I asked him to place the engine as low and as far back as reasonably possible for the best possible weight distribution and centre of gravity while not compromising serviceability and going "too far".
The fitment proved tighter than I had expected especially considering the smaller Borgerson steering box. The engine builder had some headers that he hoped would fit but did not, we made the call to go with stock manifolds for now, with a car that was crashed and has been off the road for years I was happy to make the compromise and move on.
I have better photos which I will post later showing exactly how all clearances ended up.
I had not realised until researching engine swaps that the engines in these cars are not centred and slightly offset to the passenger side.
The engine and gearbox were installed at the standard 3 degree angle from what I can recall.
I was given the option of a rounded or more square/rectangular transmission tunnel, I went with rounded as I figured it would be easier to fit the carpet later on.
An submerged Aaeromotive fuel pump was added to the fuel tank.
At some point in the history of the car it was rebuilt by someone who opted for Volvo parts which is hardly surprising for Sweden.
The tank, old seats and brake booster + cylinder all seem to be from a Volvo Amazon.
The previous photos have been from the engine builder who rebuilt the engine, carried out the swap and did the start up/initial break in procedure.
At this point I got the car back which was like Christmas on turbo mode, very exciting.
The excitement was slightly short lived when I hoped up on the car transportation to unload.
I turned the key, the fuel pump primed and it cranked with a healthy voltage but did not start. I tried a few more times until randomly it started and instantly came to life.
The fabrication, installation, cable + hose routing etc. looked awesome but it only started randomly. Sometimes immediately and sometimes not at all without a 30 minute break.
What followed was a intermittent start issue where I did the trouble shooting with support from the guy who did the engine swap. I guess it was my punishment for trying to avoid doing the electrical work myself.
His theory was mostly based on low voltage to the ECU although it seemed to be healthy. After I while could not diagnose any further and was leaving the country again. I managed to get him to travel 5 hours to come and inspect it himself. He checked the sensors (such as crank position which can cause this issue) and added more battery cables to give the ECU a higher voltage.
In the end he improved the situation to become a slightly more reliable intermittent start but did not solve it. He tried invoice me for the material (which was not much compared to what the travel + labour would have been) but I declined and decided to call it quits. The rebuild and swap did not come cheap so I think there should have been some more testing done before giving the car back to me.
I was at least very happy with the installation work but was obviously really disappointed to somehow still have engine issues.
A problem here was that I went with his budget friendly advice of keeping the stock ECU mapped with HP Tuners and a BP automotive stand alone harness. Another surprise came with the fact that he had installed a tweaked base tune, the car can run and drive on it but should not be run on full throttle in case it is too lean. Once more roadworthy it would have to be mapped once more which was now only possible with the HP Tuners platform, something I was not aware of at the time.
So, the rest was to be solved in some other way. More to come.
