MENUVolvo V40 Tuning
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We review V40 tuning and summarise the premier upgrades. Volvo V40's offer good returns when tuned and with a few sensible sports mods you can increase your driving fun.
The V40 is a good car tuning project to carry out. The key to V40 tuning is finding the right mods - a lot of money can be wasted if you do it wrong.
Handling/Suspension upgrades
Handling modifications are often a priority for the V40.
We found that most V40 factory suspension setups need tweaking, a few degrees of toe out (1-1.5 degrees) and slight negative camber will greatly enhance your cornering and handling.
We would go to a maximum drop of 22mm - 35 mm on most models. You risk rubbing on the arches if you go lower than this.
Turning our attention to the engine we need to get a bit more bhp out of the top end.
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 mods.
This list of the stages and motorsport parts are usually installed by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you get started.
Getting the correct grade of sports mods for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 motor sport mods just won't work well on the road difficult in stop start traffic.
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How to tune your car
- Improve the handling
Focus on Suspension improvements, such as coilovers and make sure the bushings are in good order and that the alignment is correct. Then focus on improving the brakes, with a big disk brake conversion kit and fast road brake pads.
- Remove restrictions
Focus on the intake and exhaust with filters being the common point of restriction in a tuned car. Intercoolers may also become restrictive on turbo engines so this may also need to be uprated.
- Burn more fuel & air
Increase the fuelling so it matches the air coming into the engine. The ratio is important so you need to improve the fuel pump and injectors, so the head mods, big valve conversions, fast road camshafts and forced induction upgrades extra supply of air is adequately met.
- Test and replace any weak parts
Weak areas are commonly the clutch, the turbocharger and pistons and crankshaft in a highly tuned engine. Makes sure these components will cope with your power aspirations.
- The Tune or Remap
A cars ECU controls the fuel, timing, spark and even the turbo in some cases, so to fully extract your gains you should remap the car last and this will fully release the power. Some cars are easy to map, and others require piggyback ECU's or aftermarket ECU's but this is the most vital step of your tuning project.
Modifying to Stage 1:
Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Panel air filter, Alloy wheels, Remap, Lighter flywheel.
Modifying to Stage 2:
Ported and polished head, Power/Sport clutch, fuel pump upgrades, high flow fuel injector, Fast road cam.
Modifying to Stage 3:
Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Engine balancing, Competition cam, Sports gearbox, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger).
You should keep as much low end torque as you can and aim for a long power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power hike.
The point of our guides is to give a brief overview of car tuning upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is the place to go for detailed advice and tips on your modified car project, the best sport upgrades and all aspects of modding cars.A fast road cam typically is one of the best NASP power modifications you can do with a single part fitted to your engine.
The intake and exhaust flow play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car difficult to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a performance chip to fully realise your gains.
You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to increase the fuelling.
If you find you experience flat spots and power surges after your sports kits you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Uprating the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.
Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned V40s uprated injectors.
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 extensively and are finding that the standard air intake has become limited.
Derestricting the air feed into the engine is a primary goal of tuning so get a better flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound great but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not really increase power and actually rob you of power.
Sports exhausts can usually air flow through the engine but do not go too big or you could will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches as a rule of thumb.
Getting the cylinder head gas flowed will further help more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a professional with a flow bench. In nearly all cases of V40 tuning your clutch will start to fail and this should be improved - read our overview on clutches for more information.
The best mods we recommend for your V40 are a remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intakeRemaps offer massive power gains on all turbo charged cars.
On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful. However a chipped ECU on a NASP engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods. The most significant power gains for NASP engines usually involve the addition of forced induction.
Turbos are often harder to add than a supercharger. With a turbo the power curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it difficult to map fuelling with.
Superchargers, however will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is simpler. Adding forced induction will generally require a lower compression ratio or water injection.
Alloy wheel upgrades.
Due to the fact that alloy wheels are less heavy they improve performance and they can help to cool the brake disks. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of soft compound tire. Large V40 alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your final drive ratio.
Because of this we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 16 inches, although we know some of our members have with bigger wheels with no problems.
For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss V40 options in more detail with our V40 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 improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below. We love to hear what our visitors have got up to and which mods work best for them on each model of car. Comments are used to improve the accuracy of these articles which are continually updated.
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