Volvo S90 Tuning

"Thank you for reading this Volvo S90 tuning guide."

The S90 is a good project car to carry out. Take your time and research S90 tuning to spare yourself making the usual expensive mistakes we hear about.

Top end power should be your overall aim on the S90 with a nice fat 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.

Engine Tuning.

These are the modified upgrades are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get going.

Getting the correct grade of motorsport parts for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 competition upgrades just won't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

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

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

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

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

The aim of our articles is to give a little insight into the world of customising upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your customized car project, the best modified mods and all aspects of modding cars.One of the most cost effective mechanical performance mods you can do on your NASP engine is to fit a fast road camshaft .

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 hard to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a remap to fully release the power gain.

Don't forget to increase the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty.

If you find you get flat spots and power surges after your modifications you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. To get sufficient fuel you may need to uprate the injectors on your engine.

Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned S90s uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Contrary to popular belief there is generally very little power gain to be had by fitting an induction kit, they only work well and are recommended after you increase the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

Maximum power gains come from a full induction kit with a cold air feed on heavily tuned engines, this can be sited within an air box but a panel filter should suffice for most applications. TorqueCars suggest you use a panel air filter as these are easy to clean and maintain and generally perform better than paper ones.

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

Getting the cylinder head polished and ported will help get more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a professional with a flow bench. In nearly all cases of S90 tuning your clutch will start to suffer and this should be improved - read our article on clutches for more information. The best mods in our experience for your S90 are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaust.

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

We've also seen some tuners experimenting with twincharged applications and making some seriously high power hikes.

The most significant 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 boost curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it more challenging to map.

Superchargers however will give a boost which is directly proportional to engine speed so is easier to map. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the compression ratio of the engine .

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are high on most peoples lists for the S90.

We found that most S90 factory suspension setups need tweaking, a few degrees of toe out -1-1.7, and a small amount of negative camber will greatly benefit your cornering and handling.

We suggest that you fit modified suspension and lower the car by 25mm - 35 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with uprated suspension.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

The benefits of alloy wheels include lowering your unsprung weight and more efficient brake cooling via the extra air flow they allow. Pay attention to your choice of tyres (tyres) for your car, a good directional tread pattern tyre can really enhance your cars handling. We should point out that although they can look cool on the S90 large 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.

Although some people have with bigger wheels without problems we would stick to a 18 inch rim size as the maximum.

There is a more updated version of this Volvo S90 Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss S90 options in more detail with our S90 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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