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Hopefully it helps you if you decide to do something similar.
If you have done something like this for your 240, I would really like to hear about it and see some photos.
| Volvo
240 Big Brakes |
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Before the Big
Brakes:
I
owned my '84 245 Turbo for 6 years
before beginning th R-brake
modification you'll see below. I had a lot of experience with
the stock 240 brakes
and lots of experience trying different things to improve them.
I was already a customer of IPD, so naturally I tried some of their brake pads. I tried the PBR Deluxes for a while and found out they had a bad tendency to fade after a few hard stops. The fade wasn't subtle... it was really bad. The braking came back once I let things cool a bit. The PBR Deluxes are really good when cold... lots of bite, and very little brake dust. Just don't expect much out of them after hard stops.
Then
I ordered a
set of PBR Metalmasters.
These pads are designed for much heavier
use. I never got them to fade, but the cold stopping was not good
at all. One time while on the freeway during a long roadtrip (I
hadn't touched the brakes in a while, so they were cold), all the
traffic in front of me came to really quick stop. I
hit the brakes and found I had very little braking power. I used
all my strength and I
baaaaaarely stopped in time, nearly plowing the car ahead of me.
The 
Metalmasters
went in the trash soon after I got
home.
A
friend and fellow 240 owner,
Clay Dewan, suggested the Mintex (red box) pads in the photo. I
was skepticle,
since they were inexpensive and a name I didn't know at the time.
But I tried
a set and absolutely fell in love with them. They had great cold
and WET stopping. And they held the braking power when hot too. I
used
Mintex
pads for several years and also several VCOA track days at Thunderhill
Raceway. I even boiled my brake fluid once, nut the Mintex pads
never failed me. I highly recommend them for your
240.
I wish Mintex offered pads for the R calipers.
Update: May 2008
Regarding the R calipers.... I was
given the below sources for a variety
of aftermarket
performance brake pads for the 2004-2006 S60R/V70R calipers.
http://www.zeckhausen.com/Volvo/S60R.htm and http://www.importrp.com/home.php?cat=37
240 BIG BRAKES:
Chapter 1
R-BRAKES
I began this project in December 2003
when I purchased a set of new S60R
calipers and rotors (2004 and later S60R). My original
plan was to design a caliper bracket to fit
these calipers on the front of my 245. Before I got very far, I
received an email from Travis Kijowski of Strictly
Volvo Racing (SVR) in Maryland. He was in the process of developing
an aluminum
mounting bracket for these calipers to fit a 240 strut
housing. My original plan was
to have a
2-piece rotor
set made using Wilwood hats and rotors, or something like them.
But when I found out about the SVR brackets, which would
use the
stock R rotors and bolt up to the 240 with no modifications needed, I
put off the
idea of custom rotors for a while to save some time and money.
I
completed this project in March
2004 and it has been one of the best mods ever.
(BELOW PHOTOS) The photo on the left is what used to be on my 245... stock rotors (except for the custom drilling). The right side photo shows the R brakes after installation. I was pretty amazed about the rotors going on with no mods. I guess Volvo has a habit of keeping some specs pretty consistent.
The
R caliper is
an aluminum 4-piston type made for Volvo by Brembo. The caliper
weighs 7 lbs. 6 oz. (about 3.3 kg).
The
rotor
(also made by Brembo) is
13
inches
(330.2 mm) x 1.25 inch (32
mm). They are quite a bit larger
than the original 10 inch brakes on the 240. The rotor weighs
approximately 20 lbs (about 9 kg). I had the slots on the
R
rotors custom
machined at the cost of about $25 per rotor.
These are the aluminum
brackets you see at right, which
allow the R calipers to bolt to the 240 struts tubes with no other
mods. Pretty cool! These brackets were
available from Travis Kijowski at Strictly
Volvo Racing.
UPDATE
November 2008: It appears these brackets are no longer available
from the above source. A new source has been located below.
