Volvo S70 Tuning

"Tuning guide to the most effective Volvo S70 modifications."

The S70 is a good car tuning project to have. With the right mods your S70 can be transformed into a stunning project.

We look at S70 tuning and highlight the optimum modifications for your car. Volvo S70s offer good returns when tuned and with the ultimate performance mods you can greatly maximise your driving fun.

Don't waste money, do your homework and follow our unbiased guides to each performance upgrade to avoid disappointment.

Top end power should be your overall aim with a nice fat wide peak torque band.

The best power gains come from larger engine sizes. The more you start with the bigger the return on investment so engine swaps are good value mods for small engined cars.

Power mods.

These are the modified parts are usually installed by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get started.

Getting the right uprated modifications for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 motor sport mods just won't work well on the road difficult in stop start traffic.

Stage 1 modifications: Remap, Alloy wheels, Lighter flywheel, Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Panel air filter.

Stage 2 modifications: fuel pump upgrades, Power/Sport clutch, Ported and polished head, high flow fuel injector, Fast road cam.

Stage 3 modifications: Sports gearbox, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Engine balancing, Competition cam, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger).

Peak power is nice in motorsport but for a daily driven car you need a wide power band and perhaps extending the rev range.

In this article we shall give a brief overview to the best performance parts for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance part.One of the most cost effective mechanical performance modifications you can do to your NASP engine is to fit a fast road camshaft .

The exhaust and intake flow play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car impossible to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a reflashed ECU to fully realise your gains.

When pushing up the power you will need to ramp up to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

Most power losses, flat spots and erratic idling after uprated kits are done can usually be traced to fuel delivery or timing issues.Higher capacity injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.

If have increased your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Contrary to popular belief there is usually a small power gain obtained by fitting an induction kit, they only work well and are recommended after you boost the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

For most S70 engines TorqueCars would suggest you just go with a washable panel air filter. On heavily tuned engines and turbo vehicles an induction kit will help release the power providing you address the problem of supplying cold air.

Sports exhausts can help increase the flow of gases through the engine. But if the exhaust pipe is too large, ie: it's over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the exhaust flow rate and end up sapping power and torque.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional flowed (porting and polishing). These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. A good heavy duty fast road uprated clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or ask a standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods we would do for your S70 are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements.

NASP engines do not achieve big power gains if you remap them, unless you have done extensive modifications. With turbocharged engines this is another story. A remapped turbo will give large power gains and take full advantage of the strength of the block. Adding forced induction will see significant power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Turbos are usually harder to add than a supercharger. It is difficult to map fuelling with a turbo as the boost comes on exponentially with revs.

It is simpler to map a supercharger because the boost is proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the engines compression ratio .

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are the thing most do first for the S70.

Good suspension tweaks that often benefit handling for the S70 include a couple of degrees negative camber and 1-1.5 degrees of toe out on the front wheels.

Drop the car by as much as 22mm - 36 mm and fit motorsport grade stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

As alloy wheels are less heavy they improve performance and they help to cool the brake disks. Don't forget that your choice of rubber greatly affects your cars grip and handling. It is not worth compromising performance with cheap tyres when you can buy directional tread pattern performance tyres.The drawback to large alloy wheels on your S70 is that you alter your effective final drive ratio and this will have a negative effect on performance and acceleration.

With this in mind try to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel your OEM settings. In all cases avoid going larger than 18 inches.

There is a more updated version of this Volvo S70 Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss S70 options in more detail with our S70 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Volvo tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

Please help us to improve this article, we need your feedback in the comments box below which is there for you to pass on any tips, pointers or facts we might not have covered..

We really like hearing from our readers, and hearing about which upgrades were the most effective for them, it helps us improve our recommendations and articles to reflect current trends in modifications and ensures that our EZ engine guides and tips are kept up to date and we remind our visitors of our non profit non commercial approach to running this site.

All comments received are used to improve the accuracy of our site and these articles which are continually amended, tweaked and updated.

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This article is flagged for an update, so please pass on specific tips below that I can include. All articles, and content was written by me, Waynne Smith TorqueCars founder. Some outlines are just too general so I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Volvo. You can leave a response below or join our forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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