Volvo V60 Tuning

"Thank you for reading our Volvo V60 tuning article."

The V60 is a good car tuning project to have. We see car enthusiasts wasting money on their V60 doing the wrong mods and then having to start over. Follow our hints to avoid ruining your car

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

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.

Engine Tuning.

This list of the stages and sports parts are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to go before you start.

2010 -2018 model range engine options.

Petrol:(110kW–257kW)

• 1.6–2.0L I4
• 2.0–2.5L I5
• 3.0L I6

Diesel:(85kW–158kW)

• 1.6–2.0L I4
• 2.0–2.4L I5

Diesel-Hybrid: (171kW–213kW)

• 2.4L I5

In the more recent 2018 model range the engine options were simplified a little with only a 2.0 liter being offered but in various states of tune.

Petrol:

• 2.0L I4 140kW-228kW

Diesel:

• 2.0L 110kW-140kW

Hybrid:

• 2.0L I4 186kW–223kW

Getting the right modified parts for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 competition upgrades just don't work well on the road difficult in stop start traffic.

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Stages of Tune

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

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

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

You really need to keep as much low end torque as possible and aim to get a wide power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power spike.

The whole point of our hints is to give a little insight into the world of car tuning modifications and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your modified car project, the best sport parts and all aspects of modding cars.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest bhp gains for your money as far as a single sports mods goes on a NASP engine.

The exhaust & intake 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 performance chip for the best performance gains.

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

Using high octane fuel is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your Volvo project after fitting other motorsport kits. Upgraded 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. Induction kits will only help to boost power if the air intake is restricted! Adding an induction kit to most standard engines will see NONE OF A LOW END POWER GAIN AT ALL. If you have heavily modified your engine and it's need for air INCREASES DRAMATICALLY then an induction kit is the answer and will help remove this 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 V60 engines you should settle for a sports panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

Sports exhausts generally help improve air flow through the engine but do not go too wide or you could will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches as a rule of thumb.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional head porting and polishing. These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. When you tune up your V60 you will usally see that the standard clutch starts to slip so get an uprated clutch. The best mods in our experience for your V60 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 phenomenal power gains and take full advantage of the strength of the block.

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

Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give large power gains. It is usually simpler to add a supercharger than it is to bolt on a turbo. With a turbo the power curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it harder to map.

It is more straightforward to map a supercharger because the boost is correlating to engine speed on a linear curve. Adding forced induction will nearly always require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are high on most peoples lists for the V60.

Adding some negative camber to the front and a few degrees of toe out, will radically improve your V60 in handling and cornering.

We would go to a maximum drop of 22mm - 38 mm on most models. You risk handling compromises if you go lower than this.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Due to the fact that alloys are lighter they improve performance and they will help to cool the brake disks. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of directional tread pattern tire. The drawback to large alloys on your V60 is that you alter your effective final drive ratio so this will have a negative effect on acceleration and performance.

Although some people have installed larger rims we would stick to a 16 inch rim size as the maximum.

There is a more updated version of this Volvo V60 Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss V60 options in more detail with our V60 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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