The
latest
versions were the black anodized ones with laser-etched
"SVR." The natural color brackets were prototypes that I used
initially. These brackets
weigh in at 15
oz. each (about 425 grams). Lots of detailed info has been
written by other people about this
conversion over the last couple years and can be found in the
Turbobricks Forum (http://forums.turbobricks.com/) and at the below links specifically
(among
others):
http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=22183
http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=22070
http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=17562
http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=20624
SVR's bracket was designed to
allow
the
R caliper to be mounted in almost the same place as the stock
caliper. You can see in this pic how the R caliper is moved
outboard (away from the strut tube). This was necessary so it
correctly fit
the position of the R
rotor, which is set farther outboard than the 240 rotor. To put this in perspective, when
measuring from the inside pad surface of the rotor, the R rotor will
be about 5/8 inch (about 16 mm) more outboard than a stock 240
rotor. The
outside face of the larger R caliper will be about 24mm (just under an
inch)
further outboard than a stock caliper.
The
stock sheet metal brake backing plates
were
useless for this upgrade and went in the trash.
Notice
that you only need
ONE brake line per wheel instead of two brake lines as on the non-ABS
240.
 15 Nov 2008: NEW SOURCE for R brake caliper 240 brackets. RSI (R-Sport International.com) in Portland, Oregon, has just announced they now have begin making 240 mounting brackets for this conversion. Please contact RSI directly. |
R BRAKE PARTS LIST:
The
front R CALIPERS are Volvo PN 8602682 and
8602683. List price (in March 2007) was $228.00 each plus core
deposit ($40.00) from your
Volvo
dealer.
The front ROTORS are Volvo PN 30645222 (same left or right). List
price (in March 2007) was $100.00
each from your
Volvo
dealer.
(I had the grooves on
the rotors custom cut
by a machinist).
The SPRING
CLIPS/RETAINERS are Volvo PN
30645137 and were about $18 per set (2 sets required).
OEM
front brake pads are PN 30645135 or 30748957
and
were about $70. 
(I opted for
EBC Green
Stuff pads, PN DP21210, which
I
bought from The
Tire Rack. Cost was about $100 for fronts and $60 for pads to
fit my rear stock
calipers)
BOLTS
NEEDED FOR THIS CONVERSION:
Minimum of Grade 10.9 hex head or 12.9 black socket head recommended.
Metric 12
x 1.75 mm x 40 mm (4
required)
Metric
12 x 1.75 mm x 60
mm (4 required)
Hardened 12 mm washers recommended (8 required)
Brake
Junction Block Plugs (pictured), Volvo
PN 1387506 (2 required) about
$4 each.
The 240
brake junction block shown here has 8 ports. The LEFT photo illustrates
the
original 240 brake line
configuration (non-ABS type).
The stock Volvo
front caliper (non-ABS) uses
two brake lines per
caliper. The front R
caliper uses only one line per caliper.
For
this
conversion,
two
of the front caliper ports on the junction block need to be
plugged. There are a couple different
options, but it appears the best method for
this conversion will be to keep the front brakes on one single circuit,
i.e.: both front calipers on front
junction block ports and
the rear calipers on rears ports, such as the illustration to the
right. 
WHEEL
SIZE IS CRITICAL with these brakes:
When
planning an upgrade
like
this it is very important
to carefully consider
the
need for larger wheels AND more room to the outside
of the original brakes. As
far as wheel
diameter, if you use these 13 inch rotors, there
are some
17 inch wheels
that still
will
not clear. The wheels shown in these pics are 18
inch.
So far I know
the 17 inch Volvo R wheels will
clear just fine and I have been told the Volvo Tethys also, but both
are FWD type wheels and
will need custom spacers to fit a 240. The popular Eiker
(Polaris replica) is 17 inches and WILL NOT fit.
The outside
surface of the
new, larger R caliper will be further outboard (in the direction of the
wheel
spokes). My measurements show them to be about 24 mm further
outboard when compared to the stock 240 caliper. So if
your
wheel spokes are
already close to your original front calipers, you
will either need new wheels or wheel spacers to move them
outward. Many more discussions from others who have worked out
this
installation can be found
in
the Turbobricks
forum.
FRONT/REAR
BRAKE BIAS:
For
braking to
be effective when you get near the limit, you need a
pretty good
balance between the front and rear. If any brakes begin to
prematurely lock up, it is preferred
for the front brakes to lock just
slightly before the rear brakes. When I tested these brakes
initially with no
adjustments or changes to the
front/rear brake bias
(which included a track day at
Thunderhill Raceway in May 2004), I found the
front brakes had a little
too much strength and would easily lock if I
wasn't careful. This required some concentration and discipline
at track speeds. I found if I was gentle on the pedal I could
prevent it, but still it needed to be improved.
