I talked to "THE man" about this problem (I have same problem with mine). The one thing our volvos have in common is sitting for a long time. When gas sits for four years, seven for me, The gas turns to glue. "THE man" said he has seen this problem several times. He gave me a few tests and things to check. He said most of the time you have to replace EVERYTHING in your fuel system. I will list most common failures: Fuel Strainer, Fuel Pumps, Accumulator, Fuel Filter, Fuel Distributer & frequency valve, Fuel injectors, Fuel pressure regulator. We are both half way there. That leaves Distributer, injectors and fuel pres reg.
Now for what to do:

Remove spark plugs
Remove fuel pump fuses
Ground coil wire (make sure it is no where near soon to be exposed gas)
Crank engine to remove excess gas from cylinders
Remove injectors from head (do not disconnect fuel lines)
Reconnect fuel pump fuse
turn key on (run fuel pump, you may need to jumper the fuel pump relay)
check to see if gas pours out of any injectors
If gas pours you have bad distr. or inject.
next remove air bellow (on top of fuel distr.)
get a magnetic something or nother
turn fuel pump on (with jumper or ignition)
the plate under the bellows on the distributer shuts off the fuel.
touch magnet to the plate GENTLY!! and pull the plate up
the plate should move easily
Also when plate comes up it should switch fuel on/off
sorry I can't remember if he said up turns it on or off.
look at your injectors to see if it switches
If distrib is working properly and plate moves easily check to see if any injectors are leaking (when plate switches gas off)
Now that I think back he may have said up is on.
When you pull plate up you should get fine mist out of inj.
Looking back at how the volvo runs then doesn't it sounds like the fuel distr.
That plate may be sticking or bad.
You cannot rebuild fuel distributer. You must replace if bad. If you open it up you destroy it.
I hope this book helps. I cannot try any off this until later on in the week.

p.s. How much did you pay for your Volvo. It looks like that great deal we got on our cars may end up costing us a "great deal" of money. I payed $250 for mine. I have spent a total of $760 including purchase. I hope it is a good investment. It only has 105k miles with a perfect body. It does need paint though.

Good luck

Latest experiment...after trying a different lambda relay and impulse relay with no results, I removed #5 and #7 fuses and the motor started right up! ran for a 1/2 minute or so and died, wouldn't start again (no wonder there). I replaced fuel pump fuses and it started up, ran for about 1/2 minute and died again! what is that telling me? fuel overdose?

I am having a VERY similar problem with my 81 244 turbo. The car was running but now dies after idling for a couple of minutes. I get the strong gas smell and the car won't even act like it wants to start. I have plenty of fuel pressure (have not tested with gauge but get tons of gas when I disconnect the fuel line). I have spark at all spark plugs. And it is a very strong spark.

I don't want to muddy the water with my problem, but if I can tell you what I have changed and cleaned it may help you, thusly helping me.

This car sat for about seven years. I replaced both fuel pumps and drove it home (about 25 miles). BTW I drained fuel tank and refilled. I cleaned throttle body and all vacuum hoses. I replaced a couple of old hoses. I also replaced distr. cap and rotor button. At some point after doing all of this I test drove it (about 2 miles). It died on the way home. I put a new main fuel pump (instead of the used one I bought). Same problem. One final note. There is a vacuum hose on top of the fuel pressure regulator and I can't figure out where it goes. This may have been knocked loose when I was replacing some of the vacuum hoses (the distributer vacuum hose was bad).

I noticed that the frequency valve buzzes for a long time when I turn the ignition on without starting. After I try to start the car is when it buzzes for the longest. It seems that I may be dumping too much fuel into the system so the frequency valve is having to stay on for a while to build the pressure back up. Lastly, starting fluid does no good.

sorry but I didn't see that you checked the duty cycle on the frequency valve. If for some reason one of the sensors is grounded out the duty cycle can be up to 80% and the car will run very rich at idle. IF I remember right it will choke out. Try grounding out the pressure diffential switch, when it is cold and running. Does this cause the same symptoms you are getting?

Hey guys, should the one side of the fuse #5 have power to it when the ignition is in the on position? (checking fuse panel). This powers the intank pump.
thanks!

What do you mean by: "Serviced throttle body and fuel dist./plate, etc."?

You also said you didn't have a fuel pressure gauge.....

List of suspects:
1) CPR (control pressure regulator) also know as warm up regulator. You'll need a pressure gauge to check the fuel pressure, but for this you also check the control pressure.
2) Cold start injector on all the time.
3) Maybe a bad electrical connection/ground that gets worse with heat (unlikely but you didn't mention fuses that I noticed)
4) Less like - your crankcase breathing is not flowing well or is not set up well. On K-jets (especially turbos) the fuel plate does funny things if the crankcase pressure is too high.
5) Make sure all the enrichment circuits are right also. The K jet has a temp sensor that goes rich when cold. Could be staying rich (wouldn't necessarily kill the car, but....)
--
http://www.fidalgo.net/~brook4/oilslubesfilters.html

Thanks for the input so far guys...I forgot to mention the 02 sensor is new, a Bosch unit, the wiring to ballast resistor is good, so are its connections. This is a K-Jet system.
Whatever is happening as the motor warms up is causing my problems. It is weird that after I can get it to run, and idle, etc. that when it dies, it won't even hit a lick! Fuel smell strong after this. I have changed several harnesses, intakes, etc. and never had a problem like this, but I will re-check my connections this am.
I also have a coil I will substitue.
thanks again all!

You know on Car Talk when they say "That was the wrong answer" ?
I thought I knew, but then you said you're sure you've got plenty of volume returning to the tank. My 1st guess was that the fuel line got twisted up at the filter when replacing it- exact same symptoms in one of my friend's cars YEARS ago. Sure enough he'd crimped the fuel line almost totally off by twisting it up with the fitting!
Anyway since that ain't it:
Try a new coil. At least rule that out as a cause.
After that I think you are going to have to figure a way to check the fuel pressure.
--
Rob Bareiss, New London, CT 86 244, 87 244, 88 744

Next time you are working on this "opportunity" car hook up two test items. Hook up a volt meter to the Oxygen sensor. This will tell you if the O2 sensor is sending a strange signal that may be either making the mixture too lean or too rich.

The other thing that I would try would be a timing light. The timing light will tell you if for some reason your timing is drifting.

You may want to have an assistant start the car so you can be ready to take reading and watch for anomalies.

I am thinking that it is a sensor that is giving the wrong information to the computer.

Good Luck and happy brickin'

Brian

86 240GL
86 740GLE

Pure guess, but what type of ignition cap do you have? White or Brown. If its white I would check the connection at the ingition box and make sure the ground wire is making a solid connection with the pin on the ignition box. Another area to check if you have this is the CIS system wiring. A switch of the wires on the micro switch will produce ugly results with the engine dying alot until it gets warm, which apparently yours never gets that far.

If the cap is brown then you have a Bosch system and I would check to make sure you not grounding out somewhere and killing the ignition.

Do you have the LH or K Jetronic?

Just some thoughts on my part.