cars.
I have never carried out such a big project on a car before so Peril The building has been a great experience for me. Even through the hard times been its still great, and I dread to think how many hours I have spent planning and working on the car over the last three years - all the work has mainly been carried out by me after work or over weekends - the wife has been a great supporter too which helped.
This is the story of our demo car:
Introducing "The Peril" (Volvo 854 Yellow T5-R)
When I first found the peril it had been well looked after in its life but had the usual items needing attention. Unfortunately the last owner of the car had not been very mechanically minded and had decided to drive for 20 miles with no coolant in! A new engine and heater matrix / radiator etc was found while I planned my approach on the demonstrator!
I am not sure the purist's amongst you will like what I have done to the unsuspecting original T5-R but the project was not designed to make it a show winner for the originality. The demonstrator is designed to show what you can do with a Volvo that is a bit different to everyone else takes the route and also to have some fun along the way.
My first task was to look into improving the looks and general set up of the car - I fitted new wheels (I spotted another yellow T5-R saloon on the net that had the Volvo Pegasus 18 inch alloy wheels fitted and I loved the simple design so had to have them thanks to the Nordic car company), and started looking into replacing the terrible standard brakes and suspension - Through a bit of research I found by far the best route was a Volvo strut brace and a kit for the front and AP Koni FSD kit with Eibach springs (which was a very new kit at the time) it was just a trial that worked out very well at first. So I had poly bushed the front wishbone arms with Powerflex poly bushes and of course the top engine mount bush. I also brought a few carbon fiber parts - a lower lip spoiler, a number plate surround, throttle body cover and a spark plug cover just to change the look slightly.
I had seen mentioned many times on the American forums that the up-rated anti-roll bars were available for the 850 along with adjustable anti-roll bar link rods so was very keen to try some before Deciding to advise customers if it was a worthwhile modification to do. The kit arrived and I was keen to try them out - I was very surprised at how much better the car handled - it was one of the best kits I've brought for the car (apart from the AP brakes!).
The AP kit gave me the stopping power the 850 should not always have had - even on a standard car the brakes are great so I was very pleased with them. At this stage I also bought 19 T not a turbo and was going to use this but as my thoughts grew I decided to go bigger to see how much power I could get from the car to learn what works and what does.
I have made some great friends in the Volvo tuning world, mainly in Sweden. I've learned a lot from their approach to what needs to be done to the engine, chassis and brakes etc ie when developing a high horse-power engine. Most of their tuned engine in Volvo's run at a genuine 500 plus hp, which is a rare number raised to 850 especially in the UK! so thought it would be great to do something special with the Peril. Can I also wanted to focus on keeping the Peril reliable and strong - I did not want to build an engine that would break every time out and my aim is to make as many shows and events as I. I have planned to do the Brighton speed trials - I have been going to these shows for years and have always longed to see a Volvo have a go.
My plan has always been to be 100% completely open and honest with the project as it goes along sharing the good times and the bad, and what ever I can make power figures they will be proven 100%. I've always found it strange when you see people spending a small fortune on their cars and do not have a proper FTLB bhp and torque figure with a graph to prove it! Its very easy to say "my car has *** plus hp" - but would always be great to see it proved!
Autronic ECU (SM4) / CDI
I have a great friend in the world tuning in the UK who I caught the bug of tuning starting at and I have learned a huge amount from him (Mark Shead of MA Developments). Mark has a reputation that is highly regarded as being one of, if not the best in his field of tuning mostly Evo and the Cosworth brand. Five years ago Autronic MA Developments became the largest dealer in the world for their excellent stand-alone ECU's so I thought that with what I had planned at this power output would be great to use to handle the power and have complete control of the ECU and mapping .
I knew the Autronic ECU (SM4) route would not be for everyone, but again if you look at all the high power Volvo's in Sweden you will see them using the same type of stand-alone unit for a very good reason - at this level the Standard ECU is not able to handle this kind of power safely enough. You could of course run this system alongside the Volvo ECU and electrics but I did not see the point in still having the bulb failure warning light and cruise control, etc. The SM4 has its own self diagnostic system which is extremely helpful in case of a problem - it can be accessed by any PC with the software SM4. The last thing I want
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My Volvo 854 T5-R 591 hp/524 ftlbs project the sto (Gelesen: 864 mal)