For a better balanced setup out of the box, I suppose anti-lock brakes
work
nice at leveling things, but adding ABS to my 240 wasn't an option I
wanted.
If I were to use dual master
cylinders with a balance bar, the imbalance could have been solved with
an easy adjustment,
except it would have been expensive and it would eliminate the power
assist. My first thought was to
remove
the
rear brake
reduction valves
(to increase rear brake pressure) and
then install a custom single rear line
with an
adjustable proportion valve to regulate rear pressure. So the
first
step was to remove
the
rear reduction valves.
After the
reduction valves were
removed, I needed some way to
re-connect the brake lines and found that a standard 240
junction block
(shown in photo) worked perfectly
in place of
the
reduction
valve
s. It fits
like it could
have been
made to go there. Four of the open ports on
the block needed to be plugged (so four more
brass plugs were needed).
After testing the brakes without the rear reduction valves, I
discovered the front/rear bias was nearly perfect. Much better
than expected. I
now have a very nice front/rear balance which takes full advantage of
the improved brake system. Much stronger front brakes (because
they're so damn big) and stronger rear brakes also (since
removing the
reduction valves).
So
now we know this can work
for a 245. What about
a 242? ....After
Doug
Kauer
did his R brake install on a 242, he then tried this method and found
the result to be perfect. Through
amateur backyard mods like this, many Volvo owners have greatly
improved the
performance of their cars. This isn't the end-all solution and it
might not be for you, but for the money, it was one of the best
modifications I have ever done to any Volvo. I want to thank
Travis
Kijowski at Strictly Volvo Racing for designing and producing
the caliper brackets. They turned out very nice.
If
you do a mod like this (or even do it differently), I would
like to hear your results.
| -from
Matt Dupuis (added 07-16-06) Here's some feedback on my conversion, and what I've done differently than (I think) everyone else: The piston dimensions on the S60R calipers when mounted on a P2 car (S60R) are 34 mm for the leading piston and 38 mm for the trailing one. For a staggered piston design to work as designed, the trailing piston must always be larger than the leading piston. This is done on calipers with long pads to keep the pad twist under control and to keep the pad wear (and heat) even across the length of the pad. It occurred to me later that the P2 chassis has the calipers mounted in front of the axle centerline, and that the leading (smaller) pistons would be on the top, and on the same end of the caliper as the bleed nipples. When rotating them around to the rear of the axle centerline, as on the 240 chassis, the smaller piston would remain the leading piston. This would be the correct way to installed them, however it places the bleed nipples pointing straight down. Furthermore, the high pressure line, as it comes out the caliper, would also be angled down, making it difficult to route the line away from the suspension control arm. I pondered these problems when I was doing my installation, and attempted removing of the blanking plugs from the trailing side of the caliper to move the bleed nipples to that side so they'd be pointing up. They would NOT come out. I tried heat, I tried chemicals (thread unlocker), and I tried force. Eventually I stripped a couple of the plugs' socket hexes (not to mention the paint from around one of the plugs with my propane torch), so I gave up trying to move them. I came to the conclusion that I'm only going to need to bleed these brakes once or twice, so I might as well remove the calipers and hang them "upside down" from the struts to bleed them. I shoved a piece of metal between the pads to keep them from compressing, and bungee'd them to the spring, and they bled out just perfectly. As far as the brake hose issue, I solved this by using a regular 240 hose and hose-to-caliper hardline. The hardline threads into the caliper properly, and allows one to quickly bend upwards and clamp to the strut (being removable is necessary, so the caliper can be removed and bled again if needed). And to my pleasure, these calipers fit just fine behind a Volvo Tethys wheel, when using a 25mm spacer. They're not very visible back there behind all those spokes, but they fit just fine. I used Hawk pads for an Subaru STi as Hawk doesn't list them for the R, or at least they didn't when I bought the pads (The STi Brembo caliper shares the pad dimensions with these calipers). I'm not sure if I'd use them again - they squeal when lightly applied and the dust is pretty dark, and on the Tethys the dust accumulates quite quickly. So far they're the most confidence-inspiring brakes I've ever driven. I'm not 100% happy with the balance yet - the fronts are too powerful, even though: a) my car's not lowered; b) my car's got a heavy V8 in the nose; and c) I removed the rear brake limiting valves, but boy does the car stop! I do prefer a bit more rear bias, and I don't spend any time on a road course, so I imagine I'm not the utmost authority on brake setup, but I wish I had a bit stronger rear brakes. Next step MIGHT be converting to different rear calipers... maybe Rs and vented rotors as well? |
Since
I have
always wanted to upgrade to a two piece Wilwood rotor assembly, I had
the above pictured rotor set made up. You may compare the photo at left
(original SVR caliper mount) to
the photo below showing the modified SVR mount in place, which moves
the caliper more inboard. 
