Volvo XC40 Tuning

"Tuning guide to the best Volvo XC40 modifications."

The XC40 is a good tuning project to execute. Sit down first and research XC40 tuning to avoid making the usual common errors we often get told about.

We review XC40 tuning and highlight the ultimate upgrades. Volvo XC40s are fantastic to work on and with carefully chosen motorsport enhancements you can dramatically increase your driving fun.

Our aim in engine tuning should be to increase peak power 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 fitted by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you start.

Getting the right sports mods for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motor sport parts just don't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

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

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

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

You need to keep as much low end power as possible and aim to get a wide power band rather than a narrow top end power hike.

In this article we shall give your a good starting base to the best upgrades 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.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest torque gains for your money as far as a stand alone motorsport upgrades goes on a NASP engine.

It maximises the intake and exhaust durations and increases the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a performance chip. TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a motor sport cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

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

Frequently power losses, flat spots and erratic idling after modified modifications are done can usually be traced to fuel delivery or timing issues.Improving the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

A fuel pump will only deliver a finite amount of fuel, so you may need to uprate this if your injectors are demanding more fuel.

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 SEE IMPROVEMENTS WITH INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car massively and are finding that the standard air intake has become a restriction.

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 performance 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.

Do not go with the biggest exhaust you can find 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 the head ported and polished will assist in flowing more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a professional with a flow bench. Your clutch can slip as you increase the power if it starts to break and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of up to 45%. Fit a power clutch to avoid power losses through the transmission. The best mods we recommend for your XC40 are fast road camshaft, remap, induction and exhaust, suspension.

Turbo engines are just begging to be remapped. You will see massive power gains on most modern turbo charged cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective and massive modifications for your money.Adding forced induction will see phenomenal power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Superchargers are usually easier to add than turbos. With a turbo the power curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it more challenging to map.

Superchargers will give a boost which is correlating 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

Many XC40 owners uprate the handling of their cars with uprated suspension parts as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

Adding a small amount of negative camber on the fronts and a degree or two of toe out, will dramatically benefit your XC40 in handling and cornering.

We suggest that you fit performance suspension and lower the car by 29mm - 38 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with performance suspension.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brake cooling and are usually lighter than the steel ones. We can't go into too much detail here about tyres but they are how the car puts the power down on the road so are a critical choice. directional tread pattern tyres work well on XC40, and make a big difference over budget tyres. Large XC40 alloy wheels can decrease performance. If you get big alloy wheels you will be changing your final drive ratio.

With this in mind 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 XC40 Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss XC40 options in more detail with our XC40 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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