Volvo 760 Tuning

"Showing that Square is Beautiful"

The 760 was used as a police car, and rightly so as it offered a lot of storage space, a turn of speed and very solid chassis. The turbo models are the ones to go for if you are after a tuning project and we were surprised how rapid such a big heavy car can be made to feel. At the top of your mod list we note that lots of Volvo 760 owners uprate the handling of their cars as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

Bear in mind that these are quite heavy cars so weight reduction can really pay dividends when it comes to performance tuning. Panels can be replaced with lighter parts and lighter interior parts can be fitted.

When it comes to handling upgrades drop the car by a maximum of 45mm and fit stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances but this obviously depends on your wheel size.

Turning our attention to the 760s engine we need to get a bit more power out of 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.

Volvo 760 Tuning modifications.

Doing this will help to keep the cars economy at lower speeds. A fast road cam will be one of the best power mod you can do mechanically to your engine. Don't forget to uprate the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty. You can get a more snappy acceleration by fitting a fuel pressure boost valve. To get sufficient fuel you may need to uprate the injectors on your engine. A fuel pump will only deliver a finite amount of fuel, so you may need to uprate this.

Volvo 760 Intake and Exhaust.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Maximum power gains come from a full induction kit. On small engines you will actually lose low down power so we suggest you use a panel air filter instead. Sports exhausts will certainly help air flow through the engine but do not go too large. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some porting and polishing. When you start tuning your 760 you will find that the standard clutch starts to complain so get an uprated clutch. Turbo engines are just begging to be custom remapped.You will see big power gains on most turbo engined cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective modifications.Adding forced induction will see big power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. It is easier 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 hard to map. Superchargers however will give a boost which is proporttional 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.

Volvo 760 Wheel modifications.

Because alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they help to cool the brake disks. It is worth noting that although they can look cool on the 760 Big alloy wheels will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the higher the top speed will be due to the change in your effective final drive ratio the downside is the slower acceleration. Aim to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the same as supplied from the factory. In all cases we do not recommend going above 16 inches.

Please join us in our forum to discuss the 760 options in more detail with our 760 owners. It would also be worth reading our Volvo tuning articles to get a full grasp of the pros and cons of each type of modification.

This article was written by Waynne Smith on TorqueCars, and I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Volvo. You can leave a response below or join TorqueCars forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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