Never ending front end !!

We are on our journey to come further with our front end.

But as you will understand the relationship with our front end is not as simple as it might seem.

Via a long and extremely sensitiv discussion with our colleague Mr Ola G We became the new guardians for the what once where a plain Volvo 140 front end. Here you see it in his all plastic super ligth and quick as a whiplash MB 190 SL

Ola has over a period of years developed this front end in all details. Created, optimized an fantastic front end. Ola is a Senior Chassis designer at Volvo Car Corporation a job which he combines with a private racing and chassis addiction. With such a journey and labour of love, ties a are developed and it became a very emotional moment when his front end moved to SSR World head quarter and partnered up with our Amazon. Not a dry eye was to be found in the garage. 

Of course careful evaluation and measurements where a part in our decision making. We didn't want to repeat the Jaguar XJS adventure.

Even if we promised to be gentle and not ruin what was developed over years, we immediately started to modify the front end for our purpose. Below it's mocked up on the building table to figure what to change.

Håkan milling away what we don't like

Back on the table now with Motor all though still waiting for the frame

Frame starting to come in to place Anders busy welding

The steering gear is a good one, Ola had a quick ratio Opel Ascona A from the 80's. The front end geometry is modified for this set up with a Ascona steering gear. We wanted a slower ratio for our purpose, I mean who want's a quick turn in + 200 mph, such a turn can turn in to a big surprise. Our good friend Mario Felker found a new steering gear from a std Opel Ascona Type A from the 80's by a Opel collector in Pfalz Germany. Very good and much appreciated. THX !!!!

Anders is testing the new steering gear

Here you see the modified and started to be good looking front end. Now lower but still treated with respect as agreed with Ola.

Lower control arms cleaned up and good looking.

Spindle cleaned up with hub, we will of course use new bearings and bushings just so you know.

Here it starts to be tricky we are planning to weld upper link arms in tubing to get somme more possibilities to adjust. We are a little worried that Ola will have a slight shock, This will call for our outmost diplomatic skills but sometimes you just have to let it go, Ola has to understand that his front end has grown up and is off to new adventures.

All in all, we have a good front end for + 200 mph driving!

Waiting for Godot...

..or rather, waiting for delivery of essential parts. But waiting for parts is like returning to childhood and the nerve wrecking sleepless waiting for Santa Clause.

When comparing our nervous waiting for the precious parts with the Beckett play, there is an essential difference.

Salt Slush Racing is not waiting in vain. The parts that, sooner or later, will send our old Volvo Station Wagon like an arrow though the magic dessert are arriving part by part.

The parts do not, however, just arrive silently, They always add a kind of excitement. Excitement that we haven’t really asked for.  Let me give you an example.

First some introduction:

With the ambition to reduce cost we’re not flying 9'' Currie rear-ends and Tremec transmission First Class over the Atlantic. We’re rather sending them in dark containers without champagne and hence accepting the somewhat longer delivery time. But this is all based on planning.

Then the example:

Just before I left the office one day I check my mail.  I saw a mail which woke up all my senses completely. The feeling was like:  I-just-realized-that-I-left-the-oven-on-while-the-aircraft-I’m-in-is-taking-off-for-Japan. You know that kind of feeling.

The mail went on;
-The 9' rear-end housing that you have ordered from us has not reached the address of your container, it has instead been returned to our workshop….maybe the address note has fallen off…we don't know fore sure...but we've guessed  that the boat has left the harbor…

I was in despair. I called Currie Enterprises. I was ready for an argument. I was stressed, my adrenaline was flowing and I was, on behave of my team, close to tears.

 

The cool woman at Currie just said; we’ll ship your part to Sweden, free of charge and we apologize for the inconvenience.

I looked at the sky. There is a God after all. Perhaps located in California and perhaps working with 9'' rear-ends, but anyhow… the hardware is now in position.  And I'll tell you what, It has biblical dimensions.

 

Picture: The rear end at bay, resting close to frame.

We have received other stuff as well. Parts in stainless steel that eventually should transport exhaust gasese to the turbine.

 

Right now, we're just trying to understand how the hell to transform these parts in to a high performance turbo manifold...

...maybe we should start with playin a tune....

...which eventually will be powerful melody.

 

SSR movie part 1

 

Let's us prodly present a slightly poetic video about removing layer from the past while slowly moving into a bright future.

 

 

Olle "the Gadget Man" Nyström made the film while working.

Boosting.

It’s called thermodynamics and it’s a kind of science.
It’s called packaging and it’s supposed to be supported by substantial computer power and people with spatial ability.

