I bought an 855R on the second of January 2009, so I've had it just over a year now.
I live in London and had been searching for some time before I spotted the advert on Pistonheads- only one slight issue, the car was just outside Aberdeen.
I spoke to the owner and arranged to fly up to buy it- I spent the night of January the first in an airport hotel in order to make my flight.
When I got there the car looked good, but on closer inspection it had had a high speed encounter with a Hare, and there were a few other things I was not happy with- but I'd just flown the length of the country with no return ticket so I was going to buy it.
As a way of getting to know your car I think that the first drive being 600 miles or so does a good job.
The car came fitted with the AP big brake kit- however the pads and the discs were shot, as were the front shocks which were the original Volvo items, so a trip to Williams Race Engineering was called for:
DS2500 pads, new slotted rotors and Koni FSD's made a huge difference to being able to go around a corner and stop.
Most recently I bought a turbo from a later model car- a 16T with the angled exhaust flange.
This turbo made 280bhp on the dyno shortly before I bought it- and as it turned out when taken apart most of the turbine wheel had vanished into the exhaust whilst doing this.
So we used the cold side of my straight flange 16T with the hotside of the later turbo.
The angled flange downpipe is an amazing difference to the straight flange- which looks like a shepherds crook.
So that's where we are today- oh, and I polished it:
The next stage is to take the head off, replace the rods with H-beams, replace the head with a Tim Williams ported and flowed unit, a TW throttle body, and a 3" turbo back exhaust.
Then it'll be time to call on the talents of the owner of Britains fastest 850 owner (12.9 1/4 mile) to tune it via turbo tuner.
Current power goal is 250 whp- as the title says, born to be mild.
I think it will be interesting journey finding out what the 16T can do if everything else is optimised.
Oh, and I bought a bigger tent:
I live in London and had been searching for some time before I spotted the advert on Pistonheads- only one slight issue, the car was just outside Aberdeen.
I spoke to the owner and arranged to fly up to buy it- I spent the night of January the first in an airport hotel in order to make my flight.
When I got there the car looked good, but on closer inspection it had had a high speed encounter with a Hare, and there were a few other things I was not happy with- but I'd just flown the length of the country with no return ticket so I was going to buy it.
As a way of getting to know your car I think that the first drive being 600 miles or so does a good job.
The car came fitted with the AP big brake kit- however the pads and the discs were shot, as were the front shocks which were the original Volvo items, so a trip to Williams Race Engineering was called for:
DS2500 pads, new slotted rotors and Koni FSD's made a huge difference to being able to go around a corner and stop.
Most recently I bought a turbo from a later model car- a 16T with the angled exhaust flange.
This turbo made 280bhp on the dyno shortly before I bought it- and as it turned out when taken apart most of the turbine wheel had vanished into the exhaust whilst doing this.
So we used the cold side of my straight flange 16T with the hotside of the later turbo.
The angled flange downpipe is an amazing difference to the straight flange- which looks like a shepherds crook.
So that's where we are today- oh, and I polished it:
The next stage is to take the head off, replace the rods with H-beams, replace the head with a Tim Williams ported and flowed unit, a TW throttle body, and a 3" turbo back exhaust.
Then it'll be time to call on the talents of the owner of Britains fastest 850 owner (12.9 1/4 mile) to tune it via turbo tuner.
Current power goal is 250 whp- as the title says, born to be mild.
I think it will be interesting journey finding out what the 16T can do if everything else is optimised.
Oh, and I bought a bigger tent:
