Volvo S80 Tuning

"Thank you for reading my Volvo S80 tuning guide."

The S80 is a good project car to do. Take your time and research S80 tuning to save yourself making the usual common slip ups we frequently hear about.

We review and look at S80 tuning and show the greatest modifications for your car. Volvo S80s provide a fun base for your project and with carefully picked modified enhancements you can noticeably increase your driving fun.

Our aim in engine tuning should be to increase peak power and torque at the top end.

Sadly with smaller engine sizes you are wasting your time spending money on modifications, so if this applies to you get yourself an engine swap then apply the following mods.

Engine tuning mods.

This list of the stages and tuning modifications are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you begin.

Getting the correct grade of motorsport mods for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 (competition) mods just don't work well on the road hard to control in slow traffic.

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

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

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

Peak power is all well and good but for a drivable and fun car you need a wide power band and perhaps extending the rev range.

The aim of our tips is to give a brief overview of modifying mods and point you in the right direction, our forum is best place to go if you need more detailed advice and tips on your car tuning project, the best uprated kits and all aspects of modding cars.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest power gains for your money as far as a solitary modifications goes on a NASP engine.

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

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

Most power losses, and erratic idling after upgrades are done can usually be traced to timing or fuel delivery issues.To get sufficient fuel you may need to uprate the injectors on your 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.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Please note that WE DO NOT FEEL YOU GET POWER GAINS FROM INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car a lot and are finding that the standard air intake has become limited.

Derestricting the air flow into the engine is the primary part of tuning so get a better flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean only if you find the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound fun but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not do much to increase power and usually rob you of power.

Do not go with the largest exhaust you can get this will slow up the exhaust flow rate - the best for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

Getting a professionally gas flowed head with larger valves can fully release the engines power. In nearly all cases of S80 tuning your clutch will start to fail and this should be improved - read our guide on clutches for more information. The best mods that we recommend for your S80 are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements.

Remaps offer big power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful. However a remapped ECU on a NASP engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods.

We've also come across some owners experimenting with twincharged applications and making some very high power hikes.

Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give large power gains. It is usually cheaper to bolt on a supercharger than it is to get a turbo working. With a turbo the boost curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it more challenging to map.

Superchargers however will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is simpler. Adding forced induction will usually require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are often a priority for the S80.

If you set the toe out to 0.9 to 1.5 degrees on the front, and add a little negative camber then cornering will greatly improve.

We would go to a maximum drop of 23mm - 38 mm on most models. You risk rubbing on the arches if you go lower than this.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are generally lighter than the steel ones. 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.We'd like to point out although they can look cool on the S80 big alloy wheels will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this to the change in your effective final drive ratio.

Due to this fact we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 18 inches, although we know some of our members have installed larger rims with no problems.

There is a more updated version of this Volvo S80 Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss S80 options in more detail with our S80 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.

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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.

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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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