But for us in Salt Slush Racing it’s the key enabler for Speed and Power.

Hence we have to make sure that this system is able to provide us with an air flow of approximately 2500kg/h, the right boost pressure and not too high temperature before intercooler.

As you all most likely know, low pressure drop before compressor and low back pressure after turbine is absolutely crucial for a turbo system to provide the above and therefore we did some boosting system precision arrangement. We need as well to understand how to connect the charge air pipes and the oil and water in and outlets as well. It’ complicated….

So we took our K24 2474 6.81 turbochargers and started look for suitable positions. I guess I don’t have to tell you that we didn’t have any computer aided design support.

After a lot of struggle we finally found positions for the two turbochargers that made it possible for us to go to the laptop and order the stainless steel collector, pipes and bends. And hope for the best… 

And yes, with turbocharger positon the exhaust gases needs to fly out the (passenger-) door. 

We´re currently in the magic situation after decision, before execution, where we think we made everything right and just have to wait for the parts to arrive.

Ok, I understand how you’re thinking. Can we really reach 800hp with these two turbochargers? Nope, not without the planned compressor upgrade, longer cam profile duration, machined cylinder head ports and serious charge air cooler.  Will this be sufficient?

Well, that’s a cliffhanger…for us all.

To be continued.

Good Times and Ideas are good to share ! 
Big Big Party Time !

First of all we know its spring and topic becomes off seasson when posted
but it became so good that we want to share it  eve if i was a Christmas party!

Just so you know we have a  Speed and Spring celebration Party in pipeline.

The invitation

Fun is fun !

We all felt we had something going and should tell it to our closest friends and colleagues.

What could be better than to do it with a Party !

Good Party's are not done by it self, planning deciding and work is needed.

We had to arrange a good Bar with Mulled Wine, Beer, Wine etc.

We had to cook, this time we went for Pulled Pork Caribbean style ala Voodo. In total we made 15 kg.

We had to secure entertainment, slideshow and music.

We had to get the Christmas tree in to shape (we dressed two types of tree our milling machine and a more normal Christmas tree)

Clean the welding table and turn it in to a dining table, more tables and chairs

Decorate the garage and our conversation piece.

Open fire outside the workshop

The list went on and on and you should know we had a good time doing it !

We all in all had around 75 persons to the party getting some nice Pre Christmas feeling and most of all a glance in to our SSR life and speed celebration.

Our conversation piece the SSR Amazon

Our Bar on the christmas tree decorated milling machine.

Håkan is entertaining our guests

Mr and Mrs Eklöw from SSR

 

 Magnus B From SSR tells Janne M some secrets.

Anna and Helena,
Helena was very helpful to us to secure the shopping list

Linnea from the extended SSR family !

Karl-Johan from SSR explain some details to Dennis

The combination of a Christmas tree, decoration and a Milling Machine is nice.

In the background Håkan and Carinas Chevrolet.
Later on we would understand that the Chevrolet had a hard time with the Halla Ballo that went on, Sorry about that.

Happy and Merry Christmas to you all ! 
Best wishes from Johan from the extended SSR familly and Anna

Our  Hero and Focus  

The Marriage.

There comes a time when two parts, for one or the other reason, needs to unify into one amazing unit. In to a problem or a power couple.

This was what happened when we merged our cool looking chop top Volvo Amazon Station Wagon body with the robust, ridged and somewhat bulky frame.

 
 The fast looking grey beauty was lowered while the stubborn and heavy frame was pushed in to the position. Felt like Julia approached Romeo from the balcony, while Romeo was still stuck to the iron table.

  

We were all a bit nervous since this was the moment of true, when the result of precision measurement and strategical planning, combined with a little bit or violence, was about give result.

 

As the wedding bells were ringing some of the garage guys was amazed. Thinking seeing is beliving. The rest of us was just relifed and waited to come home and celebrate this first milestone with one or two cold beers.

The SSR Team

Let us present The Team

First we would like to present our common starting point and foundation. All of us suffer from severe car and bike addiction for a long time.We have all spent a fortune on car magazines.



Our addiction has saved us from many other disasters like playing golf or the usage of drugs, but most of all it has given us and is still giving us some really good fun and some really good friends.

Four of the team members in SSR are working at Volvo Car Corporation with developing new cars, while Anders, who's not at Volvo Cars, works at Boeing with aviation software development.
But in short, this hobby has, for all of us, become our life.

We've all grown up with and been raised by Hot Rod Magazine, Bike, Teknikens Värld, Start & Speed, Colorod, Wheels, Hojmagasinet etc.

