hi there steve
a little history, i had a mv wbx which was working fine but had very low oil pressure. and i was looking for something to replace it with, at the time i could not afford a subaru. there were no wbx rebuilders at the time who i felt i could trust, in my early 20's around 2000 i moved to norway to work on a dairy farm (long story) where i would say 60% of private cars are volvo's, most of which at the time had a B18/B20/B21/B23(0) being 240/740/940 model. i did know much about volvos at the time having only driven vw's and saab's before then. but after being given access to several of them to drive when i needed/wanted i was quickly sold on them, the my personal favourite being a very bright (when new) 1978 242 delux with over 600,000km on the clock and still drove perfectly. once i discovered that it was an option for my syncro it was a no brainer.
this is where i sourced my conversion parts (sweden). delivered to the uk for around £400. the adapter plate is dowled and designed for all B series engines and a volvo (and i think vw) diesle. i had to wait for a week or 2 as he had to make the kit
http://www.smt.nu/default.asp?Expand=2&Display=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
here is my thread that started when i was fitting the engine.
https://club8090.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.p ... t=busy+day" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
since then i have ditched the pirberg 175 cd as i could not get my head around it, it's a very complex SU. and have replaced it with a webber dtrl 32 36. which made a dramatic improvement to the economy and the performance. i have also replaced the points to a volvo electronic ignition, and replaced the silencer to a motorcycle one which is probably quarter of the weight and i bit more discrete. and i sourced a JX air filter and used it, other than that it's been oil and filter changes.
i like the idea of the remote water pump, it would save the chopping of the rear valence, but this dose make cam belt changes and over all general maintenance very easy, i would also be intrested to see how you remove the water pump and replace it with some kind of spigot.
i will look in the morning but i thing that in a syncro (engine and box being 50mm lower) if you can loose the oil filler cap on the rocker box you may able to fit it in blow the hatch, if you were to use a later engine with the dizzy located on the end of the cam shaft i am sure that you could use dizzy bank as a oil filler location.
rather than reinventing the wheel i would look at the SA raised hatch and you could save your self a lot of work, and install the engine as it is designed, i dont know what engine codes are available in OZ but in europe all engines after 1990 were turbo charged and if mounted upright it would be very easy install one of these engines, but you would have to charge cool it rather than inter cool it.
if you want any more info let me know.
neil