Volvo C70 Tuning

"Thank you for reading my Volvo C70 tuning guide."

The C70 is a good tuning project to try. If you do your research then you can create an awesome C70 but don't be fooled there are lots of sports upgrades out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.

We review C70 tuning and outline the optimum modifications for your car. Volvo C70s are fantastic to work on and with the best mods you can assuredly improve your driving experience.

Our aim in C70 engine tuning should be to increase peak power and Torque at the top end.

Smaller engines do not provide much of a return in terms of power so start with a bigger engine. Engine swaps are a good option if you have a small engine size.

Power mods.

This list of the stages and tuning mods are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you get going.

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

• 2.5 20V B5254S125 kW; 168 hp162 lbft @3300
• 2.4 20V B5244S125 kW; 168 hp162 lbft @3300
• 2.0T B5204T2  132 kW; 178 hp  177 lbft @1800
• 2.0T B5204T4 132 kW; 178 hp  177 lbft @1800
• 2.5T B5254T 142 kW; 190 hp  199 lbft @1800
• 2.4T B5244T  142 kW; 190 hp 199 lbft @1800
• 2.4T B5244T7 147 kW; 197 hp  210 lbft @1800
• T5 2.0 B5204T3  169 kW; 227 hp 229 lbft @2700
• T5 2.3 B5234T3 PS 177 kW; 237 hp 243 lbft @2700
• T5 2.3 B5234T9 184 kW; 247 hp  243 lbft @2700

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

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

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

Your targets when tuning should be a flat and wide torque output. You want to avoid sending all the torque to be at the top end of the rev range unless you are creating a competition car.

The whole point of our articles is to give a starting base of tuning mods and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your tuning project, the best performance modifications and all aspects of modding cars.One of the best mechanical sports mods you can do to your NASP engine is to fit a fast road cam .

It maximises the intake and exhaust durations and pushes up the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a reflashed ECU. TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a motor sports profile cam as this upsets the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to increase the fuelling.

Frequently power losses, and erratic idling after modified parts are done can usually be traced to timing or fuel delivery issues.Bigger injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.

If you are increasing 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. Please note that WE DO NOT FIND IMPROVEMENTS WITH INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car a lot and are finding that the standard air intake has become a restriction.

Induction kits can work well on turbo engines and larger engines (if supplied with a suitable cold air feed or air box), generally though we'd just recommend for C70 engines you should settle for a high performance panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

Sports exhausts can help equal out the flow of gases through the engine. But if your exhaust pipe is too big, ie: it's over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose much of the flow rate and end up lacking power and torque.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional polishing and ported. These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. When you tune up your C70 you will usally see that the standard clutch starts to suffer so get an uprated clutch. The best mods that we recommend for your C70 are a remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.

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 massive power gains and fully release the potential power of the engine.

We've also come across some owners toying with twincharging applications and making some very high power figures.

The most impressive power gains for NASP engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. Turbos are usually harder to add than a supercharger. With a turbo the power 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 nearly always require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many C70 owners uprate the handling of their cars with tuning suspension modifications as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

Fully adjustable suspension allows you to fine tune the handling of you C70 greatly enhancing your drive.

We would go to a maximum drop of 23mm - 36 mm on most models. You risk compromising your handling if you go lower than this.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Due to the fact that alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they help to cool the brake disks. If you are serious about performance then you will need to carefully choose your tyres - ideally with a track legal slick tyre. We'd like to point out although they can look cool on the C70 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 fitted larger wheels with no problems.

There is a more updated version of this Volvo C70 Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss C70 options in more detail with our C70 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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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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