Thanks to new member Cam Tuesley (avid Turbobricks member!) some of the Victorian club members had great fun testing their cars on the dynamometer (henceforth referred to as the “dyno”) recently. Cam arranged for us to rock up on a wet, cold Saturday morning at a mate’s workshop in Coburg. We had 12 cars in total, including Greg’s ex-Holden workmate Michael in a Mazda R100 with peripheral-port rotary engine. The remainder of the cars were Volvos of course, including four 2-series, four 7- series turbos, a 360, a 960 and an 850R. That’s quite a variety, although next time it would be nice to get some of the pushrod machines on the dyno.

I think there might have been a little soul-searching on the day, because the ladies had the definite advantage in the power stakes. Both Chris’s 850R (5-cylinder turbo) and Tina’s 960 (in- line six) both made impressive showings, putting the guys to shame with our comparatively wimpy 4-cylinder engines. On this day, bigger was better, and there was no substitute for having an extra cylinder or two. Of course, having some sort of forced induction also was a plus, and the combination of added cylinders and forced induction led to the winner of the day being Chris’s 850R. The 850R was also the only front-wheel drive there, and it probably has the advantage of not putting its power through quite as many twists and turns in the driveline before getting to the wheels

In terms of outright power figures, some of us were quite disappointed to see how low the numbers were. Who would expect only 45-50 kW from a late-model 240? Well, going from Volvo’s reported 85 kW at the crankshaft, there are big losses in power by the time that power gets to the rear wheels. I was pretty embarrassed as I was the first of the RWD Volvos to run, and I couldn’t believe that the car was only putting out 50 kW at the rear wheels. I was happy when I switched on the supercharger for a 50% increase in power, thrusting upwards to a MASSIVE 76 kW! Well, it’s probably still too embarrassing to compare notes with the V8 gang, but a 50% increase for relatively little cash outlay was fairly satisfying.

The turbos had a good showing, with output figures of 85-100 kW. Angus was running his 760 Turbo with standard non-turbo exhaust system. He decided that 73 kW wasn’t enough, so he removed the exhaust from the downpipe and netted another 27 kW! Goes to show the turbos love to have a free-flowing exhaust. I suspect some exhaust work is in order for the supercharged beast, maybe freeing up another 5-10 kW? Interestingly, free- flowing exhaust didn’t always make a large difference, with Ben’s recent system returning about 5% gain over the stock 240’s with catalyst. Probably a noticeable difference, and well worth the effort for future cam improvements.

I don’t know exactly what engine Julian is running in his converted 265 (now a 4-cylinder) but I do know that it was a non-catalyst engine, and it returned an impressive 58 kW. Maybe our old catalyst-equipped 240’s are in need of a fresh cat? I might try Angus’ trick next time and see if the 240SC takes a jump without the cat.

For the full results, see the data table. I’ve also included the print-out of the dyno tests for the 240SC showing both with and without supercharger. It
was great to be able to have a back- to-back comparison.

Dyno Day #1

Saturday, 9 July 2005

Power champ of the day: Chris’s 850R

Angus Campbell-Wright
760 Turbo
Manual
73
with exhaust (non-turbo system)
Angus Campbell-Wright
760 Turbo
Manual
100
without exhaust
Thorben Hughes
240 GL
Auto
47

Greg Sievert
240 SC
Manual
50
supercharger OFF
Greg Sievert
240 SC
Manual
76
supercharger ON
Ben Winkler
240 GL
Manual
52

Christine Stanford
850R
Auto
140

Tina Nowatzky
960
Auto
115

Michael Barrenger
Mazda R100
Manual
98

Julian Purvis
265 GLE
Auto
58
B230 engine
Tim Paton
740 Turbo
Auto
84

Heino Nowatzky
760 Turbo
Manual
90

Cam Tuesley
360 B200E
Manual
42
with airbox
Cam Tuesley
360
Manual
46
airbox removed
Cam Tuesley
740 Turbo
Auto
84
AC on (oops!)
Cam Tuesley
740 Turbo
Auto
92
AC off