This
brake kit was designed to offer an inexpensive solution for 240
owners who want larger brakes. While less expensive than the R-brake
conversion, it also allows for more wheel options, since this brake
package fits inside smaller wheels than the R-brake with 13 inch
rotors. Refering to the photo on
the left, the Avalanche kit comes
with two custom aluminum
caliper adapters with mounting bolts, two custom aluminum hats, and the
brake line pieces which will go from the caliper to the flexible line
junction at the strut tube. Also included are two plugs for the brake
line junction block. 
This
kit is designed to use the following items
you'll need to get from Wilwood:
Avalanche
doesn't supply the rotor to hat fasteners, so I ordered Wilwood socket
head bolts, 5/16" x 24, PN 230-0150 (8 pieces with washers, 2 sets
needed) when I ordered pads. 
Here
are the calipers (left and right respectively) bolted up to the
adapters. 
I cannot over-emphasize the importance of
test fitting parts like these before committing yourself to the full
installation. 
Trimming the backing
plate might be a solution, but I chose to remove it. The hub needs to be
removed to get the backing plate off. This photo show the backing
plate already removed. This will be a good opportunity to
re-grease the bearings. Also, the rubber seal on the inside end
of the spindle would be a good thing to replace, as they are cheap and
still available. 
Here
I'm test-fitting the caliper bracket after the backing plate was
removed. The way the bracket fits the mount on the spindle is
pure art. Very nice work. 
Here's something to be cautious of.
If you're using caliper mounting bolts that have an un-threaded
shoulder, like the original Volvo bolt in this photo, check to make
sure the bolt threads all the way in. The kit came with a washer
to use here, but since the adapter bracket is a bit thinner than the
original 240 caliper, the bolt still would not seat completely.
One additional washer was needed. 
Here is the snag that stopped my installation for
now. I knew ahead of time that there could be interferrence
between the deep spokes on the Eiker Polaris replica wheel and the
Wilwood caliper. In this photo, I have already placed 8 mm
of spacer material behind the wheel, which then allowed a distance of
about 1.5 to
2 mm between the wheel and caliper. These wheels will not fit
without a spacer of at least 7-8 mm thickness. Also, since the
wheel lug nut
normally engages about 15 mm of thread on the stud, using a spacer will
reduce that engagement too much. So I will also need to acquire
longer wheel studs. 
These
are
interesting. Pretty simple design.
What's this? Looks like an S60R
rear caliper mounted on a 240 rear hub. It's a pretty simple
design for the bracket if anyone
wants to try it out. A rear proportion valve would be needed to
reduce the pressure some. This setup belongs to the guy in the
below website (in Swedish).
http://www.boost242.se/1-Design/Mats_boost_2006.htm
The below photos are
Porsche
calipers adapted by a European 240 owner for an '81 244
Turbo. Custom two-piece rotors were used, however the size
of the rotor is not known. Nice, simple adaptation.
These pics were located in the following Turbobricks
thread: http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=22070
The brake setup below is the result of
some innovation by DVS
Performance Parts in Australia
at http://www.dvs.net.au.
The conversion uses an 11.25" diameter
(22 mm thick) rotor
from a 740 Turbo (or 940 if you're in the US, since Australian 940s
are different), a Mazda
RX7 turbo II (5 stud wheels)
caliper, and the adaptor plate
(available from DVS). A
modifed 240 backing plate with cooling vents is available
too. Supposedly
this will fit inside a 15 inch
wheel, but it may neeed a small (5 mm) spacer for a 240 Turbo (Virgo)
wheel. Additional discussion about this can be found at http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=68630.
If anyone is running one of
these conversions, I would like to hear from you on how it's working,
wheel sizes, clearances, etc.
240 StopTech kit being offered by Kaplhenke Racing, http://www.kaplhenke.com/
This kit utilizes StopTech brake
components along with a custom caliper mounting bracket to give you a
first class front brake upgrade. Not cheap.