And we still remember the first time we saw Colorod and Hot Rod Magazine in the store and how we read it the first time. How the shapes and colours and the strive to create caught us all by the heart.


Hot Rod magazine Sept 1961

Hot Rod Magazine July 1965

Hot Rod Magazine April 1966

Hot Rod Magazine April 1975

Colorod early 70th

Legends and impressions

We know and share the same legends by name, face and  by the events from the magazines above
(Only a few met in reality and they don't know us) Gray Baskerville, Junken, Sture Torngren, Göran Ambell, Lill John Butterra,  George Barris, Tony Nancy,  etc.

We discuss specific cars from these magazines with the deepest sincerity and perspective.

All of us has traveled to California , Germany and Italy etc to visit the centre of our dreams. Places like LA, SF, Pomona, El Mirrage, Nürnburgring, Zindelfingen, Stuttgart, Modena, Milano and of course Gothenburg, Sweden…….  

Sacramento Vintage Ford Parts SF

Moon Equipment LA

Scandinavian Street Rod LA

Motorima visit where Magnus showed his fantastic restoration and replications.

Cox teknik where Göran showed us his fantastic GT40 Replications.

Bugatti Type 51 by a friend somewhere

Pekkas fantastic shop

Caresto and Leifs one of a kind builds

Magic moments
We al have our magic moments like when we started our Volvo Amazon after installing a 2" exhaust system, or starting the tuned moped with a methanol fuel instead of gasoline.

Dreams come true
We are still living with the dreams we carried as teenagers but now with the Luxury to have some more money and knowledge.

So what can go wrong when 5 of us goes in the same direction in the SSR Team

.
Håkan Björnsson
Volvo Car Corp
Bought his first moped at the age of 10. Reasonably fast already at 15 (tuned Zündapp). Build his first Triumph cafe racer when 19 year old. Long time car and motorcycle enthusiast who refuse to call himself a car collector, but since he and his wife have a hard time to sell vehicles they've gathered 14 cars in running conditions from the -30, -50, -60, -70, -80, -90, -00 ties and a couple of motorbikes.

Early warning sign: Forced his mother and father to go to Hot Rod Show in Stockholm and to Dragracing in Malmö in the mid-seventies ( born -66)
He say yes to often. And drives a C6.


Magnus Börjesson
Volvo Car Corp
The young and not so inocent one with a severe addiction to old school Hot Rods pre 1956.
A brown eyed handsome man with vision and dreams.
Has a serious collection of unique speed equipment, old Ford’s, and yes, only the ones you dream about like Ford Model T Coupe, Roadster Ford Model A Coupe , 32, 33, 34 Coupe, Roadster, etc the list is long.

And when he hit the road for an international road trip in his old rugged Hot Rods it normally end up with heroic victories. But that’s nothing he talks about.

Lars-Martin Eklöv
Volvo Car Corp
The expert with a broad experience base from different GM and MB products.
Has the ability to combine theory with pragmatic application.
Has a competence level on pair with or beyond Summit Help desk.

Restored built and modified several cars like Firebird, Volvo 960 V8 (His wires car),Camaro, 1932 Roadster. Constructed and built a fuel injection system all hardware and software.

Today LM is busy finalizing his 1932 roadster.


Karl-Johan Ekman
Volvo Car Corp
Long time Car, Bike and Boat addict. He likes to dream, hunt, build and create.
It started with that the managed to start his Uncles Husqvarna Novolette band moppe that had been standing still for a long time and that He and his His father restored a Ford Model A 1928. Then it just continued with Ford 1946 SDL Coupe,a couple of Volvo Duett,  a couple of Volvo Amazon, Camaro 1968 (His Wife's Catrine's Car), Camaro1969 Z28, Ford 1932 Roadster Hemi, Chevy 1500 ext low, Volvo 245 Turbo, Harley Davidsson, Husqvarna 250 CR, Stjärnbåt, Ockelbo DC21 etc.

Today he struggles with keeping 4-5 enthusiast cars running and in good shape.

To add another project seems to act as stress relief for him. Kalle always have a new idea and a new twist to old ones. Picasso would have been jealous.


Anders Karlsson
Boeing
A wizard with a long time experience from different odd and interesting cars.
Can heal the worst crap in to beauty and function, in short a real Handyman.
Restored and tunend Volvo 240, Matra Simca Baghera, Jaguars 420 and Mercedes SLC
Built/Drove: Endurance race car
Owned MB AMG 55
Daily driver: Ford Mustang w. Coyote 5.0

Why not involve yourself in something complicated? You can always learn something. Never heard about shortcuts. As a consequence, he doesn’t know what that is.